Quote from: AnonymousAddict on January 04, 2013, 06:18 amOk iv got a HP probook4430, It was givning to me when i got into college. Im a computer science major, and honestly i find i learn more from the other teachings of the net and computers then through school..  One of my questions is, when i turn it on, it says 'Property of _____ and has their logo etc. Well iv since left that college and on to a new one, the computer is mine, but i wanna know how the hell do i get all their Logo's and shit off just like the on soon as u turn it on says Property of so and on. You _may_ be able to disable the boot-up splash screen; some BIOSes have an option to disable the splash screen. If available, that is likely your only option to do so. Because your laptop was supplied by your school, it's only reasonable to make the following assumptions: - The laptops are purchased in bulk (probably in lots of several hundred to one thousand or more) by [deleted] College  for their students. Usually when an organization makes such large purchases, they can have machines built to order,  with specific hardware, software, etc.  - Presumably the [deleted] splash screen was included in the BIOS as a part of the build process. - It is highly likely that these machines came with Lojack pre-installed.I was only vaguely familiar with Lojack,so I went to their website to gather some information on what it does, and how it works. Unfortunately for you, the Lojack people seem to have covered most of the bases. - Lojack has entered into agreements with a wide array of hardware manufacturers to place code in their computers'  BIOSes. HP is one of those manufacturers, and your model HP PROBOOK4430, is one of those with such a modified  BIOS.  - Once activated, the code in the BIOS essentially re-installs the Lojack/Computrace Agent monitoring software when  it detects one of the following situations:   - The hard drive has been replaced; or   - The hard drive has been re-formatted or the OS has been re-installed; or  - The Lojack software has been removed.  The Lojack web page even specifies that flashing the BIOS will not remove the Lojack software, as it is located in a non-flashable area. According to Lojack's web page, the only way to remove/deactivate the software is to contact Lojack with your account information/password so the Lojack Agent software can be deactivated. Quote If the Agent has been activated and you are an authorized user with the correct password,  you can submit a request to have the Agent removed from your computer within your Customer  Center account.  I suspect you're not going to be able to do that. Let me explain: The reason [deleted] College would have had the software installed was to serve as an asset-control tool. This software would allow the College to: - Lock the computer - the computer is essentially rendered unusable. The college could place specific messages on the  lockout screen, such as "Your computer has been locked due to non-payment of tuition fees." - Delete files on the computer - Files can be deleted, so that they are unrecoverable. As part of an asset-control scheme, a student's laptop can be locked by the College if, for example, they fall behind on their tuition payments. You can see just how attractive such an option would be to them. Furthermore, once a laptop is reported 'stolen' it can be:- Tracked - Once a machine is reported 'stolen' Lojack describes the process as follows: Quote  If your computer is stolen, contact us. The next time your computer connects to the internet   it will silently switch to theft mode with Agent contact increasing from once per day to every   15 minutes. This increased contact will allow the Absolute Theft Recovery Team to forensically   mine your computer using a variety of procedures including key captures, registry and file   scanning, geolocation, and other investigative techniques to determine who has your computer   and what they're doing with it.   Most importantly, we will use our technology to pinpoint the physical location of your computer   and work closely with local law enforcement to recover it. Needless to say, for law-abiding people, these recovery procedures will not induce any alarm. For those travelling the Silk Road, however, these are an absolute nightmare scenario, as even when _not_ reported stolen, the software phones home with the user's IP address at least once every 24 hours. Remember, this will be your REAL IP address. You may remember earlier that I said you need to have a username/password to be able to deactivate the Lojack software. For logistical reasons, it is highly unlikely that each laptop was supplied with its own account. Rather, it is far more likely that all machines issued by a particular campus are included on a single Lojack account. Therefore, the personnel at [deleted] responsible for asset control would only require