Help recover your stolen goods

Mike Hudson How-To's
prey-overview

Stolen ThiefSomeone has stolen my ….

There’s nothing worse than the realisation you have had your prized possession stolen.. As technology moves on, our possessions are getting smaller, as they get smaller they are more and more tempting to would be thieves.

However it doesn’t just stop there! The sticky fingered pilferers will happily make away with what ever they can carry. Most of the time, there’s little beside due diligence that we can do to prevent the items from going “missing”. We can however, do all that is possible to try to aid your possessions safe return.

Keep it safe and Log it 

Is not just a catchy expression, it’s the tag line for Immobilise – The UK property register. If you’ve not yet created an account, what are you waiting for?

Immobilise is the world’s largest FREE register of possession ownership details and together with its sister sites the Police’s NMPR (www.thenmpr.com ) and CheckMEND (www.checkmend.com ), forms a very effective tool in helping to reduce crime and repatriate recovered personal property to its rightful owners.

Immobilise

 

Registering your devices with the Immobilise service is simple, all you need to do is select your items category, complete it’s serial number and purchase details, then upload a copy of the items receipt.

Should the worst happen, you can logon to the immobilise site and mark your item as stolen. Then, should the item be recovered by the police they’ll be able to reunite it with its rightful owner.

iCloud is a powerful force

If you own an Apple device and have not yet signed up to iCloud, then I’d strongly urge you to do so as soon as possible. Sure, it offers a whole host of features that maybe none of you will use.. However, it also offers a FREE Apple hardware tracking facility known as FindMyPhone

Although the service is called FindMyPhone, it’s also capable of tracking and interacting with iPads and Mac devices.

Once your device has been registered with the service, you will have some control over the device should you notice it’s missing/lost/stolen. You can send commands to the phone to:

  • Play a sound regardless of the current volume levels on the device (iPhone & iPad)
  • Lock the device’s screen
  • Remote wipe all information and restore your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch or Mac to its factory settings
  • Track your device on a map

FindMyPhone

Each of these features is available completely free of charge, and could potentially prove imperative in the safe return of your beloved tech.

There are many instances where FindMyPhone aiding the authorities is apprehending thieves;

With its ease of use, there really is no excuse for not enabling the FindMyPhone features on your Apple tech.

Prey

If all of your hardware is not from the same industry leading manufacturer, then there’s still a completely free option for you to use to keep track of your beloved goods.. The Prey Project is an open source project with hundreds of world-wide documented recoveries

prey-overview

Prey is available for a vast range of devices:

  • Windows
  • Linux
  • OS X
  • Android
  • iOS

All of the clients are available to download from The Prey Projects download page

Unlike the previously mentioned FindMyPhone, prey relies on software running on your device. Which does mean, should the thief restore your device to factory defaults before you’ve noticed it’s missing there may be nothing you can do!

Have you got another preferred solution for securing your device? Then let me know using the comments below.

 

Mike Hudson

Mike Hudson is a Lead Cyber Security Analyst living and working in Kingston Upon Hull. With extensive experience in Microsoft and Apple technologies, ranging from desktop OS’s to Server OS’s and hardware. By day working as part of an infrastructure team, and by night ridding the world of IT issues through blog posts..

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