tracking the location of your laptop

The University of Washington has published free, open source software you use to track the location of your laptop. It periodically communicates its location (ip address) to a distributed set of servers (OpenDHT). With a Mac OS X laptop, you can also have it periodically capture and send pictures to those servers.

When you install the program, you will be provided with a complex, unique identifier. You must save that id in a separate location (e.g., a thumb drive). You will need it if your laptop is stolen.

If your laptop is stolen, you would then install Adeona on another computer and run a program to retrieve the location of your laptop. You would then call the authorities to help you get the laptop back.