You must not have seen the locks dell has been using--I can't quite describe them, but they're not like deadbolts or anything that can easily be got through with bolt cutters. They're basically big, solid chunks of metal.
And wiping the HD is no big deal for any of us, but a computer stolen from the school district where I work isn't likely to be stolen by an IT pro. It's going to be stolen by a student, and employee, or someone wanting to make a quick buck at a pawn shop. Students are pretty comfortable with technology, but 99.9% of them have no clue about the inner workings of it--so things like BIOS passwords and jumpers are foreign to them. Employees are even more clueless, and the types of employees we've had involved in thefts in the past have tended to be the least educated of our crew. Which leaves the pawn shop guy. The pawn shop isn't likely to take a computer that clearly has a big lock on it with no key, and that when turned on says "Taylor County School District" in big letters. Plus, or local pawn shop closed down. :-) -----Original Message----- From: Ben Scott [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, February 02, 2009 5:38 PM To: NT System Admin Issues Subject: Re: Stolen PC On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 3:27 PM, John Hornbuckle <[email protected]> wrote: > ... reset the BIOS password (generally involving opening the unit and > messing with a jumper, which can be tricky because some of our > units have locks to keep them closed ... So, five seconds with a pair of open-end bolt cutters to remove the lock, and then 30 seconds to find the jumper on the mobo. :) > ... in order to boot from a CD/flash drive/whatever in order to wipe the > hard drive (which they would need to do, because the OS is locked > down and would be unusable to them off our network). When I get a new-to-me computer, I always wipe the hard drive and reinstall. I've never knowingly received stolen merchandise, but if I did, I would certainly wipe it! :) Hmmm, I wonder if one could report the Product Key from the OEM sticker to Microsoft as stolen? I think security cameras, locked doors, and a room security alarm would be more effective deterrent. Most of that's not possible for a lab that's supposed to be open unattended, though. When I was at university, they always kept an attendant in the labs while they were open; I'm guessing this is why. -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~ ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
