Official responsiblity -- no, of course not. God forbid it comes to that, but I'd try anything to recover my empeg. Sure, its a big ticket item, but I've got some music on there that would be difficult to replace.

How do you feel about some sort of "spyware" idea?

Units fresh from the factory would, upon first install/emplode, allow the user to insert an e-mail address into the unit. From then on, that install of emplode and the e-mail address inside the unit would match...UNTIL the unit was synchronized on some other system, namely the thief's computer (or the thief's customer) -- which is going to happen VERY soon, since they're not likely to have my taste in music, etc.

emplode could try and send e-mail to the address stored in the unit, with the IP of the machine which it was just sync'ed with. The unit would not behave ANY differently, nor signal what it was doing. It is likely that even a dialup connection might be up in conjunction with emplode running (oh, gee, I wonder why...heh heh)

The e-mail in the empeg could be password protected, so that a handover of empeg (sale, borrow, etc.) could let the actual owner reset the notifcation address, etc.

This is, of course, a cursory and simplistic description of what might be a more complete mechanism, but insofar as this basics here, it *could* prove invaluable in recovering an expensive and very personal piece of equipment.

Imagine it:

"Officer, my car-stereo just sent me an e-mail notifying me of the IP address of the thief that stole it. Could you please contact [ISP name] and give them this timestamp and IP and trace the user and or telephone number it corresponds to?"

Police have responded to lesser crimes involving an IP address and exact timestamp.

Worst case, if the password is forgotten and an e-mail address is stuck inside and the empeg still thinks it was stolen, its just the empeg spamming the former owner.



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MK2 #141, green, 12GB