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Why you don't steal from a hacker.

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Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#141

Post by Legion »

jff wrote: post #109
Legion wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that many of the people who say the word "hacker" means all these positive and inclusive things are often the same people who lambast someone for actually using the word that way to refer to themselves. Make up your minds. Is it the inclusive, "explorers of technology" meaning where it's more about curiosity and open-mindedness than skill level, or is it your little l337 boys club badge of honor?

It's highly desirable to be called a genius, but in general people calling themselves geniuses are looked down upon. I think among people who do use the word "hacker" to mean someone skilled with computers, it's considered poor form to call yourself a hacker but high praise to be named a hacker. Eric Raymond wrote long screeds about this way back in the 90s when people still gave a damn about him. Personally, I call…

But is "hacker" really analogous to "genius"? I mean, we have a bunch of annual hacker conferences. If "hacker" isn't something you can call yourself, who is going to all of these things?

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#142

Post by kragen »

Wait, all he had to do was report the guy's name, address, and photo to the police, and they got the computer back for him? It sounds like the London Metro Police are a lot better than the ones in, say, San Francisco.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#143

Post by biot »

_pius wrote: post #101

What I worry about with many of these recovery stories is that you're probably not humiliating the criminal, just some unlucky person who bought the computer on Craigslist.

I was once looking to buy a Mac off of Craigslist. So I sent the guy an email to ask about it. Oh, you lost the keyboard and mouse? You don't have the original OS install disc? No receipt? The black power cord in the pictures looks like one of those PC specials? Yeah, what are the odds that you misplaced absolutely everything regarding the system except for the main unit itself? Stolen.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#144

Post by LogicX »

pclark wrote: post #9

This is why I have file vault + password screensaver on my MacBook Pro + insurance. I'd sooner have to wait a few days to get a new laptop than rely on: a) the user not instantly formatting the computer, b) prey finding my laptop, c) the police doing something about it.

... why not do exactly that; but ALSO have a guest account, and prey installed. (Also re: not instantly formatting; put firmware and/or hard drive passwords on to slow them down -- most thieves are not computer experts)

I think you under-estimate the speed and hassle of dealing with insurance.

Also most insurance has a deductible. You're still out typically hundreds of dollars.

I had a macbook pro of one of our employees stolen. We used prey to get it back, with assistance from the police. Yes we have corporate insurance, yes we backup our data; but we were still very pleased to receive our stolen property back.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#145

Post by LogicX »

benatkin wrote: post #75

I care more about the safety of my data than the safety of my computer, so I have FileVault full-drive encryption turned on. I don't think a thief could log into my computer without wiping the drive, which would wipe Prey if I had it installed. So I'm not going to bother installing it.

Yes, the new filevault does make things tricky in this sense... however its just a matter of time til someone improves prey project to install to the new OSX Lion un-encrypted install (the one your system boots to, and prompts you to enter your credentials, before booting into the encrypted drive).

There's apparently a safari browser-only mode which can be activated from the login screen there.

This would create the ideal scenario for the stolen laptop: Thief without the knowledge or ability to reformat (particularly if you've slowed them down further with a firmware password) can only use the safari-browsing guest mode; can't get to your full encrypted drive, and Prey is recording and sending off everything they're doing.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#146

Post by LogicX »

icebraining wrote: post #35
blhack wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So why did he rely on luck instead of SSHing to the laptop and unlocking the machine? I don't know of a single person who directly connects their laptop to the internet. This would have been sitting behind a NAT device which, unless port 22 was explicitly forwarded to the IP address that his laptop happened to get via DHCP, would have stopped him from SSHing in :)

That's why I have a two line shell script that creates an SSH tunnel to my server if I put a file called 'reversessh' on my webserver. I mean, basically doing what Prey does, but without relying on a third-party service and having much more control over the machine.

See also AutoSSH: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Autossh

"Autossh is a program to start a copy of SSH and monitor it, restarting it as necessary should it die or stop passing traffic."

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#148

Post by ericd »

zbisch wrote: post #113
mcantor wrote: post #97

It's amazing how when big media releases a story about "hackers ruining America", people come out of the woodwork saying "actually, the term for someone who practices forced electronic entry is 'cracker', and 'hacker' just means someone who writes code", but when someone uses it that way, the HN post fills up with comments about how the term 'hacker' has been diluted. PICK ONE, GUYS.

The reason that people are annoyed is because the title of the article is misleading. Yes, this guy may be a "hacker" in the sense of the word that we all like to use (he's a programmer). The issue is that the article is titled "Why you don't steal from a hacker". This is not actually an appropriate name for the article, because it's not the writer's status as a hacker that leads to the final result. It is the writer…

I think the headline implies that a hacker/security professional is more likely to have something like prey installed than, say, someone like my non-technical mom.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#149

Post by gst »

What I don't understand: I you're so concerned that someone steals your laptop, why do you then install tracking software instead of encrypting your harddrive?

If someone steals my laptop I wouldn't care about the cost of lost hardware. Instead I'd care more about my private data that now is in the hands of someone else.

Re: Why you don't steal from a hacker.

#150

Post by gst »

LogicX wrote: post #144
pclark wrote: post #9

This is why I have file vault + password screensaver on my MacBook Pro + insurance. I'd sooner have to wait a few days to get a new laptop than rely on: a) the user not instantly formatting the computer, b) prey finding my laptop, c) the police doing something about it.

... why not do exactly that; but ALSO have a guest account, and prey installed. (Also re: not instantly formatting; put firmware and/or hard drive passwords on to slow them down -- most thieves are not computer experts) I think you under-estimate the speed and hassle of dealing with insurance. Also most insurance has a deductible. You're still out typically hundreds of dollars. I had a macbook pro of one of our emplo…

If you have a guest account you can't encrypt your whole harddisk. And if my laptop gets stolen I don't care about the money but about my data falling into the wrong hands.
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