Earlier this month I was able to test out Absolute Software's Computrace service that utilizes Intel® Anti-Theft Technology.  You may have heard of Absolute Software's consumer service called LoJack for Laptops which enables you to track down a stolen laptop.  Computrace is the corporate version of that service that includes additional features for IT shops .  This month, Absolute announced a new version of Computrace that, as mentioned, uses the Anti-Theft technolgy found in new Intel® Centrino® 2 with vPro™ technology PCs from Lenovo.

According to Absolute, 88% of stolen laptops are never recovered.  For IT shops, this poses a couple of problems: loss of the asset and loss of the data.  With the Computrace service, you have a chance to address both of those.

When using Computrace, once a day your laptop will use the available internet connection to phone home to the Computrace servers on the internet.  Under normal circumstances, the laptop will receive an "all clear" signal from the servers and disconnect until the following day.  All this happens silently in the background without user intervention.

If the laptop is stolen or misplaced, the IT department can log into the Computrace website and mark that laptop as stolen.  The next time that laptop phones home, it is now informed that it is stolen and will execute a policy based sequence of actions.  One possible action is that it begins immediately wiping sensitive data from the hard drive.  It can also begin sending out packets that will allow Absolute Software to trace the location of the laptop and notify the authorities in the jurisdiction.

There are several layers of security available.  If a thief reformats the hard drive and installs a fresh copy of Windows, the Computrace software will automatically reinstall itself from the Computrace code embedded in the BIOS of the laptop.

You can also activate a "poison pill" that will prevent the laptop from booting at all.  This can be activated either when it phones home and receives a "stolen" signal, or you can set a threshold and if the laptop hasn't phoned home within a set number of days it will automatically lock up and prevent booting.  Once locked, the laptop is effectively useless.  You can't enter the BIOS and you can't boot to any device.  If the device is recovered, IT can produce an unlock code that will return the laptop to full functionality.

When paired with disk encryption, this is a powerful countermeasure to laptop theft.  If the data is protected by encryption and the notebook is unuseable because of the Intel Anti-theft technology, the laptop effectively has no value to anyone.  With the LoJack capability, a stolen laptop actually becomes a liability since it could be telling the local authorities where the stolen laptop is.

During my hands-on test, I repeated locked and unlocked the Lenovo T400 laptop using a variety of methods like reporting it stolen and having it phone home or entering too many incorrect passwords.  When it was locked, I received some simple text telling me that the laptop was locked and to contact my IT department.  Swapping hard drives wouldn't unlock it.  It was impossible to enter BIOS.  This brand new T400 laptop was completly unuseable.  And once I entered the IT unlock passcode, it sprang back to life as if nothing had happened.  I was hooked.  As this becomes widely adopted, I have to imagine that thieves will lose interest in stealing most corporate laptops.

You can start using this cool new technology today.  Lenovo is rolling out firmware upgrades for its T400, T500, X200, and X301 notebooks based on Intel Centrino 2 with vPro technology.  Absolute Software has the new Computrace service ready to go and it's a quick and painless installation.  As skeptical as I am, I was pleased with the results.