Notebak Anti-Theft

When your laptop goes missing, your first reaction may be blind, unreasoning panic. If the laptop has Notebak Anti-Theft ($29.95/year direct) installed, though, you can relax a bit. That is, as long as you've configured the product correctly for maximum security. Notebak offers a wide variety of features to help you protect and recover your laptop and the data that it holds.

During installation you define a password for connecting with the Notebak Web portal, along with a separate secret key which can't be the same as the password. To make remote requests of the client installed on the laptop you'll need to enter this secret key.

To open the local Notebak client on the laptop itself you can either double-click its icon or press Shift+Ctrl+V. If desired you can set Notebak for stealth mode, hiding the icon. In that case, the special keystroke becomes the only way to open Notebak.

Lock and Alarm
Any time you have to leave your laptop unattended, you really should lock Windows, so nobody can even look at what you've been doing. Notebak can't do that for you, since it can't tell that you've walked away. However, it can lock automatically if a thief closes the lid or unplugs the power in preparation for running off with the laptop.

From the local client you can choose several alarm and lock options. Just setting it to sound the alarm if the laptop is unplugged or the lid closed won't help you much, since the thief can just click a big on-screen button to turn Notebak off. Instead, set it to sound the alarm and lock the computer. You can choose from a dozen alarm sounds.

As with Laptop Superhero ($29.99/year direct, 2.5 stars) and LaptopSentry 3.1 ($9.99 direct, 2.5 stars), Notebak's alarm could be silenced by plugging headphones (or even a simple audio jack) into the headphone socket. The startled thief probably won't think of this ploy.

Serious Lockdown
The DigitaLabel feature goes way beyond merely invoking Windows's computer lock. When active, it displays a big notice on the laptop screen before Windows ever boots, saying "REWARD FOR RETURN." The notice contains a unique identifier along with Notebak's Web address. An honest user can report the find using the unique ID, without ever receiving your personal connection information. As the owner, you can bypass that screen by typing in a four-digit code that you'll find by logging in to the Notebak Web portal.

Naturally I tried to break through this protection, to somehow gain access without entering the four-digit code. I couldn't do it. The product includes advice to foil a thief who wants to reformat the drive, though of course there's no hope if the thief physically extracts the drive and installs it in another computer.

When a good Samaritan reports finding a lost laptop, the recovery process is flexible. If you want to pay a reward, Notebak will negotiate with the finder. They can set up a meeting or have the finder ship them the laptop (at your expense). You (and the finder) can remain anonymous. The point is to give you the best a chance at recovery.

For maximum security, you can set DigitaLabel so it's always active. That means each time you restart or unlock the computer for your own use, you'll need to enter that four-digit code. You can also set it to activate any time the laptop's location is outside a user-defined geofence (more about geofencing shortly).

At a minimum, the company recommends you set DigiaLabel to turn on automatically if the laptop hasn't connected to the Internet for a full day. Like the offline lock feature in Laptop Superhero, this helps ensure that a thief can't totally foil Notebak by isolating it from your remote commands.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/F-oqJNfbmLk/0,2817,2399391,00.asp

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