First thing to install on any devise : Prey.
http://preyproject.com
It's great to track your hardware, it can event take screenshot of the screen and pictures with the camera.
Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
31–40 of 61 posts
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Taking up a collection is a good idea, gets everyone on their toes about watching each other's backs, and puts the responsibility on the entire community. If each participant threw in a buck or two, that's a new MacBook Pro.
My personal feeling is that a collection is more appropriate with an emergent problem "has no ride home and is stranded". Once your laptop is stolen it's more of an issue of all your stuff being stolen as well (that is on the laptop) as opposed to just a piece of hardware. How are you supposed to do your thing if your laptop which is setup just for you has been stolen and you are at a hackathon? (As a side note when…
Sure, there's a lot more pain than just the cost of replacing the laptop itself.
That said, the laptop cost is a big expense for many people (especially students), so it's helpful. Also it's a nice gesture. (“Look, the community cares about you.”)
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#33"Someone left a laptop unattended, and it was stolen." Never been to one of these so could you elaborate as to how a laptop was left (and for how long) so that it was stolen? (I'm curious about the details). As an example is this like being at an airport terminal with your laptop, turning around for a second, and turning back to see your laptop missing? Or more like leaving the laptop and going to the bathroom? Or le…
On hackathons it's quite common. You leave a laptop on your workplace, go for lunch, or for a walk, or whatever. Usually there are only other hackers there, few bystanders, so the environment is quite secure. That's why it's so sad when situations like those happen - it undermines the trust within the community. On Airport, or at the coffee place I wouldn't expect my laptop to be there if I left for an hour. On a hac…
If your observation is typical (and I will assume that it is) then if it's so common for people to leave something like that un attended then I would think there is an obligation on the part of the organizers to provide some type of security for the laptops because from what you are saying there is a defacto assumption of security by the way people seem to behave.
That could be as simple as something that would allow someone to easily lock the device to the desk and include providing the lock cable (depending on the cost).
Because from what you are saying it is not practical for a participant (and almost expected) that the laptop will be left unattended.
Edit: Defacto assumption of security or safety by virtue of the type of attendees and the venue.
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#34Two choices IMO, 1) if you can afford it, replace the laptop. 2) If you can't afford it, then take up a collection from the attendees. As for adverse incentives, you should always presume that people are honest and good. However, to cover yourself (and it is a good idea anyways), make them fill out a police report. Keep a copy on file for yourself. This would give any would be profiteer pause, as there are real conse…
I like this approach from beginning to end. It spreads the financial hit amongst the group, spreads awareness and addresses the possibility of adverse effects of folks trying to take advantage of the effort and good will.
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
My personal feeling is that a collection is more appropriate with an emergent problem "has no ride home and is stranded". Once your laptop is stolen it's more of an issue of all your stuff being stolen as well (that is on the laptop) as opposed to just a piece of hardware. How are you supposed to do your thing if your laptop which is setup just for you has been stolen and you are at a hackathon? (As a side note when…
Sure, there's a lot more pain than just the cost of replacing the laptop itself. That said, the laptop cost is a big expense for many people (especially students), so it's helpful. Also it's a nice gesture. (“Look, the community cares about you.”)
I think this is close to a "teach a man to fish" situation. If the community really cares shouldn't they be proactive in some way to work to prevent this from happening instead of reacting? And it seems that (from what others have said) from the behavior of participants (someone who replied to a comment I made) that this could easily happen many more times as the crowd increases in size.
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#36Was it a Mac? I'm sure MacBooks have the ability to be tracked if the owner allowed it. I have a MacBook pro and the guest account allows a thief to login and I can track them through the guest account.
I didn't realize that Find My Mac works with the guest user under FileVault 2 (full disk encryption built into OS X — the guest user boots into a unencrypted partition that only runs Safari).
Source: Glenn Fleishman http://www.macworld.com/article/1163387/can_filevault_2_and_...
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#37Unfortunately, some of the side-effects of experience are distrust and paranoia. These are very effective experiences in software development.
If this theft happened to an experienced pro, then their data is encrypted and backed up, so all they've lost is hardware, and that's probably covered by insurance.
If the theft happened to a student, then maybe they're not the most experienced engineer. They might not have backups, and their data might not have been encrypted. They might not be ensured. The hardware cost is still - comparatively - cheap. But they might have to rewrite their thesis from scratch. Or risk having their personal data exposed to the public.
But at this point, the only help that financial aid can give, is restoration of the physical loss - i.e. a new laptop. In most cases, that wouldn't compare to the loss. But it might help, a little.
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, Storage isn't that much of an issue these days and six web cams around the place feeding into portable USB drives is pretty simple to set up with a RasPi these days. Then you have the chance of adding a face to the police report as well.
WTF? There are systems for doing that task specifically, why would you want to build one from scratch?
Well assuming the Hackathon is on a razor thin budget (which I grant you it may not be) might be able to support adding some equipment which can be tasked to other things when not hackathoning and can be installed/removed in a variety of venues. The WebCam/Pi/Disk system is about $100 (less if you use the Pi's camera module).
You absolutely could go out and buy a video surveillance system of course.
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#39I've never been to a PennApps Hackathon, but from what you describe (1000+ people), I'd imagine that it's pretty much impossible for event organizers to prevent this. I think the key here is the 'left unattended' part of the scenario. The solution would be to tell the teams not to leave the equipment unattended. It's unfortunate, but a reality of life (even at a Hackathon with a great community); There are bad people…
> The solution would be to tell the teams not to leave the equipment unattended Please no. Don't contribute to this cover-your-ass culture of information clutter by disclaiming the obvious with braindead notices that nobody is expected to read. It's common sense to maintain responsibility for your stuff to the extent you'd like to avoid having it mucked with through malice or ignorance.
Unfortunately, not everyone has common sense. Stating the obvious seems like a simple solution. Sorry for the Clutter.
Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?
#40First thing to install on any devise : Prey. http://preyproject.com It's great to track your hardware, it can event take screenshot of the screen and pictures with the camera.
any professional cannot allow/afford/stomach the idea of even having their device boot if stolen.
something like this written as a hardware/bios/whatever malware is more interesting