STOLEN LAPTOP - CAN AVAST TRACE

[egarcia]

Good afternoon,

We were just robbed on Wednesday and realized that I had installed AVAST on that laptop.  Is there any way for AVAST to put a tracer on it?

[Nesivos]

I don't know if Avast can put a tracer on it or not however you should file a police report if you haven't and then could try to locate it using one or all of the following methods,

    1    Contact your ISP (Internet service provider) to see if the thief has accessed the Internet using your service. The ISP issues a location-specific IP address when a computer accesses the Internet. If the owner of a stolen laptop obtains an IP address assigned to her computer since the theft, then the police can track its location.

    2    Investigate whether programs such as Yahoo! Messenger or email software that automatically logs on at boot-up are still being accessed. Contact the service provider with appropriate police report documentation and a subpoena to obtain a recent IP address for a stolen laptop.

    3    Use preinstalled antitheft clients (if you have one on your computer) to obtain a recent IP address for the stolen laptop. Supply the IP information to law enforcement.

[egarcia]

Thank you.  I will try that route. 

[Pondus]

if you want to contact avast and ask?

http://www.avast.com/en-eu/contacts

[pk]

egarcia, yes it's possible -- I sent you PM.

[egarcia]

That's great news.  I've received the PM and followed the instructions accordingly.

[DBone]

I hope they find the scumbag and you get your machine and all of your other stuff back. It would be cool if you would update this thread so we can see what happened! 

[Nesivos]

Of course none of the above works if the thief has half a brain and re-formats the laptop's internal HDD and installs their own software before using the laptop.

After all the cost of software today for the home user is a lot less than the hardware.

The thief would only have to buy a legitimate copy of W7 and install it on the reformatted HDD or even cheaper yet just get a free copy of a Linux OS.   They could probably get all the rest of the software that they need for free just by downloading it.

Hopefully this is a dumb thief.

[SpeedyPC]

egarcia, yes it's possible -- I sent you PM.

Hey! James Bond 007 (pk) don't give away to many secrets otherwise Dr Evil will rule the world.

[Shiw Liang]

LoL avast is tracking thieves

Keep up the good work guys and I hope egarcia will get back his/her laptop soon

[Redeflect]

I recently had the same problem. Unfortunately the University providing the laptops didn't make it very known that the devices no longer had anti-theft protection. Had I known, I would have procured my own. Any information that anyone could give that may help with this subject would be appreciated.(I have access to all of the necessary information for the computer, history, ownership... I just don't know who the current thief is >.<)

[Pondus]

. Any information that anyone could give that may help with this subject would be appreciated.

see reply Nr #3

[Alievitan]

Which avast edition?  Does this mean all avast version including free is traceable? 

[Lisandro]

Does this mean all avast version including free is traceable? 

No. Use Prey to trace a notebook (preyproject.com)

[Alievitan]

egarcia, yes it's possible -- I sent you PM.

Is it possible for the free version or for paid?  I have a paid license for my work labtop, but my machine at home has the free version installed on it. 

Of course I am not going to rely on Avast to retrieve a stolen machine, but it would be nice to know.