Hi, I have writen two applications (in Python) which will be used as a anti-theft solution for my N900.

The 1st is an application in the background which looks at sms messages my phone receives and if there is a specific command in it from a specific sender it will start the other Python application in the background which is sending the GPS coordinates, through gprs connection, to my website where the data is processed to a log file. The GPS data is then on my website, in combination with Google Maps, processed to nice pictures with the current tracking path of my 'stolen' N900. This made my N900 a moblie GPS tracker... It works great!

This is why the N900 is so great, a little mix of Python, Apache webserver, html coding & Google Maps makes it all possible...

It's also possible to send other information this way; battery life, movement (accelero meters), webcam picture etc.

this is an awesome app idea, would be perfect for the odd trip to the pub, I have done this before once and left my phone by mistake. Luckily for me the owner put my phone to one side but wht if he hadn't?

What if he swaps the simcard?

(added this bit in at the end ... sorry this is such a long thread but i got a bit carried away, i have read and reread this to ensure i dont ramble on about nothing and i think its all pretty clear so developers please please read through and if you created a program that could do something along these lines i would happily pay for it)

reading through this thread there are some brilliant idea's, I have lost phones in the past when at pubs/clubs/gigs etc etc and also had phones stolen, when I have tried to call the phone it has rang out, tried again - rang out tried again - turned off! obviously someone had the phone, saw me calling so turned it off and i never saw the phone again

... my thoughts are as follows:

The program would do the following:

SCENARIO 1 - THE THIEF/FINDER LEAVES THE PHONE ON WITH YOUR SIM CARD STILL IN IT
If you lose/have phone stolen you could send a text message to the phone from any other mobile phone with a set 'code' in it (eg. code is 175896) which would set off a trigger in the program, so you would send message saying something that would keep the phone holders intrest to prevent them from turning the phone off such as
**had a great night, when i get home i will send you a sexy picture message of me - call me then on 01246175896***
Then the program secretly send gps co-ordinates via
1)text once a minute to the phone you text the code 175896 from
2)constantly to an internet map program such as google maps

From that information if you have someone sat in front of a computer or another decent web page accessible phone (like the n900) they/it can direct you via the map data that is being updated constantly so you can catch up with the person (or if the online map can store the route you could even track the n900 to a particular house it has been taken to and then call police and show them your evidence of how you know the phone is in a particular house)

SCENARIO 2 - THE THIEF/FINDER REPLACES THE SIM CARD WITH THEIR OWN
The program would detect a new sim has been inserted and instantly send just 1 secret text message to a pre-determined phone number, such as the wifes phone number with the following information
1) All SMS and Phone numbers contained in the new sim
2) The new inserted sims phone number

From the above information you could then do one of the following
1)Call the police and see if from the new inserted sims phone number they can request the owners details and trace your phone that way (IMO rubbish as this would take ages and probably wont succeed)
2) Call the new inserted sims phone number and blag the persons details from them by saying something like "you registered your mobile phone details with us a while ago and you have won one months free text messages" and try to get their name and address (if you are no good at blagging get someone to do it for you, i'm a salesman and i reckon i could get their details from them)
3) if the above fails then call the new inserted sims phone number and threaten them to give the phone back otherwise you will send a text message to all of the following numbers (at this stage read out all the phone numbers from his sim that you received such as mom on 07911111111, dad on 0792222222) with the text message saying something like
****my Nokia N900 was stolen 3 days ago by someone in the 02 academy nightclub in Birmingham, I know the person who stole its phone number, it is 07988888888 if you type that number into your phone and press the dial button you will see which one of your friends is a dirty rotton thief*****
4)some key phone numbers you receive will have family phone numbers such as 'Moms Mobile' 'Dads Mobile' which you could try calling and asking the thiefs mom or dad to help you get the phone back.

There are obviously other features that could be added to this scenario such as
pictures from front camera
gps information
but what about if the new sim doesnt have internet and they notice credit dissapearing every 15 minutes, they will then turn the phone off.

Perhaps when an internet connection is activated by the phone holder other info could be sent to you via internet (either wlan or mobile internet) in some way
wlan would enable you to get ip address

@AlexDT:

If it's swapped -after- I remotely activated the GPS tracker, I won't matter. If before, I'm having a big problem...

Personnaly I'm not really worried about theft, more of losing the Nokia in some way.

I've placed this in the Ideas for GSOC 2010, under the title MaeAgent
http://wiki.maemo.org/GSoC_2010/Project_ideas

Anybody interested to mentor?

i like this thread

I have also now created a website to track my n900 and if it gets lost/stolen I can tell it to do various things.

The tracking service is intended at this point for people interested in developing an application to use it, or people who are happy playing in scriptworld - I have included the scripts that I used to get it working and that run on my n900 now

See http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=627494 for details.

Cheers,

Ben

very good tool.
Could be added in the OVI store !

One cool option would be in case of theft to protect personal data :
providing a public key to the server when you detect your phone is stolen makes the phone to encrypt all personnal data with it.
You will be able to uncrypt it if your phone gets back with the private key (you never gave to anyone even the website).

Also, uploading your encrypted personnal data to the net to recover them would be nice.

I would pay for such an app !!!

Please execute the idea. I'll definitely pay for app like this.

Better run it stealth mode, i.e. the thief is not aware of its existence; and can be managed remotely.