VIRGINIA TRACKING STOLEN COMPUTERS WTKR.COM YOUR NEWSCHANNEL 3 - LoJack For Laptops:
Rick Holmes Reporting
LoJack For Laptops

Jan 10, 2007 06:45 AM

Virginia Beach Police credit a tracking device with leading them to a stolen laptop.

Last Summer, ten Toshiba laptop computers were stolen from a Richmond Salvation Army. Volunteers thought they were gone for good.

Imagine the surprise when one of them turned up four months later, in Virginia Beach! Police found the computer in an apartment off Pleasure House Road.

We're telling you about this because the computer was equipped with a new tracking device.

The product is called Computrace, and it's been developed by Absolute Software, the same company that made LoJack.

This can track your computer and frustrate crooks at the same time. We asked a couple of self- professed computer gurus to take a look at the product and tell us if it's worth the money.

According to the company web site, a laptop computer is stolen every 53 seconds. Most of the time, they're gone for good. Software engineers have finally come up "Computrace", a product that can help "lock in" your laptop's location while it's on the lam.

"It's something that's needed because laptops disappear," said Charlie Unger of Virginia Beach, part-owner of BC Computers in Virginia Beach.

Here's how it works. Computrace flags the computer as stolen at it's monitoring center when a computer is reported missing. When the stolen computer connects to the Internet, it calls every fifteen minutes to report it's location.

That's what happened when ten Toshiba laptops were stolen from the Salvation Army in Richmond. Absolute Software captured the stolen computer's ip address, including the date and the time of connection. Police traced one of the stolen laptops to an apartment off Pleasure House Road in Virginia Beach.

"$2000 computer laptop. If it gets stolen, you're not going to see it again. But if you have this, you have a pretty good shot," said, Mike Slack of BC Computers.

Many new laptops have tracking software already installed, but you have to pay to activate it. Computrace will cost you 50 dollars a year. Slack says if you use yourcomputer on the go, the money is worth it.

"Several thousand dollars worth of equipment and papers, documents can be saved. It's well worth the money," said Slack.

The protection isn't foolproof. It can be turned off, but you have to know what you're doing. And you need to renew your subscription.

If you want to take a look at Computrace LoJack for yourself, click on our newslinks page.