5 ms·

HN: Feedback on my laptop recovery service

8 points by sigfrid 18y ago

Think "lojack for laptops." Sign up, download/install client, and if you mark it as stolen you can recover files, delete files, see the IP, take pics, etc.

tstegart 18y ago
It looks good. I would charge for it though. It almost seems strange/shady if you don't charge for it, especially if the recovery data is hosted by you. I suggest not using what a lot of other companies use, which is charging per month. For some reason, I really hate that. Maybe per year, like $20. You should do some sleuthing, see what people might pay. (I understand if you're not charging because you want people to check it out). Also, on the marketing side, I want to know more about how it works and what it does. Some people might not be as literate. I assume it doesn't "phone home" if the thief never turns it on or connects it to the internet, or immediately formats the drive. You should explain that somewhere. Also, what files can you retrieve and where? If the thief is using it at the time you're trying to retrieve files, does the thief have any indication something is happening? You don't need all this on the home page, but maybe under a "learn more" button. Using the term beacon implies that you can tell your customer where their laptop is located (i.e. a physical address). Also, what help would you give to someone once they get the IP address. What do I do once I know the thief's IP address? Honestly, what would you do?
- jonknee 18y ago
  I'd charge when people need to use it. Or at least have that as an option. That might lead to a lot of installs (it's free insurance), but if your laptop gets stolen it's not a big deal to pay $200 to get your data. And of course that seems more legit than free (I would never sign up for this thing as is, you don't explain who you are or why you're providing this service.
  - tstegart 18y ago
    You have to be careful with marketing to get this to work, but I think lots of people would love it. One, it's very attractive to only pay if your laptop is stolen, so if you take care of it, you get the peace of mind of the service without paying out any money. On the other hand, people usually aren't in a very good mood when their laptop has just been stolen, and having to pay money on top of that puts them in a worse mood. Then, if they don't get all their data back or can't recover it, because maybe the thief doesn't leave it connected to the internet, then they're going to be in an angry mood. Its like there's a fine line. People love the idea of only paying when its stolen, but hate the idea of paying once it has been stolen.
    - sigfrid 18y ago
      I optimistically assumed people would be so happy they got some data back they'd be willing to pay without thinking twice. What pushed me more towards a yearly fee is purely selfish interest: I pay hosting even if no one's laptop even gets stolen ;-).
      - jonknee 18y ago
        Charging only if you can recover data makes you stand behind your product more though. I'd trust a service more if they put their revenue where their mouth is.
      - tstegart 18y ago
        You'd think that, but to sell it you'd have to phrase it that way in your marketing so people know what to expect. Thats what marketing is sort of about most of the time, managing people's expectations. There a difference between saying "our product can transfer the files you select when your laptop is stolen" and "For $20 we'll use our software to recover as much as we can." In one, a customer assumes they will get something, while in another, a customer hopes to get something. If you fail, the customer who assumed will be angry at themselves for making a false assumption, but they will take it out on you. The customer who hoped might still be angry, but not as you (unless he sees no one else getting data, then he will be angry at you for creating false hope).
- sigfrid 18y ago
