The software installed is supposedly hard to erase. LoJack premium covers up to a $1000 if don’t find and return your laptop within 60 days. However, if you must have something to make you feel better, then I suggest, using a subscription based program called LoJack. The best thing to do is use a sleeve or small carry case and carry laptop and cell before you run for bathroom and make this into a habit. Or perhaps they are hoping you have a text file on your desktop saying my personal usernames and passwords (Which I hope you dont have and use a program like Keepass). Knowing that they dont know the username and password. Also, assuming and hoping that will try to log in to your Gmail.
In which case, a thief will simply turn on the laptop, connect to his available internet and in which case, YES, something like MAC iCloud, would alarm you and tell you the general area (not exact), allow you to erase files, etc. This is all fine and the assumption is that the stolen device such as a Laptop doesn’t include a username and password. The way to get there is described in a recent article of mine. You can get an even more detailed lost of basically all past sessions. If you hover over the city with your cursor, you can see the IP address. Facebook even tells you the city in which the session was established. You should see an overview of the different devices and apps that last accessed your account. Now click on the bottom item called “Where You’re Logged In” (<– or click this link). To get a list of your Facebook account’s sessions, go to Settings and click on Security on the left sidebar. You really don’t want someone else to mess with your Google account, especially if you’re using many other Google services.
Go to your Gmail inbox, scroll down and click on “Details” under “Last account activity” in the bottom right corner.Ī new window should pop up, displaying the ten last recorded sessions together with the used IP addresses. If you see that someone else accessed your Gmail, you better change your Google account password (after writing down the unknown IP address). As with Dropbox, Gmail keeps track of all the different IP addresses used to access your mails. If the person with your laptop is curious enough, he or she might want to take a peek at your mails. Then you can continue monitoring the thieves activity without having to worry about any sensitive data.
An alternative would be to download your private stuff onto another computer and remove them from your Dropbox account using the browser interface. If you have private files in your Dropbox account, I recommend that you change your Dropbox password afterwards. If the IP address keeps being the same, you can assume that it belongs to the person’s place. If you want to be sure, wait a while and keep checking for new sessions. Was it after you lost your laptop? If so, then the IP address possibly belongs to the person who took it. Check the time it last accessed your account. One of these devices should be your laptop. Now, you should see a list of the devices that accessed your Dropbox account in the past. Log into your account on the Dropbox website, go to Settings and click on the Security tab. Dropbox keeps track of all current and past sessions (or accesses) together with the country of origin and IP address. If someone took your laptop, he or she won’t notice it. The great thing about having Dropbox is that it syncs your data silently in the background (at least if no changes were detected). So, if you manage to get the IP address of the person using your laptop, go to the police and explain your situation. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have that information but they won’t give it away.
If someone uses your laptop and checks out your Facebook profile or emails, you have a good chance of getting the person’s IP address. The problem is that an IP address doesn’t mean that you can easily get the physical address, assigned to the IP. Some of the applications that constantly run in the background or websites you’re logged into automatically register and store your IP address.
Use Dropbox, Facebook or Gmail to get the IP address (Mac & Win)