Hey, you guys, those of you makin’ like you’re part of the décor in an airport lounge or imitating camouflage behind a fern in a hotel lobby waiting for some mark to get distracted so you can lift his laptop. I’m going to save you some major grief. I’m feeling like a snitch doing this since I’m an Intel flack, but even criminals deserve an inside tip once in awhile. So, listen up, swifty. Before you slip ‘n slide that notebook under your trench coat, look it up and down carefully. If it says Lenovo Thinkpad T400 anywhere on it just put it back and save yourself a raft of frustration. Here’s the inside skinny: Absolute Software, Lenovo and Intel ganged up to develop this diabolical security stuff that’s … well, I was going to say almost criminal. They took these Lenovo ThinkPad T400 notebooks and booby-trapped ‘em with Intel’s new Anti-Theft PC Protection and Absolute’s Computrace technology. Here’s what’s gonna happen if you’re a sucker enough to boost one of these units. First thing you’re gonna do is turn it on to see if you can crack the password. These guys are just waiting for you to do that. They’re probably standing behind the other fern laughing their beanies off. After a few missed tries this notebook’s going to shut down like an iron door on the hole. It won’t do nothin’. It becomes a brick. Good luck tryin’ to hawk that. It’s because of this Intel Anti-Theft PC Protection. But let’s say you’re smart enough not to try to crack the password. Instead, you’re sitting there admiring the family of five on the screensaver trying to figure out what it will go for on eBay when WHAM! the thing shuts down. Won’t turn back on or nothin’. That’s ‘cause of Absolute’s Computrace. What happened was that soon as the mark saw his computer flew the coop, he called the guys at Absolute and they fixed their servers, so as soon as that computer came online, they sent it a poison pill through the Internet and that laptop became, yep, a brick. You’d do life for sending a poison pill, but these mugs got good lawyers and get away with it. But let’s say you’re a real Einstein, and you’re casing the airport parking lot and see some stiff shove one of those T400s in his trunk, grab his suitcase and head for the terminal. You’re figuring he’s gonna be gone for days, long enough to fence that T400 before he even knows it’s gone. So, you’re hanging out in a back alley, whispering “Hey, you wanna good computer cheap?” to every Joe that strolls by, until you finally hook some patsy. But you hit the button to turn it on and nothing happens. Yeah, you guessed it. You’re peddling that brick, again. This is because these Lenovo, Absolute, Intel guys covered that angle, too. Turns out the pigeon’s computer geniuses at the office set that ThinkPad T400 so it has to check in regularly, like it’s on parole. If it misses even once, it gets the poison pill treatment thanks to Computrace and Intel Anti-theft PC Protection, and, of course, dem guys at Lenovo who stick that stuff into those ThinkPad T400s in the first place. In the end, filching these rigged T400s will drive you crazy. Worse than being in the cooler. I know what you’re thinking, I’ll just grab another brand of computer. All I can say is, Are ya feelin’ lucky, punk? ‘Cause Lenovo is gonna be putting this Computrace and Anti-Theft PC Protection in their other computers. And, well, this ain’t no exclusive deal, if you know what I mean. So, before you do something stupid, my pal Josh Hilliker spills all the beans here. Check it out and save yourself some time…maybe hard time, not to mention saving you’s from going crazy frustratin’ yourself.
