What are Lojack's limitations on a laptop not embedded with its software?

Lojack software just installed on a computer can only hide itself as well as any other software program. The right tools can find and disable it.

Integrated into the hardware it is much harder to disable and eradicate.

Lojack works, though, on the principle that the odds of a theif taking a lojack-enabled system versus a non-lojack enabled system are relatively low. So most thieves will probably not think or take time to check for the existance of this tool.

You would probably benefit from reading the Absolute Software Lojack technical document. It's not very technical and goes into some detail regarding how the system works. From this you'll be able to see how the system may be gotten around.

music2myear

Posted 2011-10-06T19:07:23.690

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So assuming I have the software installed on the laptop and someone wipes the harddrive with multiple writes e.g. DoD 5220.22-M Wipe Standard, does the software stand a chance of surviving? Also is it obvious that the software is installed e.g. If I am using Windows will it appear in TaskManager? – PeanutsMonkey – 2011-10-06T21:02:15.263

All the person has to do is do a simple format. The software has to be started by the OS somehow and if the OS is replaced or removed or if the thief plugs a bootable USB drive with a "live" OS on it to access your files, Lojack will never know what happened to it. If the system is embedded, pretty much nothing the theif can do will remove lojack. – music2myear – 2011-10-06T21:17:08.917

Interesting as Lojack claim that even if the computer is wiped that in some instances it can survive and I was wondering what these instance were? – PeanutsMonkey – 2011-10-06T21:28:52.593

Ok, now I've tried to make it clear that we're talking about ONLY the software module version. Based on their technical document I can see they do as good a job as possible in situations where the system is not preinstalled to the BIOS. Hiding the software between partitions and the like. But really there is only so much you can do. The simplest method of stopping lojack is to just not connect to the internet while running a stolen computer. – music2myear – 2011-10-06T21:33:49.607

Thanks. I was wondering if there were able to somehow able achieve the same results as having it embedded. – PeanutsMonkey – 2011-10-06T21:37:22.083

No. The system must be embedded to be capable of that extra level of protection that will protect against HDD reformat or replacing. – music2myear – 2011-10-06T21:38:33.907

What are Lojack's limitations on a laptop not embedded with its software?

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