GadgetTrak Security System Nabs iMac Thief With Startling Precision

GadgetTrak, an anti-theft tracking system, claimed its first victory, and we’re pretty impressed. An iMac was stolen two weeks ago, and the thief wasn’t clever enough to reformat. Big mistake: GadgetTrak managed to find his location and took his photo.

After two weeks, the thief made the mistake of connecting to the internet, and GadgetTrak collected tons of info. It triangulated his longitude and latitude via WiFi (and provided a link to the location on Google Maps!), his IP address, WiFi networks in range, and the username, and even took a photo of him with the iMac’s built-in webcam. The iMac and two other stolen laptops were traced to a tattoo parlor in Brooklyn and recovered.

Of course, the system only works if the thief neglects to reformat the hard drive and connects to the internet, but we’d be willing to bet that that’s not as uncommon as you’d think. It’s a pretty great system, as long as thieves don’t figure out how to work around it. [GadgetTrak]