Brigadoon software pc phone home

The assumption behind this is that the thief is likely to use the stolen machine to sign on to the internet. In order to facilitate this, and to prevent the bypassing of the program, it is important to set the BOIS so that the computer will only boot from the C drive, and to put a password on the BIOS program so that this cannot be changed by anyone other than you.

Obviously, it would be best if the tracking email were sent to an address that would appear on some machine other than yours. This is a clever idea that appears to work well. PC Phone Home. April 1, Share This Post. Share on facebook. Share on linkedin. Share on twitter. Share on email. Brigadoon Software, Inc. Prev Previous IRS e-mail audit scam. Since PhoneHome is designed to be undetectable, there is no sure way for a user to verify that it is running.

If you cannot come to campus, or if your computer is not a laptop, notify the Support Center of that and a technician will contact you to assist in removing the product. PC PhoneHome 4. If you have installed PhoneHome on your computer and it is stolen, you should notify Columbia Public Safety immediately, even if the theft did not occur on campus.

Be sure to mention that PhoneHome is installed on your computer. You do not need to contact Brigadoon Security Group. Columbia Public Safety will notify them of the theft reported, and will speak with Columbia University IT Security if more information is required. Once Brigadoon has been notified by Public Safety, they will contact law enforcement in the area that your machine has been seen since the theft and provide technical assistance to help them recover the machine.

Once law enforcement officials have recovered it, they will turn it over to Columbia Public Safety. The process is much easier if you can present Public Safety with some information about the machine at the time of the report. Knowing the MAC address of your network cards and the serial number of the machine can expedite the process of returning your computer.

PhoneHome is a piece of software designed to help law enforcement officials recover a stolen computer. It is available for the PC and the Mac. It can be used on both laptops and desktop computers. Whenever the computer connects to a network, it sends an email message to Brigadoon and Columbia IT Security.

If your machine is lost or stolen, These messages can be used to help recover your machine. No one is ever given your name, contact information, or anything else identifying. Brigadoon and law enforcement officials contacted will only know that it is a Columbia person's computer and it will be returned to Public Safety where you can claim it. No, you can leave PhoneHome running on machines that you have installed it on, and if it becomes stolen, you can still contact Public Safety.

The installer does not report that installation has completed successfully. If it does not give an error, it has installed successfully. PhoneHome is designed to be invisible to people using the machine, so there is no easy way to verify its presence. PhoneHome software cannot be removed in the standard way, because we don't want thieves to be able to uninstall it. Contact Columbia Public Safety and file a report. Public Safety will contact Brigadoon who will contact law enforcement officials in the location where your machine shows up.

The machine will be recovered if possible and returned to Public Safety where you can claim it. There are two pieces of information that will assist Public Safety in their investigation.