http://www.idkfa.com/v3 idkfa: syndicated http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=2784 SPDCA: So I haven't really touched this project since I wrote this some months ago. Last I worked on it, I had figured out how to efficiently and inconspicuously send information about the computer, programs running on it, the basic topology of the network it's running on, and the hardware addresses of the computers directly connected to the laptop. And then I set to do this every 2 minutes. Then I pretty much forgot about it. Poking around some last week, I had occasion to notice that the database storing this information was reaching 1 gigabyte. Which is incredible, and sort of bad in that this was accomplished by only two computers running the same script in a few months time. I have a scalability problem. On the other hand: I have so much data to play with. For instance: I've always been interested (and have also dreaded) to know how much time I spend at home on the computer on a given day. I know the answer is "too much," but these types of things are best quantified before they are addressed. The following is a report I was able to generate using my theft deterrent data set. It assumes that when my computer is on, and not in a suspended state, that I am using it to some degree. Unless I'm having my laptop run some lengthy task overnight, this is true probably 99% of the time. Each line represents 24 hours, with a period meaning an hour in which I was using my laptop, and a space meaning an hour in which my computer was not active. The "=" characters at the end are just a simple histogram representation of hour many hours in a 24 hour period that I was using the computer. 2011-02-09 Wed| ...| === 2011-02-10 Thu| . ... ...| ======= 2011-02-11 Fri| . .. .....| ======== 2011-02-12 Sat|... ......... | ============ 2011-02-13 Sun|. ...............| ================ 2011-02-14 Mon|.. . .......| ========== 2011-02-15 Tue| kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 10 May 2011 16:07:03 -0800 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=2784 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1726 I mentioned somewhere previously that my laptop's borked. Which now brings up a new and interesting use for this project: I can now see (approximately) when they open up my laptop to test its components. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:59:04 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1726 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1453 we'll just have to electrically isolate the components from the case. it's theoretically possible. i know if we were talking electrical/mechanical components for buildings then it'd be something similar to Class1 Division 1 electrical ratings. kitacek@idkfa.com (kitacek) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:43:03 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1453 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1452 It's bad enough I static shock my laptop and the keyboard and trackpad stop responding. Not sure what would happen if I had a live current running through the case. kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:13:29 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1452 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1450 when i went to denver in july, we stayed at a ranch. since it was very rural, they had problems with bears and raccoons and other critters who were interested in the dumpsters. their innovative solution was to buy an electric fence energizer, crank the voltage to maximum, and connect it to the dumpster. maybe fashion something similar for a computer? kitacek@idkfa.com (kitacek) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:07:33 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1450 http://www.idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1449 Had a couple of hours to kill, so I looked into a new project. I had a conversation where people were talking about what they would do if their house was broken into (what was actually valuable, what would be replaceable, what wouldn't, etc.). Computers were pretty high on the list of "things that were valuable," for the reason that they often stored things like tax information, usernames and passwords, etc. As usual with conversations, if I find something computationally interesting, my inner programmer surfaces and pushes my higher functions to a lower priority. I started thinking about what it would take to deter theft of computers. Or, well, not so much deter, but give the possibility of reclamation in the event that somebody steals your devices. This essentially means programming intelligence into your computers for them to realize: When it's not on a network it recognizes. When it can't talk to a particular "trusted" service. When somebody would be trying to tamper with the aforementioned checks. In any of these events, it's relatively trivial to have your computer do things like dial into a server on the Internet, feed it information necessary to a) locate its current network, b) give information on what the computer is connected to, and c) give information on the internals of the network. You could even go so far as to ask the computer to tell you what wireless networks are available. And all of this information would be able to be collected in seconds, and would be barely noticeable in terms of bandwidth used. The prototype I have drawn up works only on Mac/Linux, but could pretty easily be drawn up on the Windows side of things. Does anybody have experience with this? Or, have you had your computer stolen, and wished there was something on your computer that would have been able to react accordingly? In addition, does anybody have any thoughts on how to thwart theft if kaiden@idkfa.com (kaiden) Indiscernible from Magic Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:39:41 -0900 http://idkfa.com/v3/v_thread.php?thread_id=1449&msg_id=1449