>I'm toying with the idea of writing a small app that will run as a service after installation. I think I want the app to do the following:
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>The service will have a program interface/form surface at least once a week, and prompt the user to enter a "keyword". If the keyword is entered incorrectly, give the user three more attempts. If the user fails, the program will do a http post to a webpage which will allow me to capture their external ipaddress. I'm thinking I'll use some wmi code to capture the serial number, computer name, etc and send that in the post.
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>I'm thinking of writing this and giving it to users of my CyberWatch program, as a free download from the MPD. This all came to mind because of a CyberWatch tip I received last weekend. I got an email tip from a guy who receives the CyberWatch reports, saying he had been burglarized, but since he is an IT kinda guy, he was able to log in to his stolen computer. He got a couple of names and email addresses while he was in there, and I logged in and got the external ip address. I was able to get the address from our city schools based on the user names, and also sent the detectives the ISP, so they could get a subpoena. The victim had his stolen stuff back on Tuesday morning, and the detectives are interviewing suspects.
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>Anyone have any ideas about this? My thoughts are to write it quickly in VFP and post it for Windows users. I guess I could rewrite it in python or perl for MAC users.
>
>TIA

John, there are a number of free and for-fee software packages out there that do this type of tracking already (e.g., LoJack -- http://www.lojack.com/pages/laptop.aspx or Locatemylaptop.com -- http://www.locatemylaptop.com/features.html).

Mac users can just use Apple's back-to-my-mac -subscription -based service. I recently saw a fun article about one Macintosh laptop recovery using IP addresses and the laptop's own web cam to catch a few crooks Here's a snippet from that article:

Using the Back To My Mac service, Ms Duplaga was able to connect to the computer and take a photograph of the person sitting in front of it through the webcam mounted above the screen.

She also found photos of a second man using the computer after it had been stolen, police said.

One of Ms Duplaga's flatmates recognised the two men as having attended a party at their apartment a few weeks before the burglary.

The next day police arrested Edmon Shahikian, 23, and Iain Frias, 20, and said they recovered most of the $US5000 worth of electronics stolen in the robbery.

Full article: : http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23684544-1702,00.html.