26
2009
Prey: A script to Track your stolen laptop
An article by 
Tomas Pollak a Chilean programmer developed an excellent application called Prey,that allows the owner to track a laptop if it is stolen.
What is Prey ?
Prey is a small and very simple application(script) that collects information about your computer and sends it to the email address that you’ve previously defined.The idea is to have the software installed on your computer so that if ever stolen(hopefully never), this application can send important information to track it. The program runs on Mac OS and Linux.It is licenced by the GPLv3 which means you can do just about anything with it. It runs in *NIX systems.
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Update 2: This article is almost one year old, Now Prey runs on Windows, mac, Linux,Ubuntu and Androdid Devices
About Prey:
Prey lets you keep track of your phone or laptop at all times, and will help you find it if it ever gets lost or stolen. It’s lightweight, open source software, and free for anyone to use.
Download or Home Page:
http://preyproject.com/
What information is collected Prey?
Prey sends the information about the public and private IP address of where the Laptop is connected, the MAC address of the card or network driver for which it is connected to the network, and the WiFi network to which it is connected, if so, if the Laptop has a webcam, it takes a photo of the Thief and a screenshot of the desktop, to see what he is doing and other relevant information.
How it works ?
The script runs at a specified interval in your machine,and checks for a specified URL in the web. If the URL exists it means the computer/laptop has been stolen, and thus
goes through the information-gathering routine and sends all that info through to a previously defined email address.You can also not define a URL and in that case the program sends the data every time it runs.
Installation:
$ wget http://bootlog.org/downloads/prey-0.1.zip
$ unzip prey-0.1.zip
$ cd prey-0.1
$ chmod +x install.sh
$ ./install.sh
Links:
Download : Prey
Source: Bootlog.org
Update: Now prey app is also available for Windows also
Download links : Prey 0.2 for linux and Mac(431 kb)
prey 0.1 for Windows (285 kb)
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About the Author: Ramakanth Reddy
Ramakanth is lead writer & one of the Founder of Techno360. He covers security, freebies, web-browsers,Windows OS and a variety of other subjects. He earned his degree at Anna university,worked in IT support for several years, and has been writing at Techno360 since 2008.
Tranks for the reference Ramakanth!
[...] (Mar 26) we posted about Prey :A script which tracks your stolen laptop,which runs on Mac OS and Linux platforms.Thanks to my friend Kavya for referring this OpenSource [...]
Tamás, how do you *uninstall* this on the Mac? I cannot find instructions anywhere. The thing just keeps taking pictures of me!
(Help!)
From the Prey website:
In Mac or Linux you need to remove the folder where you installed Prey (by default /usr/share/prey) and aditionally the respective crontab line for executing Prey (root’s by default). You can do so in the terminal:
$ sudo rm -Rf /usr/share/prey
$ (sudo crontab -l | grep -v prey) | sudo crontab -
hth
[...] Posted by Ramakanth 0 Comment GA_googleFillSlot("Rectangularads"); Earlier I reported about Prey, a popular Laptop monitoring app that lets you keep track your phone or laptop at all times, and [...]
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