Orbicule has created a software that will assist you in recovering your laptop if or when it gets stolen from you. It’s pretty interesting, they have a recovery case study chronicling the recovery of the laptop.

Undercover recovery story

Below you can read a true recovery story. Events are in chronological order to give our (prospective) customers an idea of the recovery procedure (all times are EST). The owner’s name has been changed, to protect his privacy. This page will soon be updated with more recovery stories.

July 12 2006
8:15 PM

John’s Undercover-enabled MacBook Pro was stolen at his golf club, just a few miles from where he lives, somewhere in North Carolina, USA.

July 13 2006
01:29 AM

John contacts the Undercover recovery center and sends us the Undercover ID for his stolen laptop. Our recovery center immediately takes action and registers the Mac as stolen.

5:23 AM
John forwards us the phone number and contact information of his local police station, as well as the case number. This information will be crucial for us to work with the police and the ISP.

7:48 AM
Less than 12 hours after the theft, the thief connects the stolen MacBook Pro to the net. Within the first [...]

I love this feature. If you have a laptop that has a built-in camera it will take a snapshot of the perp and send it to the recovery center. They have the pic of the thief on the can browsing the stolen laptop. Brilliant. It will also take snapshots of the screen to show you what the perp is up to. All this happens as soon as the perp connects to the internet but before that you must report it to the software’s recovery center. Once the thief hooks up to the internet Orbicule records the IP address and can located where the laptop is. With the help of the police you can speed up the recovery by doing a police report as soon as you know it is stolen because they need a search warrant in order to fully recover your laptop.

The one downfall is if the thief is smart he would wipe the hard drive by re-installing the operating system. So long laptop. But lets hope people that steal laptops have no clue how to do that.

Is it just me and my paranoia or would anyone else feel uncomfortable knowing that you can be tracked anywhere and have pics taken at any given time without your knowledge. Not that this company does that, but having that power makes me nervous. What about you?