Intel’s Latest Tech to Help Decrease Notebook Theft (Hopefully)

Notebooks are great for offering computing on the go, but at the same time, the portability can also be a downside. The more the notebook is out of the house, the greater the chance that it could get stolen, even if you only take your eye off of it for a minute. I’ve never had this happen to me, but I can understand the frustration that it would cause… the money paid for it wouldn’t even be the problem. The problem would be all of the personal information loaded on there, including photos, videos and even documents.

With notebooks growing extremely quick in popularity, the risk continues to grow with it that your notebook could suffer the fate of being stolen. Intel is looking to fight that possibility back by offering a new technology called Anti-Theft Technology, or ATT.

The concept is simple. If your notebook is stolen, it cannot be boot without the owners permission, which I assume to be either be a password-based solution or require the swipe of a finger. Swapping the hard drive would have no effect either, and I’d imagine that with ATT and an encrypted drive together, the notebook would be virtually useless to any thief. Here’s to hoping that this tech is well executed and catches on fast.

Intel isn’t working on this initiative alone, though. In fact, a number of third parties announced today that they were partnering up with Intel to support ATT, such as Absolute Software Corporation (creators of firmware-based data protection/tracking solutions), BIOS maker Phoenix, and Utimaco (a data security company), to name a few. Intel also says that McAfee is on board, as well as manufacturers like Lenovo and Fujitsu.

Source: Ars Technica