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Portable Security

I intended to mention this a while ago, after Josh Bob had his laptop stolen; but better late than never.  A few recommendations I'd like to share about laptop security:

  1. Turn on encryption: Windows, OSX, and Linux (and open-source cross-platform solutions) now have options to encrypt systems or user folders: Take advantage of it! If your machine is stolen, at least they can't get your sensitive information.
  2. Backup your data: And do it without requiring effort! I highly recommend Dropbox
  3. Install laptop tracking software, I recommend the free open source cross-platform PreyProject (Especially since they just implemented my wifi geolocation improvement)
    If doing so; you'll want to create a passwordless guest account, that someone could use if the machine were stolen: Making it more likely they'll continue to use the computer, giving you time to track it down.
  4. Use different passwords: This is a pretty obvious one, but I use a combination of free services: Clipperz, XMarks, and Firefox's Password Manager with Master Password to protect my passwords, and make it easy-enough to use different credentials for most services.

Taking a few preventive steps will keep your data protected, and you too can be empowered like Josh in recovering your machine!

Pro-Tip: I also use autossh to always keep a reverse SSH tunnel open to the machine: If it were ever stolen I can remotely control it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 10:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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  1. #1 by Julie S. on March 23rd, 2010 - 6:24 pm

    I can vouch for Dropbox; it is the best! I had closed my laptop and unplugged my camera from the laptop all in a few seconds. When I tried to use my laptop the next time, it was very slow and so I restarted it. It would not boot up and there was no other way to deal with the problem except to reformat it. If it weren't for Dropbox, I would have lost everything but thanks to them, my computer is exactly how it was!

    RE Q

  2. #2 by John Stack on March 29th, 2010 - 9:08 am

    Good post. I continually amazed that folks don't understand that their hard drives can be removed and mounted as a separate drive. Encryption=good!

    RE Q

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