Lenovo is working with Phoenix Technologies on a new BIOS that will allow ThinkPad notebook owners to send SMSs to disable their machines completely, especially in cases of theft. The novelty, says the TG Daily, should be available free of charge at the beginning of next year and is known as Constant Secure Remote Disable.
The locking will be done immediately when the notebook is turned on or, if it is turned off, the next time the system connects to a cellular network. To reactivate it, it will be necessary to enter a special password defined in the initial configuration of the laptop.
It is good to note that the message can only be sent by one of up to 10 mobile devices paired with the computer.
Ok, cool, but: how many notebooks nowadays have built-in SIM cards? At a minimum, it would also be nice to be able to disable them over the internet, even though Lenovo's new ThinkPads with the built-in technology already come with built-in mobile broadband (3G).
In addition, “killing” does not prevent data from being recovered, since anyone can transfer the hard drive to another PC and read it normally unless they are encrypted. that is exactly what the Mac OS X FileVault is for, by the way.