a single username and password to be able to monitor the campuses' entire laptop inventory. You can be absolutely certain that they're not going to give you that information, as a malicious person could lock or even wipe out the entire campus' inventory of laptops with that information. What should have happened, when ownership of the laptop was transferred to you, was that the machine should have been removed from the school's asset database, and the machine removed from the school's Lojack account. Whether this was done (or not) you will have to contact the school to find out. Quote from: AnonymousAddict on January 04, 2013, 06:18 am2nd id like to turn the 'Lowjack'I guess would be the correct term, Iv met other students that say after leaving the school they some how have access to it and just it down where u cant use it, which im sure a new HD would fic that, but iv read there are ways to get around it just not full instructions..A new hard drive will not solve your problem, if the Computrace Agent has been enabled in the BIOS. My understanding is that installing the Lojack software and setting up an account will activate this feature. The idea behind modifying the BIOS is so that hard drive wiping or replacement will not eliminate the Computrace Agent software, as it will be re-loaded from BIOS. As long as the Agent is activated in the BIOS, and you're running Windows, you'll never be rid of it. The software developers claim that the Agent functionality is located in a non-flashable section of the BIOS, so even re-flashing your BIOS will not get rid of it. Back in 2005-2006, there was a report published on Cryptome, which stated that the software could be defeated by locating the services involved, determining the IPs they were communicating with, and editing your hosts file to link these IP addresses to the loopback address. (I can't say for certain whether this information is still valid, although I think it might be.) QuoteWhat are you looking for? A program called RPCNETP.EXE. You could search the registry for itand rename it, delete it entirely, stop the services by going to the Windows ControlPanel/Administrative Tools/Services and stop it from there. Use Sysinternal's Process Explorer, Knoppix. I could count numerous ways to disable this product. As for the service Absolute offers,I've logged in twice in six months because I was wondering who was sending me those annoyingalerts, and I wanted to see exactly what information was being passed over to Absolute'sdatabases. Sysinternal Process Explorer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspxBreaking Computrace's Lo Jack for Laptops J. Oquendo ... - Cryptome: http://cryptome.org/lojack-hack.pdfSee also: Researchers find insecure BIOS 'rootkit' pre-loaded in laptopshttp://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/researchers-find-insecure-bios-rootkit-pre-loaded-in-laptops/3828See: http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-7/windows-7-hosts-file/ for help on editing the Windows hosts file. You can read an account here of how one user managed to modify his BIOS to remove computrace from it: http://www.freakyacres.com/remove_computrace_lojackWARNING: ATTEMPTING THESE PROCEDURES COULD RENDER YOUR MACHINE UNUSABLE.Quote from: AnonymousAddict on January 04, 2013, 06:18 amAnd last.. Id light to beef this computer up with as much security as i can, Iv downloaded Trucrypt and dowloaded it to my USB STICK and when i installled it, i was fucked up so im gonna have to go back and read it all over again, but it says my USB stick is mounted. I wanna do the option where theres a inner and outer system running, But when i went to do it it needs a CD, so im going to buy Blank discs tomorrow.Id like to put a whole Diffrent OS on here, such as Linux abunto, but im not sure if thats right for me. So if someone could help me get my laptop fully secure id be greatufull and when i reload coins i will throw u a little money.. Iv got a couple nice usb sticks, One is a Kingston but only 4g, Then another is 8g. So with that said help is needed.. Thnks SR FAM... Im BOUT to go look into liberty and tails nowIf I were in your shoes, I wouldn't dual-boot; I'd install a KDE-based Linux distribution such as Mepis. Mepis is oriented towards Windows refugees, so you shouldn't find it too much of a learning curve. LoJack depends on Windows -- if Linux is the primary OS, then the LoJack Agent won't know how to talk to it. You could always run Windows in a virtualbox instance, so you could effectively have both OSes running at the same time. Linux can be setup to use full-disk encryption package LUKS at the time of install. This means that the entire disk, with the exception of a small boot partition, is encrypted and unavailable without entering the passphrase to decrypt it. See: http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=mepisNC