Q. What if my user account has a password? Will Hidden still work?

A. Yes. Hidden will still work, although we strongly suggest all hidden users set up a Guest Account. This will encourage the thief to use your computer before trying to sell it.

@penguinchris – I think it’s entirely plausible he puts it to sleep without requiring a password.
I use a compilcated password, which I don’t feel like punching in every time I lift the lid.

To me, the most unbelievable part of the story is that Mr. Kaufman went to the effort to install Hidden on his laptop, but did not bother to put a password on his own administrative account.

Looking at the website Kaufman created, you can see a screenshot of the guy deleting Kaufman’s account. That requires administrative access. So either Kaufman had the password in plain view, he removed it entirely, or the thief was knowledgeable enough to reset the password with an OS X installer disk. None of those explanations seems very plausible to me.

http://ihavethisguysmacbook.tumblr.com/

Seems like I hear that line all the time in the cop’s response to any crime that doesn’t involve rape, murder, kidnapping or some sort of “national security” offense. I am so broke these days, it almost makes me feel like burglary might be an easy, risk-free way to get by until a decent job comes along.

Oh, I take that back. When my car was stolen from in front of the police station, they send a bicycle cop to chase it.

The only thing that seems really odd is the photo from in the car, but I’d bet that it’s not actually a photo of him “driving away with the macbook” but it’s him checking it out sometime later after driving away. It does look like he’s got one hand on the wheel as if he were driving, but it’s hard to tell – could just be parked somewhere and decided to open it up and look.

Also, assuming it’s real, it is a little ridiculous that the thief was able to figure out the admin password. A macbook should be essentially useless to anyone but an authorized user (unless you enable the guest account) – I know you can disable most of the security precautions, but it’d be stupid to (yes, I’m sure most people do it anyway). It’s really not that hard, and hardly any more difficult than leaving it entirely unsecured. For example, it should always require the user password to restore from sleep or screen saver. I have mine set with a one minute grace period if the screen goes to sleep by itself, and have a “hot corner” that locks the screen immediately for situations where other people would have immediate access if I got up.

Finally, this program presumably must install itself, silently, into every new user account – with settings intact – for it to work as seen. On an older version of Windows I can see that working, but that’s a little far-fetched, in my mind, with OS X. So, who knows?

I’ve taken a look at Prey’s source code. I think its a really cool application in theory, but I’m not really that happy with how security is actually implemented. I wrote something up about it a while back, and updated it today, as BB brought it back to the front of my head.

http://shrp.me/docs/dont_use_prey.php

Anyone want to go partners in the burglary biz? Maybe I’ll try to get some start up funds from Kickstarter.