b0park

I just wanted to add my comment for someone who may be looking for something similar that isn't a douche trying to harm those who don't know any better. Using something like Truecrypt, you could encrypt your whole drive. In this manner, if they are ever removed all you would have is an unmountable drive asking to be formatted. Or you can apply some security through obscurity and install a hidden OS with nothing but the OS. Therefore if you're ever asked to give up the "password" you'll be able to give up a password that only unlocks said hidden OS and still have plausible deniability. So essentially, you dont need a flash drive that wipes the drive, but a drive that doesn't function without the proper password. Different approach, same results.

Thanks for all your helpful comments, they really add to the thread. I'm sorry you feel that I should use "real world" tools. I just don't find any sense in hunting for a possibly non-existing exploit on a Windows 7 box when I already have access to the file system. Some simple scripting and social engineering got me to a point where I could install more software. More importantly, with a user on an aircard, I don't have the benefit of an always-on connection to "play". This isn't a game, it's a matter of recovering stolen property. I also find it funny that you think I'm payed by Prey for promotion when most of the work was done without Prey. The only thing that Prey helped me out was getting reports when the computer came online. Which are at a different time compared to my habits which usually means I'm out and about and not near a computer. More importantly it was the quickest way to query Google's API to determine the possible location based on nearby wireless MACs. Feel free to unsubscribe from this thread.

Boris has the right idea. If you configure Gmail to retrieve their existing email from whatever provider they have to / want to use (possible through Gmails web setting UI). You'll get the benefits of Gmail filtering, then configure Thunderbird to send-as the original email address and that should make the Gmail layer transparent. At this point Thunderbird will work just fine and you'll get the Spam filtering you need.

Another update and unfortunately it's a little bit boring besides taking a look at the pictures taken by the webcam. I think I'll follow up with some of the images found and the meta data in them. I was unable to decipher the GPS data and it may very well be corrupt. It may be something fun for everyone to view and educate me if I misinterpreted the format this particular device spilled it's GPS data. If it's corrupt as I thought, then you may end up in the middle of the ocean as I did. http://goo.gl/boinL

Sorry to burst your bubble. No relation, and I'm more of a Digg person anyway. Nor do I work for Prey, I work for the State Of Florida, but nice try! Anyways, next time at least look at my history here. Lastly, here's my public posting on Facebook about the latest news for those interested.

I'll definitely be following up as it develops. As far as using metasploit, it's possible but I was not AS familiar as I was with simple scripts and Prey and the very limited amount of time I had with the end users using an aircard. As far as an advertisement, although I have a short history here it should show by my post that I'm in no way affiliated. Not to mention that the bulk of the work and determining where the laptop was located was by using LogMeIn to transfer to Dropbox. Sorry you feel that way, but my reason for the blog is to recover stolen property, not to entertain. Regardless, we've seen all these on Hak5 before and having a real world situation I think brings more authenticity to it's recommendations by the Hak5 crew and fans. The reason for mentioning exact brands in my blog is simply after everything is resolved I plan to go back and document my unique experiences with each item and get ideas of other possible quick solutions and everything else I ran into using the software and services in the real world. I also plan to cover other software that isn't intended as "tracking" software that could help you or Law Enforcement recover your products due it's "cloud" nature.

I admit it's been a while since I posted, but knowing this group I thought you would enjoy my hunt for my step-dad's stolen laptop. I started a miniblog to keep a timeline of events and fill everyone in. I guess in the future I'll place more details about each individual piece of software used and what I learned in this real world scenario. Enjoy! Long in-depth version goo.gl/RNnOe TLDR Version Timeline goo.gl/2DpBk

It may be more helpful if we knew what features you're looking for, but aside from that, we use Spiceworks. Fast, free, and has a great community. I find myself search for help there first before heading to Google.

On the subject of dead drops... Noting a properly configured bitch box, XP VM can't fix. On your Pirate Cache idea, why are you more inclined to plug into a cached HDD than a USB stick in the wall? I have to admit, the offline exchange of data has that adventures fun feeling to it. EDIT: NVM reread your post and your intentions of incorporating a HDD onto a PirateBox instead of just finding a random HDD.

I would assume utilizing anything that allows backup and restoration of machines to dissimilar hardware would accomplish what you're trying to do. I believe you can get a fully functional copy of Backup Exec System Recovery (Server Edition) for 60 days which has this feature. Install it on your VM client make an image to a network share or usb device and take that to your soon to be physical server and perform a restore. Should work, just take note Win 7 and 2008 machines can be picky if you're missing that 100-200mb bootloader.

I'm curious as to why Darren choose to base his new build off of Proxmox instead of ESXi. A few seasons ago he was an avid ESXi supporter. I wonder, you know, besides the "just cause" reason. Did I miss the comparison and reasoning possibly?

I can't believe this hasn't been suggested. www.deaddrops.com or http://wiki.daviddarts.com/PirateBox if you'd like to spend a couple of bucks on something a little more sophisticated.

A shameless plug out of pure excitement. I did a write up a few months ago comparing extended warranties and the like and I woke up Monday morning to see it republished on Lifehacker as one of the hottest stories of the day. I figured most of us Hak5 viewers have likely ran into the same scenarios, and you may benefit by looking over my comparison as a former Geek Squad employee. Join me in my excitement and check it out sometime. Original post @ http://blog.onlifesupport.com LH republished @ http://lifehacker.com/5659223/

I'll be at the different end of the stick. I have 1 main media server that also operates as an HTPC in my living room. Please note that I did build a green system due to it being on all day, I didn't want it to kill my energy bill. It's housed in a Shuttle Box running a Core 2 Duo, 4 GB, Radeon HD 4550 (fanless), and two 1 TB Green Drives. It houses all my back ups, my macbook, my girlfriends macbook and my gaming rig (all on the LAN). I then use Crashplan to offsite my data to my work computer as well. I also store my VM's and run them from that same box, then I use Logmein to remote into those VM's if needed. With all that, I have small Atom based nettops in all the rooms with a TV. This to be specific which are plenty powerful to pull HD content from that media server and playback 1080p MKV's over my network. I can say with all that, the "green" HTPC server has no issues, not to mention I run RMclock that downclocks to 1.6GHz, the only time it jumps back up to 2.4GHz is when I run multiple VM's. So with that, I say, I don't see a reason to use Black drives when media serving isn't requiring extreme throughput that a Green drive can't handle. I was thinking of documenting this green build and what I have around the house for all to see and try, don't know if there would be an interest for it though...

Personally I hate tapes. I've had a great experience so far with RD1000 drives. They're basically rugged 2.5 esata drives. The way I look at it, is if the RD1000 breaks, I can always just plug Esata up and start my recovery. Tapes feels so ancient at times. It may help to know how much data and redundancy you're backing up.