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Question

Nice little scripts to scope to stolen computers

  • October 23, 2014
  • 68 replies
  • 437 views

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68 replies

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  • New Contributor
  • July 5, 2018

Thanks @Xaviermlp your script has worked a charm and Prey has installed on the stolen laptop. Now to pass the info over to the Police an hopefully we will get the MacBook back.


Nick_Gooch
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  • Contributor
  • July 12, 2018

Prey is awesome. The very first screenshot we got was the user creating a new Apple ID with their full name and address. Less then an hour later the police had our laptop. It still took a few months before we were able to take possession of it.


Forum|alt.badge.img+1
  • New Contributor
  • February 8, 2019

Thank you @Xaviermlp !
It works great on Mojave too, but..... the Privacy alert for the camera pops up.

Is there any way to force-allow that? The PPPC only gives the option to deny access.


Forum|alt.badge.img+3
  • New Contributor
  • February 8, 2019

Ok, that's new, thanks for sharing.
I would start here : https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/creating-privacy-preferences-policy-control-profiles-for-macos/ .


Forum|alt.badge.img+3
  • New Contributor
  • February 8, 2019

Oh man, just found this : https://blog.fleetsmith.com/tcc-a-quick-primer/ and it states that :

Camera and Microphone access can only be denied via the Payload Profile. They cannot be allowed/whitelisted.


Forum|alt.badge.img+1
  • New Contributor
  • February 11, 2019

@Xaviermlp Thanks. I already found that it can only be set to deny ;-)
Checked the prey-forum: https://community.preyproject.com/t/mojave-pppc-with-camera-captures-in-lost-mode/1644
but no answers there (yet).
Really hope for a workaround there.


Forum|alt.badge.img+3
  • New Contributor
  • April 15, 2019

Hi there,

I am really interested in the Prey app. I have a stolen laptop and did successfully install using the scripts. But I can't seem to add the stolen computer to my Prey account. How is that done? Thanks....


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  • Honored Contributor
  • April 16, 2019

@aks if you set your API_KEY in the script the device will automatically be added to your prey account when the install completes.


Forum|alt.badge.img+3
  • New Contributor
  • April 23, 2019

Thanks! I pushed the script out, then nothing happened for a few days. Then all of a sudden, it was there. I was tracking it and had my local PD call the PD where the laptop was (1/2 way across the continent) and they picked it up at a McDonalds. Ends up the thief had 2 felony warrants out for his arrest. No telling when I will actually get the laptop back now that the PD has it, but that's ok. Neat app! Thanks for recommending it!


jzarate
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  • New Contributor
  • April 25, 2019

Thanks for the help @Xaviermlp ! Would you mind sharing the details around the policy that you use to scope this script to the target computers, such as Triggers, execution frequency, etc?


Forum|alt.badge.img+22
  • Honored Contributor
  • April 26, 2019

@jzarate Here's a shot of mine and I just add any serial numbers reported as missing to the scope.


Forum|alt.badge.img+7
  • Contributor
  • December 24, 2019

Looks like if you want to silently deploy Prey on a stolen device, you're out of luck on newer machines due to PPPC limitations. Official response from Prey: "This can’t be done, I’m sorry. This Apple policy can’t be bypassed via MDM.".

I wish Apple would come up with a "Lost Mode" for macOS devices (similar to what already exists for supervised iOS devices). That way, users would be assured that IT could only retrieve geolocation data in the event of the device being lost, with full transparency and an audit trail.


Forum|alt.badge.img+22
  • Honored Contributor
  • December 24, 2019

I officially deactivated our Prey account because of this @sim.brar


jzarate
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  • New Contributor
  • January 29, 2020

@TomDay, will the script no longer install Prey at all, or would it just no longer install secretly? Have you found any other solutions?


t_jones
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  • Contributor
  • April 21, 2021

@bollman Did you ever figure out a way to fix this script? Or any way to track down a lost mac? I know a lot of people were using prey, but since it cant be installed silently on Catalina its not an option for us.


kwoodard
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  • Valued Contributor
  • February 4, 2022

Old post, but we just had a new MBA swiped. Would love a way to track it down if possible. Anyone have a way that works with Mojave and later?


Forum|alt.badge.img+11
  • Author
  • Contributor
  • February 11, 2022

Sadly no, I haven't had the time to investigate this further. I was hoping that some open source alternative to google's wifi location service would pop up, but the last time I checked I couldn't find anything.

Nowadays, I usually trust Geoip, but for pinpointing exactly where the computer is, well, that's not good enough.


Forum|alt.badge.img
  • New Contributor
  • July 30, 2024

I've tried to update the script but critical part of it will not work on Sonoma+ systems due to deprecation of airport cli utility... I've tried to use some 3d party solutions but all of them needs to be whitelisted with Location Services permissions. Google Location API works fine with new token system and JSON body requests.