How I Got My Stolen Macbook Back Within 24 Hours

techvibes.com

5 points·vantech··3 comments

I normally don't go meta with these things, but what are these stories adding? This is the second story about using Prey in the last 24 hours; does it add anything that the previous story didn't? What about the one before that? Or the one before that?

Prey and software like it work well. We get it. Let's move on.

Have you ever had something stolen? If you have not, I can understand the absurdity of your post. Imagine having something that you use for over seven hours a day and is your livelihood suddenly stolen. It only doesn't only affect you emotionally, but financially. I couldn't imagine my code suddenly vanishing.

Yes, I've had something stolen. But this isn't Theft News, it's Hacker News. What started as posts about using cool new technology have become "I installed it too!"

As for your code "suddenly vanishing", the theft of a laptop should at most cost you the cost of the machine and a couple hours of work. Encryption should prevent a thief from accessing your data and backups should prevent you from actually losing anything. It sucks to have something stolen, but best practices take it from "I just lost everything" to "I guess I need to find a new box."

Edit: Those same best practices will prevent you from losing your code when your hard drive dies, or you spill coffee on your laptop.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com