  Thanks much for the input. I was planning on charging like $15 a year or so to recoup server costs once I'm sure it works and such. If a free product doesn't work people get mad, but if a pay product has problems they get really mad and so does their credit card provider. About the IP address, I would probably find out the ISP and then email the ISP. Realistically, I think that's the best you can do in many cases. The police have better things to do than track down the odd stolen laptop.
  - tstegart 18y ago
    You should put a few how-to docs up there about finding an ISP, etc. Explain it might not always work, that sort of thing. I'm always in favor of more explaining, especially if you want to attract users who aren't technologically savvy, but savvy enough to want protection.
  - jonknee 18y ago
    > About the IP address, I would probably find out the ISP and then email the ISP. Realistically, I think that's the best you can do in many cases. The police have better things to do than track down the odd stolen laptop. You don't seem fairly motivated to recover the laptop (nor even have a real plan), that's not a good quality for such a service. There are plenty of other competitors in the space and they are very enthusiastic about working with the police. A few great success stories are priceless in marketing value. In general, you should be very very specific about what your software does and what you'll be able to do in case of a reported stolen laptop. It's essentially spyware, so you need to be very up front.
dandelany 18y ago
A small design annoyance: the icons on the left are transparent GIF's, and they're resized in the browser using the image tags. Resize the images themselves so that they are the same size as they appear on the page, this will get rid of the jaggedy non-anti-aliased resized look. Also, make them JPGs with the blue background color. If you absolutely must make them transparent GIFs, use Photoshop to set the matte background to the blue color so they don't have a white halo around them. This is a small thing, but it'll go a long way towards looking professional, I promise.
huhtenberg 18y ago
You have zero implementation details on the website, so based on this fact alone I am going to assume that client-side beacon is something simple, like a system service or daemon running under the OS control. If that's true, then it is quite lame compared, for example, to http://absolute.com/products-computrace-products.asp http://absolute.com/products-computrace-products.asp. These guys went into a trouble of standardizing boot-level beacons, entering partership agreements with HD manufacturers, etc. and that's why their beacons survive all but the low-level HD formatting. That's pretty much what you have to do for the tracking service to have any value. If the beacon can be wiped out with a simple OS reinstall, your phone-home-after-the-incident rate is going to be close to zero. In other words, there is very sophisticated and mature competition, and your service doesn't appear to live up to it at the moment. That's assuming I am right about the implementation approach.
gstar 18y ago
Also have a look at Adeona (http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/ http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/) Its a similar free product that goes to great lengths to anonymise the tracking data from the laptop and de-centralise the storage - mostly by leveraging OpenDHT (http://www.opendht.org/ http://www.opendht.org/) I also agree with the other commenters about people being wary of centralised control, and the security risks that a compromise of your server could potentially cause (downloading of arbitrary files on all your users laptops by an attacker!) Your added value here is file recovery, which I haven't really seen done before - perhaps you could expand the Adeona concept with that - and while you're at it wrap Adeona with something more friendly to install and understand. huhtenberg has a valid point with the beacon survival, but callings yours 'quite lame' was a bit harsh!

