Thanks Arnie.

“Today I got a new tracker for my Mac called VigiMac, its quite interesting, so I thought I’d share it with you guys! Just go to vigimac.com and follow the necessary steps to setup your mac, then if your mac ever gets stolen you can log-on to the vigimac website and enable tracking, every 2 minutes your mac calls the vigimac website and gives the IP address of the network it is currently working on, so if the thieve happens to connect to the Internet, an IP address of their connection will then be sent out, you can then find out roughly what county/state they’re in.

Then by forwarding the IP address to the police, they can then get in contact with the service provider of the IP and receive a warrant to be able to trace them to their exact address, and then hopefully you’ll be reunited with your personal files, including years and years of memories.

VigiMac also advises you on how to protect your Mac with a password that can actually STOP anybody from wiping all of your precious data!!

And the best part is, its competely FREEWARE!!”

]]> http://www.vigimac.com/2009/07/vigimac-users-in-the-world/feed/ 0 http://www.vigimac.com/2009/06/madhattcom-how-to-protect-your-mac-from-theft/ http://www.vigimac.com/2009/06/madhattcom-how-to-protect-your-mac-from-theft/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 18:34:38 +0000 VigiMac http://www.vigimac.com/?p=34 ]]> http://www.vigimac.com/2009/06/madhattcom-how-to-protect-your-mac-from-theft/feed/ 1 http://www.vigimac.com/2008/10/some-news-about-vigimac/ http://www.vigimac.com/2008/10/some-news-about-vigimac/#comments Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:44:13 +0000 VigiMac http://www.vigimac.com/?p=29 Launched on April 24, 2008, VigiMac receives signs of life of all your Mac every 3mn.
This traffic represents more than 4.5 million web requests for the month of July.
Today, more than 830 Mac in the world have been registered on VigiMac.com.

- 2400 downloads on Versiontracker : if you have installed VigiMac without registration, it will not help to track your Mac and to recover it in case of thieft.

- Only 2 donations (thank you Jean-Paul and Guillaume for your support)

- No declaration of thieft after installation of VigiMac (No, we cannot find a Mac already stolen…)

Thank you for your interest in VigiMac.

$ osascript -e ‘tell app “ARDAgent” to do shell script “whoami”‘
root

If it does not always work with MacOS X 10.5.3 (and previous versions), this security issue is not yet fixed and can appear with the last MacOS X 10.5.4 update.

You’ll find different ways to possibly close this ARDAgent security hole on macosxhints.com, like this command :

$ sudo chmod 755
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent

If you use Apple Remote Desktop Admin, this command will avoid ARDAgent to launch.
Remote Desktop Admin will work thanks to this second command line and the issue doesn’t seem to appear anymore.

$ sudo chmod +s
/System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent

You’ll find on Mac OS X Install Disc 1 the utility to easily add or remove a firmware password.

The firmware password utility is available when booting from this DVD or by following our step by step video.

Hold the Alt key at startup to test this password.

This new tool completes our anti-theft protection.
Try it now.

While some of you probably live by the saying “it’ll never happen to me,” take into account that one of your so-called friends is maybe (just maybe) eyeing your superb, 20-inch Aluminum iMac, or the MacBook Pro that you like to show off whenever you get the chance. But say you have but the best friends a guy could ask for. That still doesn’t clear you of the possibility of one day walking into your apartment only to find that your household electronics have been stolen. While VigiMac can’t help you recuperate the blender mom gave you for your birthday, it can sure help get that Mac back into your possession, and help the police put the burglar behind bars in the process.VigilMac’s purpose couldn’t be simpler and more useful. This here utility is a free tool to track your Mac on the Internet if it has been stolen. VigiMac is not intrusive and uses low bandwidth, the developer assures. As soon as the script is installed on your Mac, it is possible to know its location in case of theft as your Mac will call VigiMac’s server every two minutes.Naturally, the only way VigiMac will be able to notify you of your Mac’s whereabouts if the thief connects it to the Internet. You yourself will need to follow a few instructions afterwards, should the theft occur. It is important that you don’t forget to register your Mac on vigimac.com.

VigiMac has provided a few useful tips to optimize the protection for your Mac and to ensure that the utility software does exactly what it was intended to do.

First of all, it is really important to use a firmware password to avoid your Mac to be reinstalled or your hard disk to be formatted. Another advice is that you should let an accessible session for the thief, such as an automatic session or guest account, to give more chance for your Mac to send VigiMac servers signs of activities over the Internet.

You should, however, protect your user account with a password, be it the simplest one, to discourage the thief to reinstall the system before using it on the web. As you can imagine, it is best if you avoid revealing the presence of VigiMac on your computer. Not that thieves would know where to look – that’s why they’re in the business in the first place, otherwise, they’d be concierges at one of Apple’s Retail Stores.

Also (this goes even if you don’t choose to download and install VigiMac on your computer) it is strongly recommended that you change all your passwords (especially the one you’ll use to contact us by email) as quickly as possible, in case of theft. In case of theft, you must send VigiMac an email so they can register any sign sent by your Mac to provide the police with the Internet address of your thief.

So, what do you think? Is VigiMac worth sparing 300 kilobytes of your Mac’s hard drive?

Source: Softpedia.com