I'm not sure it's anti-theft, since the theft would have already occurred....

Is it possible to enable my Fedora 20 system to auto-login to any WiFi network before user login to Fedora 20? My laptop is well secured now, I think, in case of theft. If powered off, my hard drives are FDE, so it's useless; there's no possibility of recovering the PC at that point, but I know the data is secure (unless it's NSA that stole it, which, at that point, would be the least of my concerns). But if the laptop gets stolen while still on (lid closed = sleep, so resume brings you to login screen), then the person already has Fedora running. If it's on, it's on, so I may as well try to locate the laptop / ID the perp to the extent possible during this time, right?

IDing or locating my laptop would only be possible if someone connects to the Internet (and the connection does not require authentication or does not have some sort of connection restriction). But if the person doesn't login to Fedora, my system will not connect to any WiFi, and there's no chance of PC recovery.

To give background on my idea, I was hoping to connect to the strongest WiFi as soon as the system is running - first boot up, wake from sleep, etc. I almost never take the PC from my home WiFi network, and so I'd have a script that, when the WiFi connection != MyWifiNetwork, then capture still images from the webcam, i.e.:

I would then use something like inotify to launch rsync (over SSH) of the directory where the webcam pics are stored to my offsite server. Any connection means the IP will be logged.

So, the big question for me is, how do I enable Fedora to connect to any (the strongest) WiFi networks available pre-user login?

Thanks for any feedback!!

The problem is your only choice is to find and use any open networks you can access without authentication and those may not be in the vincinity there and then. Of course you could reverse that and have it yell "LAPTOP THIEF! LAPTOP THIEF! LAPTOP THIEF!" or silently self-destruct unless it sees known networks but obviously that approach has downsides too if for example you just legitimately moved out of range or boot w/o networking... ;-p

Talk about having a complete lapse of common sense - you're right, I glossed over the fact that the person's WiFi network would probably be secured. I got a good laugh out of the idea of having it yell "Thief!" - how unpleasant that would be if I settled in on my seat in the train, connected to the free WiFi, then suddenly have the computer announcing to everyone that it's stolen!

I guess there isn't too much to do on the software side. I have been toying also with the idea of one of these mini trackers that uses a SIM card and responds with GPS coordinates. These are pretty small, with the smallest one (with ok features) being just a few inches by a few inches. If no GPS is available, you can still figure out the general area based on the towers (though that probably wouldn't help if you're in a city since those are accurate to what, 1,500 feet?). Because of the small size, I could either physically attach it to my PC (and run power from the USB) so it's always on, or find a way to place the tracker's board *inside* my PC and run that off the USB from inside somehow (instead of outside wire). Or, pull out my 2nd hard drive and put it in that bay...

Heh, well I said there's bound to be drawbacks ;-p


Actually read about one recently (can't remember which gadget site tho) and it seems that as long as GSM networks are accessible (one should not expect magic halfway across the Indian Ocean) and unless your laptop moves to Japan (network type) or Italy (network disagreement) This Could Work...