May 13th, 2009
Undercover Mac software dismantles drug network
Orbicule announced that Undercover, its flagship anti-theft software, assisted in the recovery of a stolen MacBook in Norway. But that’s only half the story.
Evidence gathered by the Undercover software allowed Norwegian police to recover more than just the stolen MacBook — they also dismantled an entire drug network.
Early this morning I received a new email from Orbicule. This time they received several pictures from the machine. The pictures were in an amazing quality - as if taken with a normal digital camera! They showed four people sitting behind the computer, and there was also a screenshot where one of them wrote his name.
After some research I found out that one of these persons was actually the leading drugs dealer in our region. I quickly gathered the pictures and gave them to the local police. About two hours later I got a call from the police asking me to tell them more about Undercover, and how I got these pictures. They told me that one of the persons in the pictures was someone the police had been looking for a long time, and this was highly interesting to them. Over the next days I regularly had contact with Orbicule. I received even more pictures and some quite interesting screenshots with addresses, phone numbers, names, and much more.
Undercover determines the thief’s location with Wi-Fi positioning from Skyhook Wireless and transmits iSight pictures and screenshots from the stolen Mac. It also has an ingenious plan B: simulating a hardware failure on the stolen Mac, urging the thief to bring the stolen Mac to an Apple store for repair, where it can be recovered.
A single user license of Undercover costs $49 and an iPhone version is available for $4.99.
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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