This article was published by DynDNS visit them at
www.dyndns.com they offer some very good free services.
With the advent of increasingly desirable mobile devices, theft risk has
exploded. These are no longer rare enough that tracking a stolen unit is
an easy feat. Additionally, more power and more storage means that more
valuable data is stored on PDAs and laptops. In turn, security measures
should be bumped accordingly.
Today, we want to share with you one of our favorite tricks, suggested by
our always awesome patrons, to help in their recovery. It's not fool- or
fail-proof (what is?) but it is very ingenious and definitely worth a
shot. It's also fun to set up!
Credit for a recent posting on the matter goes to the good people at
Lifehacker. We wish to salute them and send many a cheer for their
support. Feel free to visit them on:
http://lifehacker.go.dyndns.org.
Our signature free Dynamic DNS tracks servers across IP changes and
ensures the same domain name points to the appropriate IP, whatever it
is. This is what allows our two million users to operate home servers,
among other exciting applications.
Replace "server" by "mobile device" and "IP change" with "network
change." You now have a way to track mobile devices by looking at the IP
address associated with their domain name.
The first thing to do is to create a new Dynamic DNS host in your DynDNS
account - this is entirely free. Then, install the DynDNS update client
for your platform
http://www.dyndns.com/support/clients/ and set it up
so that it updates the record you created. Restart your machine if need
be and let a few minutes elapse. If you log back to your DynDNS account
and look at the IP address associated with this domain name, you can see
it will match your current one.
Most monitoring services can now let you know if your machine is online
by pinging the domain you just set up. A simple traceroute can then lead
you to the device itself. You could also plug the IP address into a
geolocalisation service to pinpoint its position.
If you have any problem whatsoever, remember that our support team is
here to help.
Companies can also use this method to track their fleet of laptops and
notice if they go online at times they should not.
Of course, a thief could initialize your drive or not connect your
machine to the Internet. In many cases, however, thieves are in a hurry
and fail to take either precaution. This does not replace proper data
encryption, user authentication and physical security for your machines.
It can, however, help mitigate risks.
A word about privacy, which is always our utmost concern. This system
allows you to track your machine but it also allows other people who
could guess your domain to do so. We never recommend running a server on
a mobile machine (servers and mobile machines have different
specifications for a reason) but if you do, be aware that may mean people
can also access the data you serve from the machine by connecting to the
domain name you just created.
These are the very principles on which the DNS, and the Internet are
built. They are also the very reasons for which Dynamic DNS is so popular
so they should not come as a surprise. If you are, however, concerned
that someone may be able to track you down this way, unit recovery
systems may not be your thing (in some applications, better to lose a
unit than be able to track it down). That is your call and we would be
happy to answer any questions you may have so that you can make a sound,
informed decision.
