Undercover: stolen Mac recovery tool

Does the firmware password stop someone from connecting my stolen laptop to another Mac in Target Mode and reformatting the internal drive?

I just had my MBP stolen and wish I had this running. It's like insurance people think it's a waste of money until "IT" happens to them, then they wish they had it. I'll definitely get it for my next one.

The thing to keep in mind is that the kind of guy who will steal your laptop is more likely to "fire it up" and see what it can do rather than spend time formatting then wondering where he can get a stolen copy of OSX to install on it.

I also installed Undercover when I bought my brand-new MBP and honestly, I'd rather have spent the few dollars on the software for the potential recovery than to simply kiss 2G's and all my personal data goodbye if my computer gets lifted. Mind you, I also use a cable-lock any time I'm having to "leave" my laptop in an unsecured area but I still think that the service the company provides is worthwhile over the "freebies" which do little more than record IPs / take pictures.

I use this in combination with a firmware password so the drive can't be reformatted easily.

Have been using it for 6 months now, and completely forgot that I had it installed until I read this article.

It's not invasive at all - the only reason I know it's there is that the Activity Monitor picks up a teeny activity from 'uc' a few times every hour.

Great idea and a great tool. I likey.

@pauLee

you can make it harder to reformat or boot from another drive but there are work arounds for those too. no sense revealing them here.

@William

You can protect your harddrive agains formating or booting from another device ;-)


@niko

Undervover will start sending all the information only after you have insert your Undercover-ID in their database.

i've been using undercover since i bought my MBP a year and a half ago, and (knock wood) i haven't needed it. but the peace of mind is very worth the price.

and niko (#14), the one BIG difference between this and microsoft software is this software you CHOOSE to install.

Looks like a Microsoft software : takes screenshots without telling you, broadcast your IP, next time it will silently update itself with brand new "features" like testifying against you for downloading "illegal" music on iTMS. Who knows it will not start doing its "duty" BEFORE your nice MBP has been stolen ?? After all, it is designed to be unintrusive...

This is good stuff. I use it on my Macbook Pro and you never know its even running.

Recently, you could read in a Swedish computer magazine (http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.121210) about an IT guy at a school that installed Undercover on their brand new MacBooks. Then they were stolen.

Two months later, they had been returned, and the thieves were about to be prosecuted. The police said that the information captured by Undercover was very useful.