8 points by sigfrid 18y ago

Think "lojack for laptops." Sign up, download/install client, and if you mark it as stolen you can recover files, delete files, see the IP, take pics, etc.

tstegart 18y ago

It looks good. I would charge for it though. It almost seems strange/shady if you don't charge for it, especially if the recovery data is hosted by you. I suggest not using what a lot of other companies use, which is charging per month. For some reason, I really hate that. Maybe per year, like $20. You should do some sleuthing, see what people might pay. (I understand if you're not charging because you want people to check it out). Also, on the marketing side, I want to know more about how it works and what it does. Some people might not be as literate. I assume it doesn't "phone home" if the thief never turns it on or connects it to the internet, or immediately formats the drive. You should explain that somewhere. Also, what files can you retrieve and where? If the thief is using it at the time you're trying to retrieve files, does the thief have any indication something is happening? You don't need all this on the home page, but maybe under a "learn more" button. Using the term beacon implies that you can tell your customer where their laptop is located (i.e. a physical address). Also, what help would you give to someone once they get the IP address. What do I do once I know the thief's IP address? Honestly, what would you do?

jonknee 18y ago
I'd charge when people need to use it. Or at least have that as an option. That might lead to a lot of installs (it's free insurance), but if your laptop gets stolen it's not a big deal to pay $200 to get your data. And of course that seems more legit than free (I would never sign up for this thing as is, you don't explain who you are or why you're providing this service.
- tstegart 18y ago
  You have to be careful with marketing to get this to work, but I think lots of people would love it. One, it's very attractive to only pay if your laptop is stolen, so if you take care of it, you get the peace of mind of the service without paying out any money. On the other hand, people usually aren't in a very good mood when their laptop has just been stolen, and having to pay money on top of that puts them in a worse mood. Then, if they don't get all their data back or can't recover it, because maybe the thief doesn't leave it connected to the internet, then they're going to be in an angry mood. Its like there's a fine line. People love the idea of only paying when its stolen, but hate the idea of paying once it has been stolen.
  - sigfrid 18y ago
    I optimistically assumed people would be so happy they got some data back they'd be willing to pay without thinking twice. What pushed me more towards a yearly fee is purely selfish interest: I pay hosting even if no one's laptop even gets stolen ;-).
    - jonknee 18y ago
      Charging only if you can recover data makes you stand behind your product more though. I'd trust a service more if they put their revenue where their mouth is.
    - tstegart 18y ago
      You'd think that, but to sell it you'd have to phrase it that way in your marketing so people know what to expect. Thats what marketing is sort of about most of the time, managing people's expectations. There a difference between saying "our product can transfer the files you select when your laptop is stolen" and "For $20 we'll use our software to recover as much as we can." In one, a customer assumes they will get something, while in another, a customer hopes to get something. If you fail, the customer who assumed will be angry at themselves for making a false assumption, but they will take it out on you. The customer who hoped might still be angry, but not as you (unless he sees no one else getting data, then he will be angry at you for creating false hope).
sigfrid 18y ago
Thanks much for the input. I was planning on charging like $15 a year or so to recoup server costs once I'm sure it works and such. If a free product doesn't work people get mad, but if a pay product has problems they get really mad and so does their credit card provider. About the IP address, I would probably find out the ISP and then email the ISP. Realistically, I think that's the best you can do in many cases. The police have better things to do than track down the odd stolen laptop.
- tstegart 18y ago
  You should put a few how-to docs up there about finding an ISP, etc. Explain it might not always work, that sort of thing. I'm always in favor of more explaining, especially if you want to attract users who aren't technologically savvy, but savvy enough to want protection.
- jonknee 18y ago
  > About the IP address, I would probably find out the ISP and then email the ISP. Realistically, I think that's the best you can do in many cases. The police have better things to do than track down the odd stolen laptop. You don't seem fairly motivated to recover the laptop (nor even have a real plan), that's not a good quality for such a service. There are plenty of other competitors in the space and they are very enthusiastic about working with the police. A few great success stories are priceless in marketing value. In general, you should be very very specific about what your software does and what you'll be able to do in case of a reported stolen laptop. It's essentially spyware, so you need to be very up front.

dandelany 18y ago

A small design annoyance: the icons on the left are transparent GIF's, and they're resized in the browser using the image tags. Resize the images themselves so that they are the same size as they appear on the page, this will get rid of the jaggedy non-anti-aliased resized look. Also, make them JPGs with the blue background color. If you absolutely must make them transparent GIFs, use Photoshop to set the matte background to the blue color so they don't have a white halo around them. This is a small thing, but it'll go a long way towards looking professional, I promise.

huhtenberg 18y ago

You have zero implementation details on the website, so based on this fact alone I am going to assume that client-side beacon is something simple, like a system service or daemon running under the OS control. If that's true, then it is quite lame compared, for example, to http://absolute.com/products-computrace-products.asp http://absolute.com/products-computrace-products.asp. These guys went into a trouble of standardizing boot-level beacons, entering partership agreements with HD manufacturers, etc. and that's why their beacons survive all but the low-level HD formatting. That's pretty much what you have to do for the tracking service to have any value. If the beacon can be wiped out with a simple OS reinstall, your phone-home-after-the-incident rate is going to be close to zero. In other words, there is very sophisticated and mature competition, and your service doesn't appear to live up to it at the moment. That's assuming I am right about the implementation approach.

gstar 18y ago

Also have a look at Adeona (http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/ http://adeona.cs.washington.edu/) Its a similar free product that goes to great lengths to anonymise the tracking data from the laptop and de-centralise the storage - mostly by leveraging OpenDHT (http://www.opendht.org/ http://www.opendht.org/) I also agree with the other commenters about people being wary of centralised control, and the security risks that a compromise of your server could potentially cause (downloading of arbitrary files on all your users laptops by an attacker!) Your added value here is file recovery, which I haven't really seen done before - perhaps you could expand the Adeona concept with that - and while you're at it wrap Adeona with something more friendly to install and understand. huhtenberg has a valid point with the beacon survival, but callings yours 'quite lame' was a bit harsh!