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Intel's Anti-Theft Tech Comes To Asus P Series

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News Posted: Wed, Apr 8 2009 7:06 PM

Here lately, Asus has spent the bulk of its time pumping out all sorts
of new GPUs. Today, however, it's going back to its roots -- and by
that, we mean, back to the notebook arena. The outfit's P Series, which was just showcased at CeBIT in Germany last month, will soon be
equipped with Intel's own Anti-Theft Technology in an effort to curb
the growing theft of laptop computers. Not surprisingly, Asus is aiming
this at businesses, business users and everyday consumers that tend to
travel often.



The Anti-theft PC Protection Technology provides users
with the ability to send a "poison pill" remotely, rendering the
notebook inoperable by comprehensively shutting it down. If and when
the machine is ever recovered, a local password or recovery token can
be used to reactivate it. Of course, this "theft deterrent" actually
offers no real deterrent; granted, it'll keep your data safe once
stolen, but unless Asus plans on slapping huge "Anti-Theft" stickers on
the lid, we're guessing that most thieves will yank first and think
later.



At any rate, we reckon the inclusion of this here technology can't hurt
matters, and it'll soon be incorporated into the P30 and P80 notebooks.
There's no word on when the tech will spread to more Asus machines, but
we wouldn't be surprised to see the partnership spread to even more
lines soon.




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kid007 replied on Wed, Apr 8 2009 10:35 PM

great i feel more secure that our federal official will spend our dollars in more safe computers so just in case they get lost my SSN would be protected!

God Bless Technology! after what 30 years

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3vi1 replied on Thu, Apr 9 2009 9:14 AM

At the very least, the person that steals one of these gets a harddrive they can re-format, free RAM, and a lot of replacement parts (screen, keyboard, cpu, touchpad...) that they can sell for several hundred dollars on eBay.

Someone who actually wants your data is not going to connect the machine to the Internet (or even boot the machine): They're going to pull the hard-drive and attach it to a machine that already has all of their cracking tools installed. The only thing that stops this is the use of full disk encryption - which you could install without paying the monthly fee theses OEMs are going to want.

And remember, people using FDE are just as likely as anyone else to have their data stolen once the OS is running.

The anti-theft tech will be disabled by default, and most users won't turn it on - either because they don't know it's there, or they don't want to pay the monthly fee, or for privacy reasons.

So, not a big game changer.

What part of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" don't you understand?

++++++++++++[>++++>+++++++++>+++>+<<<<-]>+++.>++++++++++.-------------.+++.>---.>--.

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bob_on_the_cob replied on Thu, Apr 9 2009 9:23 PM

I think I have to agree. Encryption is the way to go. I dont have my laptop encrypted, but IDK who would want my email account and pictures. Steam is the only thing that has much value and I don't auto save my password so they would just know my account name. Which now that I think about it they could get the password sent to my email. Damn. I fail.

*Goes to encrypt laptop harddrive*

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neo.teo replied on Fri, May 1 2009 5:11 PM

For companies and other professionals this might be great, but what about a regular person? I'd much rather like to get my laptop back, then preventing any thief from accessing the data.

You might want to use something like IP Sneak or Lo Jack for Laptops instead of buying a new computer :)

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