We did loads of research into this earlier this year for one of our schools as they had a bit of a problem with devices "going missing". In the end we didn't feel there was a solution that would be cost effective (compared to the cost of the losses each year). A lot of the options we saw were too easily circumvented (particularly on Mac OS by wiping the hard drive. In the end the school went for visible deterrents (asset stickers) on the devices and an insurance option.

Now that DEP is maturing as a service, I wonder if that would help here. Ensuring that devices are checking in to the JSS, even if they are erased and re-installed would certainly help reduce the number that are lost / stolen.

Good point on the DEP. And thanks for your input.

There are those out there deploying 'Prey'. Here's one thread but there are several.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=7328

I'd like to see how DEP can help with this sort of thing in real life!

P.S> You're not going to get GPS as the units don't have GPS.

I spent a couple of days too many trying to ensure that a wiped ipad would re-enroll with DEP (easy once the bugs were fixed) but also be placed in a disabled state. My goal was to identify a new enrollment, disable the iPad but allow the Self Service web clip, where a valid user could authenticate with LDAP, and then the iPad would enable again. If they couldn't authenticate then it is unusable yet it has enrolled and called home with an IP address.

I got stuck in circular logic. But also there is no way to trigger the disabling so that it only ran ONCE. So it would Enable, be seen as an Enrolled device < 1 day, disable, etc.

Also, it is good to make the effort to try and catch some of the stealers and prosecute - the word will get out if you do... and if you don't.

chris

In our district, we rely on a combination of built-in Apple features and third-party mobile device management (MDM) tools to track 1:1 devices like iPads and MacBook Airs. Apple's Find My feature is enabled by default on all student and staff devices, which allows us to locate, lock, or remotely erase lost or stolen items when needed.

We use the built-in features in JAMF. Manually being able to put an iPad in Lost Mode. Our network guys have it set up so we can log into the cisco catalyst website and see the last access point it connected to. Other then that we rely on the teachers to track the devices that have been sent home with students. We should probably figure out something more solid to track devices. Thanks for bringing this up.