Out of Office Experience

Looks like reports of stolen laptops are all the news on some blogs:

- Watch Out for Marco’s Stolen Macbook Pro!
- Crimes against the Pinoy techie: Stolen laptops, DSLRs, and other gadgets
- Be Paranoid: Car Robberies at The Podium and The Fort
- Stolen Laptops, Car Robberies in Ortigas Center, The Fort
- Laptop & Camera thefts are on the rise
- Watch Your Laptops! (New MO by Salisi Gang)

Check out Ateneo's Situation Report as well. The report mentions laptops and other gadgets around the Ateneo campus that are either stolen and/or returned every month or so.

Here are some tips to keep your laptop safe:

- Stolen Macbook Pro User Shows How to Avoid Laptop Theft
- How to Set Up a Laptop Security System

Another solution to look into is LoJack for Laptops. It's software you install that, if and when your laptop gets stolen, silently connects to the internet and contacts LoJack monitoring centers. Thing is, the service might not work in the Philippines.

There's also a similar but open source/free service to LoJack called Adeona. Unfortunately, according to the developers, the system is still buggy. Famous security blogger, Bruce Schneier, thinks it looks good though.

If your laptop does get stolen you can only hope that the thief will post and sell it online: Suspect in stolen laptop case nabbed by NBI agents.

If you're using azureus, utorrent, limewire or frostwire, it is a must to have PeerGuardian. Not only will it keep companies, schools and other organizations from tracking your downloading behavior, it will also block out some ads and spyware.

Once you've downloaded and installed PeerGuardian, be sure to visit i-Blocklist to add more IPs like the Philippine block list. Don't add too much though as doing so will slow down your system.

UPDATE: An article in PDI, Downloaders be warned, you're next, says that the Pilipinas Anti-Piracy Team (PAPT), a consultant for the software organization Business Software Alliance (BSA), will start targeting individual downloaders.

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