GADGET GIZMO SECURITY SPECIAL...................... How to Make Sure That Your Device Stays Your Own

How to Make Sure That Your Device Stays Your Own  Losing a gadget can be heartbreaking & there’s the added worry of data theft. How to prepare your device, to increase chances of recovery if it gets lost or stolen PROTECT YOUR NOTEBOOK WINDOWS For Windows, get LAlarm (www.lalarm.com), which is free for personal use. If Windows is locked, LAlarm can be set to raise an alarm when someone disconnects the power cord or removes a USB flash drive. If you prefer, another service called LocateMyLaptop (http://locatemylaptop.com) — also free for personal use — lets you locate your notebook using Google Maps. For added security, we also recommend you install a free solution called Prey on your device (see below for details). MAC Apple offers its own anti-theft solution for its notebooks called Find my Mac. This is automatically enabled when you sign-in to your iCloud account. You can track your laptop remotely, wipe data or have it sound an alarm to find it. Also check out Plug Spy ( 197) from www.celmaro.com/plugspy. It activates automatically as soon you as you lock your screen. If someone disconnects your power adapter, it immediately sounds a high volume alert and also sends a notification alert to your phone. PROTECT YOUR SMARTPHONE Android Android has its own tracking feature that can be accessed via http://google.com/android/devicemanager. It tracks any Android device which is associated with your Google ID. You can view its location on a map, lock and erase data on the device or even make it ring. You can also consider a free Antivirus app from AVG, Avast, Kaspersky, or Lookout. They offer remote tracking of your device with options to lock the phone as well as remotely wipe all the data. iOS Apple provides its own free anti theft app — Find my iPhone — that works on all iOS devices. Setting it up is easy and it lets you manage all the Apple devices you own through a single Apple account. You can locate your device by logging in to your iCloud account from any browser and then send messages to it, lock it or wipe all data remotely. If you want to try out other apps that provide similar anti-theft functionality, check out apps like Secureit or iLostfinder. BlackBerry BlackBerry’s Anti-theft solution is called BlackBerry Protect. It has to be set up on a BlackBerry device using a BlackBerry account. Once active, it automatically backs up your contacts, calendar entries and bookmarks. Similar to other smartphones you can track your device’s location by logging into the Protect website. Then, you can send messages, lock the device or erase all data on it. Using Protect, you can manage up to 7 devices from a single account. Windows Phone The anti-theft feature on Windows Phone is called Find My Phone. You just need to head to http://windowsphone.com and sing-in using the same Windows Live ID that you use on the smartphone. The browser will then display your phone’s location on a map and let you directly print a hard copy of the location if a printer is connected. From the browser, you can make your Windows Phone ring loudly, lock it with a password or just erase everything on the device. PREY: A FREE CROSS-PLATFORM TRACKING SOLUTION There’s no easier way to protect your investment than Prey. It’s a device tracking software that works anywhere in the world. There are a few simple reasons why Prey is our go-to choice for protecting devices against theft. It’s free, effective and offers features like location and webcam photo capture (you can upgrade to a pro account if you need to, even after your device is stolen). It installs quickly, doesn’t leave a trace and won’t slow down your machine. It wakes up only when you log in to your account and mark your device as missing. Up to 3 devices (with 10 reports each) can be requested in a free account. Multiple platforms are supported, including Windows, MAC, Linux, Ubuntu, Android and iOS. IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOTE that you do need to have Prey setup and activated on your device ‘before’ your device is lost/stolen. Not much can be done post the theft. So head to www. preyproject.com immediately (or download the app for your Android/iOS device now). Prey will usually work in conjunction with any other built in tracking software that the device or OS manufacturer supplies. Understand Intel’s Anti-Theft Technology For a laptop to classify as an Ultrabook, it has to fulfil certain requirements from Intel. So if you buy an Ultrabook, you can be sure that Intel’s anti-theft technology is built in. The technology is also compatible with some older Intel-powered laptops — to check if your laptop supports it, you can run Intel’s Anti Theft Discovery App from their website. How it works and more details Intel Anti Theft is an optional (paid) extra but only costs a nominal 199 for two years of service. Once you activate the service on a new laptop, you can set it to auto lock after a certain period of time or you could remotely lock (and encrypt) your data. Since the device is locked down in BIOS level, it is completely unusable, even if the thief swaps out the hard drive. In case the hard drive is removed and transferred to another machine, its contents will be unreadable. How to Track Your Stolen Camera Each photograph that a camera captures is embedded with EXIF data – you can view this data using many popular image editing programs. The data contains make and model of camera, date taken, serial number, photograph details and GPS location (if available and enabled). Camera Tracking Services www.cameratrace.com and www.stolencamerafinder.com work on the premise that a thief will inevitably upload photographs taken from it. They’re not free but you can sign up for a small amount — which could be well worth it if you can recover your camera. Your Camera’s Serial Number Even if you don’t have the serial number of your camera handy, just upload a photograph taken with it and the service pulls the data it needs. The downside is that not every camera includes serial number info in EXIF data, so check that your camera is among the ‘supported models’ list. Also note that serial numbers stay unique only within the same camera model. Physical Theft Protection Security Locks for Laptops Almost all laptops have a Kensington security port. This port can be used in conjunction with a compatible security cable to physically secure your laptop to an immovable object. One end locks into the laptop while the other can be looped around something heavy. You can get a combination or key lock. They are available starting as low as 300 from various brands including Kensington, Targus and iBall. Secure Cases for Phone/tablets Phones and tablets are quite easy to steal. Unlike laptops, these handheld devices do not have a locking port, so a regular locking cable won’t work. However, you do get cases for iPhones and iPads that lets you lock them to a desk. Some of the popular options include Kensington and Rokform. For other devices, you can get the Mac Locks Universal Lock for 5,000. This will work with many smartphones or tablets. Hitesh Raj Bhagat & Karan Bajaj ET131120