Griffin Boyce writes:
Well, http://preyproject.com/ would be better for a layperson who doesn't have the time/interest to encrypt. But it's not impossible to disable or anything. And in the meantime the thief would have access to your data. Depends on whether you are more looking to get it back (no guarantees), or protect your info (all but guaranteed if encrypted).
I think Prey is a pretty compelling choice for a lot of cases, but looking
briefly at the documentation it seems that their "remote wipe" functionality
for laptops is currently quite limited. And that's confirmed by looking at
the "secure" module in the Prey source code.
https://github.com/prey/prey-bash-client-modules
https://github.com/prey/prey-bash-client-modules/blob/master/secure/platform...
https://github.com/prey/prey-bash-client-modules/blob/master/secure/core/fun...
https://github.com/prey/prey-bash-client-modules/blob/master/secure/core/run
I've suggested Prey to people before for tracking stolen devices in order to
recover them, but I don't think I could recommend it for remote wipe. It seems
to mainly use plain rm to delete the contents of a small number of directories,
and to call an API to clear MSIE browser history data. For many users, this is
a pretty incomplete notion of "wipe", and most of the content deleted this way
will be recoverable by forensics.
A further problem that comes to mind is that sending a signal to a phone (that
uses 3G networks) to wipe itself is going to be easier in a lot of cases than
to a laptop (that uses mainly wifi, and maybe not opportunistically). The
laptop will likely be offline by default if someone removes it from its normal
environment, so it won't hear the wipe signal. Solutions like Prey for laptops
mainly work because thieves or downstream purchasers may voluntarily connect
stolen laptops to networks to use them without reinstalling them (at least if
the laptops don't require, or seem not to require, a login password!).
Mike Cardwell actually uses a decoy operating system (with Prey) on his laptop
in order to tempt thieves to use it:
https://grepular.com/Protecting_a_Laptop_from_Simple_and_Sophisticated_Attac...
I'm quite impressed with his setup, which took him a great deal of time and
thought. He relies entirely on encryption to get the equivalent of remote
wiping; his Prey install is there just to increase his chances of finding the
laptop if it's taken by "common thieves".
This is some ways away from the original poster's question about remote wiping
a Windows installation. I guess I want to agree with Eugen Leitl (and Mike
Cardwell) that disk encryption ultimately does that job better, mainly since a
sophisticated or targeted attacker wouldn't connect the laptop to a network
before making a copy of the hard drive. For Windows users who've been denied
BitLocker by Microsoft's price discrimination, there's TrueCrypt.
--
Seth Schoen