So. You learn a lot when your computer disappears.
Here are some things I'm glad I did beforehand (and then some things I wish I'd done).
- Sugarsync. I love this service. It's cross-platform (Mac and PC). I choose which folders to back up and any changes that I make in that folder sync to the web. Over the course of the last two years I've seen three hard drives fail (two Mac, one PC) and all of them had everything restored thanks to Sugarsync. Most users can probably get away with their free version, but I pay a few bucks a month for extra storage space.
- Online email access. I know there are some benefits to having Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, or another email client on my computer, but in a case like this, it's nice to have the web as my primary way of accessing email.
- I had few "saved passwords." I'm definitely going to do this less because I had to log in to all my services again and change the passwords.
Some things I wish I'd done.
- There is software that you can install on your computer in case of theft. I was referred to the Prey Project, but I'm sure there are more as well. Some can track the location of the computer when it gets on an Internet connection, or they can activate the camera and take a picture. I'm looking into this more.
- I wish I'd had the serial number stored somewhere easier to find than having to look for the original box. Helps for a police report.
- And, the obvious. Not left a nice laptop out on a desk. Even if I thought it was behind a locked door, it was clearly too tempting a target and should have been covered up a bit if I needed to step out.
Regarding email, webmail or a desktop email client isn’t an either/or proposition. Any email provider worth their salt will allow you to connect to your email via IMAP or Activesync meaning your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, Mail, etc) will stay in sync with the server and you can access your email via a web interface. A desktop email client is necessary if you find yourself needing to encrypt or cryptographically sign email using PGP, GnuPG or S/MIME.
Regarding passwords I use a password manager, KeePassX. It makes it easy for me to access and use different passwords for sites and systems. I generally do not trust browsers to store passwords for me. I use a very strong passphrase for KeePassX but I would still change passwords for my most valuable accounts (email, banking, etc.) if I found out my KeePassX encrypted password file had been compromised.
Finally this is an area where Apple, and even the major Linux distributions, are really behind Microsoft regarding security. All of the major computing platforms offer some level of file system encryption to protect your files should your computer fall into the hands of a criminal. Unfortunately Microsoft is the only one that provides meaningful protection that will stand up against the attacks of all but nation-states or large corporate attackers. Microsoft in the Enterprise and Ultimate editions of Windows 7 has a feature called Bitlocker.
In a PC equipped with a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) Bitlocker is able to integrity protect the boot process of your laptop protecting you from all but the most sophisticated (and unlikely) versions of the so called “evil maid” attack. The TPM also provides secure storage for cryptographic keys preventing the so called “cold boot” attack.
Linux has some limited support for using TPMs to enhance platform security but concerns over anti-user activities by OEMs and software ISVs, termed “Treacherous Computing,” has limited Linux support for TPMs. Apple’s attempts to address this issue, in the form of FileVault, are limited by their unsafe implementation of key storage in the Mac OS X “safe sleep” mode.
Sorry, line breaks appear differently in the comment composer than they do in the published comment. That is one big block of text.
Aw man! What a nightmare. I’m totally installing some tracking software on my laptop now. Remote wipe coming in OS X Lion, although that doesn’t really help now… Even more awesome would be “remote electroshock” so you could really send a message.
Did you have Back to My Mac turned on?
@Andrew Thanks for the background!
@Seamus. I don’t think I had Back to the Mac on. Doesn’t look like it. Remote electroshock would be handy! 🙂