# prey - Open source anti-theft solution for Mac, PCs & Phones



## MasterOne (Sep 7, 2011)

I've just seen this on last week's BBC WORLD "Click":





			
				prey website said:
			
		

> Prey is a lightweight laptop and phone tracker that helps you locate, secure, lock and recover your stuff if it goes missing. Works in Mac, Windows, Linux and Android phones.


and was wondering, if it could be ported to FreeBSD as well. I'm not sure, if I would use it, but it surely would be a nice option to have on your laptop or netbook.

P.S. I am not a coder, just a user, so I can not take a closer look or even port it myself. I just posted this information, in case someone with the knowledge, who wasn't aware of this project, may be interested.


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## crankyadm1n (Sep 8, 2011)

No reason why not... I'm taking a look now.


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## cra1g321 (Sep 10, 2011)

I've seen a few blog posts and articles about people who have recovered their stolen laptop because of this, would be great to have on *F*reeBSD.


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## CoTones (Sep 10, 2011)

Useless thing, because if a thief is windoze user, he will install windoze.
Well, if thief use unixes, then most "prey"s will be noticed...


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## wblock@ (Sep 11, 2011)

An average thief will boot a stolen system at least once.  If it boots into a GUI with an obvious web browser, they'll use that.  Sure, they might install Windows later, but you wouldn't need much contact with that system to track it down.


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## CoTones (Sep 11, 2011)

Let's hope thieves are not very smart.


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## kpedersen (Sep 11, 2011)

wblock said:
			
		

> ... If it boots into a GUI with an obvious web browser...



At least us FreeBSD users get the satisfaction of knowing that the thief has wasted at least a couple of hours of their life trying to get adobe flash working for youtube and stuff.

Perhaps they will even file a bug report with adobe


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## Hawk (Mar 16, 2012)

I know this is a dated thread, and my posting is only semi-related to the opening topic... anyway, here goes:

Would it be possible to code something like this, except more simplistic (i.e. ICMP packet to designated IP every <trigger>), built into the firmware.

Yes, I know this is more of a hardware manufacturer issue, but like MasterOne, I am not a coder and just wanted to throw this idea out there. Figured if anybody, those BSD devs would be the ones to implement a security feature such as this... only to have <Big Company> find out about it and claim they did it. Just an idea anyway and another *layer* of security.

P.S. If its a bad idea, go ahead and tell me it's a bad idea. You won't hurt my feelings.


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## SR_Ind (Jul 1, 2012)

wblock@ said:
			
		

> An *average thief* will boot a stolen system at least once.  If it boots into a GUI with an obvious web browser, they'll use that.  Sure, they might install Windows later, but you wouldn't need much contact with that system to track it down.



There are professional gangs that don't bother with such ceremonies. These rascals straightaway format the hard disk and then sell off the laptop on the grey market.


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