Adeona: Open Source Asset Tracking & Retrieval

Chances are fairly decent that there are a good number of TAB readers who have been impacted by the loss of either their laptop or cell phone (or iPhone) due to theft. Estimates are that 12,000 laptops are lost or stolen each week at airports and that only 30 percent of owners are successful in retrieving the asset. Over half of them (estimated) contain confidential or personal information, making the losses even more costly.

The use of Internet tracking systems – which send (to a hosted service) periodic updates of asset location via a small agent loaded on the asset – can help increase the likelihood of asset recovery. Most of these services, such as Computrace LoJack for Laptops, are commercial (i.e. require a software purchase and a monthly or yearly fee), and some even work directly with law enforcement in the event your system is lost or stolen. If you are willing to go the more open source route, or just cannot afford the commercial options, Adeona may just be what you’ve been looking for.

How Does It Work?

Written by the folks over at the University of Washington, this small agent saves location updates to the open source distributed storage service OpenDHT in such a way that only you, the owner, is able to retrieve and – for systems with a camera – can even capture an image of the current user with each location update via the freeware isightcapture utility (which is included with the package).

When you first install the agent, you create a retrieval file that is encrypted via a passphrase. Keep this file handy – i.e. with you! – as you’ll need it to retrieve the location information! It is a good idea to remove it from your main system once created and backed up since it is a necessary component of the retrieval process and can be of use to the person who improperly obtained your resource.

Adeona works without intervention of any kind, but the burning question should be: how do I recover or locate my system? You can use any OS X, Windows or Linux system to grab any amount of location history you wish, but you will need that retrieval file to do so.

But, Does It Work?

The efficacy of most Internet-based asset tracking/retrieval programs is tied to the level and quality of access to the Internet of the device, the intelligence of the individual who improperly obtained the device and the skill of the law enforcement agency performing the investigation. Adeona requires access to the Internet to store location data and, while it uses port 80 (which should be open almost everywhere), it also uses port 5852 for OpenDHT access. Many corporate and personal firewalls may block this port.

A smart thief (not many are smart, though, otherwise they probably would not be thieves) may also know how to disable tracking software and would be intelligent enough to ensure they are not connected to the Internet while they are checking out your system.

Finally, the type of detail provided in the route tracking information may be difficult for your local law enforcement office to handle. However, under no circumstances should you undertake the investigation into your own hands. If an individual was willing to break the law to obtain your machine, you cannot assume they will be less likely to do you physical harm.

Adeona is a good, free choice in the asset tracking space, but I’d like to get feedback from TAB readers (who install and try to use it) on just how easy it was to work with and collect any suggestions as to how you think it could be improved. Also, if you have any tracking success stories, feel free to drop those in the comments as well.

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