Electronic devices, especially laptops, have become an essential part of
our lives rather than a luxury product, that they were considered in the
past. Only a mere thought of losing your precious device will give you
goose bumps, but what if it really vanishes from your vicinity – thanks
to the guy who has the courage to do that magical act.
Jokes apart, in this article we have added some ways that can be used to find your stolen laptop in case of any theft.
Trace your Laptop’s IP address:
The magician who vanished
your precious laptop might have the courage to peek into your business.
There are great chances, that the person who took your laptop may check
your mail account or other services. These services do provide tracking
feature that can help you, trace the location and IP address of your
device. You can get the device location of your stolen laptop if you use
these services:
Gmail:
Just open your Gmail account and
move to the bottom of the page. Here you will find “Last Account
Activity” written in the bottom left corner of the page. Click “Details”
link right below it. A new window will open containing a list of all
the recent Gmail sessions of your account, providing IP address and
location of the sessions. You can click “Sign Out Of All Other Web
Sessions” to protect your Gmail account from further trespassing.
Facebook:
The social networking giant has also provided a feature to track your account activity.
Open
“Settings” in your Facebook account and then click “Security” option.
You’ll find an option called “Where You’re Logged In”, just click that,
and you’ll be presented with details of your Facebook sessions. To know
the IP address of any session, just hover on the location name, and it
will display the IP address of that session. You can click “End
Activity” to log out that particular session or you can click “End All
Activity” to log out of all your active Facebook session on any other
device.
Dropbox:
Dropbox also provides a session tracking
feature. Just sign-in to you Dropbox account and click your name, a drop
down menu will appear. Then click on “Settings” option. Click on
Security tab, here you’ll find the list of all your active and past
sessions. Just hover on the “i” right next to the country name to know
the approximate location and similarly, click the “i” next to time
(under Most Recent Activity) to know the IP address and time of the
session.
Just note down the IP address and location from any of the above sources and contact the police for further assistance.
Prevention is better than cure:
It
would be wise enough to be well prepared for such mishaps well in
advance. Prey Inc. has come up with an efficient tool that can help you
track your device very easily in case of any theft or lost. Though this
platform is available for various operating systems like Windows, Mac,
Android, and Linux, but we have tested Prey only for the Widows OS.
Here are the steps you need to follow in order to setup Prey:
1) Go to
https://preyproject.com
2) Click
Sign-in and setup your Prey account.
3) After that, Sign-in to your Prey account and look for a green plus button right next to
Your Devices.
4) Choose your preferred operating system and Prey will start downloading the appropriate application to your device.
5) Install the application by clicking the usual
next, next, next. It’ll take few minutes to install.
6) At the end of installation, keep the
Set-up Prey check box ticked and click Finish.
7) A new window will open. Click
Existing User option, as you have already created your Prey account.
8) Enter your login credentials and click
Connect,
a popup will appear, ”Sweet! Your Computer is now protected by Prey.
Try it out or protect an additional device, please visit
preyproject.com”.
9) Click
OK and you’re done.
10) You can track your device online by simply logging into your Prey account in any web browser.
11)If you lose your device, just log-in to your account and click your lost device in
Your Devices section. Then click
Set Device To Missing.
12) A box will appear, set the
Report Frequency as per your convenience. Click
Advanced Options to
find more options. Here you can select, if you want to take snapshots
of the person using the device via webcam. Using the snapshot feature
may alert the person using the laptop as the webcam LED will blink after
regular intervals, creating a suspicious environment for that person.
13) Click Yes, my device is missing. In the next box, you can set whether the device is LOST or STOLEN. You can also share the lost information with Prey Inc. in the next option.
14) Whenever you need to know the current status of your device just click the Maps and Action option in the device section.
15) When you find your device, just Set Device To Recovered and prey will stop the live tracking of your device.
Prey allows you to lock the device remotely, play alarm, send message
in case any humble person may return your laptop, if you have forgotten
it somewhere. The only disadvantage of this service is that your laptop
must be connected to the internet, and for that, “May the Force be with
You”. You can add up to three devices in the free option. To add more
devices, you’ll have to purchase their plans.
In case of any
theft, it is highly recommended to change your passwords for all the
online services that you use to protect your valuable data and privacy.
Keeping
your laptop safe is a must in this technology driven world. You can
protect your laptop by using these simple methods and it will save your
valuable memories that you have collected all over your life. Apart from
using these methods, you should always set a password to all of your
devices, this will protect your data in case of any theft or if you
might forget it somewhere.
