The self-healing persistence module of Computrace is shipped disabled on the notebook and must be enabled through customer activation at the time of notebook purchase. The Computrace persistence module is enabled by installing the Computrace software provided by Absolute Software, or by its inclusion in an image deployment. Please contact Absolute for more information.

The Computrace BIOS-based Agent refers to the portion of the Computrace agent software that is pre-loaded in the BIOS by various PC OEM vendors, and includes the persistence module. It is enabled when a customer purchases and installs Computrace Data Protection. It is the persistence module that determines Computrace’s ability to survive malicious or accidental attempts to remove the product.

No. The customer must purchase and activate the Computrace theft recovery service in order to leverage the BIOS-based self-healing and persistence feature of our product. of companies reported the loss of one or more laptops containing sensitive information during the past 12 months. Ponemon Institute, 2006 In a recent poll of 642 large North American organizations, more than 84% admitted experiencing a security incident over the past 12 months.

Persistence relates to the Computrace agent's ability to survive operating re-installations, hard-drive reformats, hard drive replacements and hard drive re-imaging. This persistence is critical in order to survive unauthorized removal attempts in case of theft. The extra level of persistence provided by the Computrace BIOS agent enables the Absolute Recovery Team to track and recover computers that have been stolen even if the hard drive has been removed or tampered with.

The Computrace Agent is extremely difficult to remove. The Computrace software incorporates a self-healing technology that we call “persistence”, which essentially rebuilds the agent software installation even if the agent service is deleted by conventional means. The self-healing function is not resident within the file system and is more difficult to detect and remove than “normal” software.

The Computrace Agent is very difficult to detect. The Computrace software runs as a non-descript service, and is not listed as an application. As well, the product does not show up on the programs menu listing or as a system tray icon.

The Computrace Agent reports the make, model, hardware serial numbers and IP address of the computer.

No. The agent remains inactive until its next scheduled call. Only if the computer is reported stolen by the customer is any further action taken.

The Computrace agent has the ability to gather the following four categories of information, which are primarily data points to allow us to recover lost or stolen computers and to provide asset management of your computers: Basic system information: processor type, processor speed, hard disk size, hard disk space available, RAM size, computer make/model/serial number, number of CPUs, BIOS version (PC), BIOS date (PC), networking device description (PC).

TiVo had to disable transfers to comply with CableLabs CableCARD certification requirements. TiVo is currently planning to enable these features before the end of 2007.

Computers that have the Computrace agent embedded in the BIOS should have no compatibility issues with encryption products.

No. If the persistence module in the BIOS has been enabled, Computrace's self-healing feature will repair the agent software and your notebook will still be protected. The enable/disable state of the persistence module is not stored in a part of the BIOS that can be flashed to remove it.