Months ago, when we began drawing sketches, trying to imagine what the iPhone client for Prey would look like, well it sure looked easy-peasy. It really did. But when we actually put our hands into it, we bumped into a number of things we had to sort out to make Prey work the way we wanted to, and of course, without breaking any of Apple’s rules. So it took longer than expected but the work is now done, and the wait finally over.

Prey is now available for iPhones and iPads at the App Store. Open source, for free, tested and ready to kick some burglar butt. Check it out.

As you may know, the Android client has a few differences with the one for desktops and laptops, mainly regarding the activation system (PC’s check with the server, while Androids wait for the activation SMS). On iOS the approach is a mixture of both, as iOS doesn’t provide a way for apps to make use of the iPhone’s SMS system as Android does.

Here’s a detailed explanation of how the iOS client actually works.

Keeping the bird watchful

The first thing that Prey does after being installed on a device, is to add a hook for iOS’ Significant Location Change (SLC) service. This provides a way for Prey to be woken up when needed, using the least possible amount of battery.

What the SLC service does, internally, is to instruct the phone or tablet to poke Prey every time it connects to a different cell antenna. Once Prey receives that poke, it will ask the Control Panel about its status, very much like the desktop and laptop version does using Cron or CronSVC.

What comes next, you already know: if the device is marked as missing, Prey will begin to send new reports. If it isn’t, it will simply go back to sleep and wait until it is poked again, when the phone connects to another cell antenna.

So, the first difference with the laptop/desktop version is that on iOS the delay between reports and actions isn’t a fixed, regular interval, but rather a semi random one which is triggered when phones move from one location to another. Pro users, however, do have On-Demand activation available in the Control Panel, that activates Prey in a glimpse without having to wait. Just as it works on PCs and Android devices.

Of course, regardless of the way you sent the signal — either pull (interval) or push (On-Demand) — Prey will send reports until the device is unflagged as missing in the Control Panel.

The main reason why Prey uses the SLC listener from iOS is simple: if it didn’t, it would need to be opened by the person holding the device in order to work. This way, Prey can run silently in the background, without giving any indication to the guy who took your phone that he’s being chased.

By the way, the SLC service as well as support for background apps was added on iOS 4.0, so unfortunately Prey won’t work on older versions of iOS. So if you’re running an earlier version then it may be time to update!

Geo module accuracy

On iOS devices, Prey’s Geo module includes a accuracy option which defines the frequency it will poll iOS for a new geolocation fix. As you may imagine, more accuracy means more battery consumption, but also a higher level of precision about your phone’s current location.

We suggest you try different options, so you get a better idea of the level of accuracy and the delay between reports. This is important because when setting the accuracy to the lowest level, Prey may not get a new fix from the iOS in a while so reports may take longer to arrive than expected. In the end, it all depends on how fast the person holding the phone moves around.

Front-facing camera support

Yup, that’s right! If your iPhone or iPad has a front facing camera then you’ll be happy to know that Prey’s iOS client supports it. This is how it works.

As soon as you push the On-Demand button, a predefined message will be displayed on your device (like the one on the right). Once the thief moves the slider, Prey will take a picture using the built-in camera, while a random bank page is opened showing a “Loading” message. This way we can get the thief’s attention so that he looks right into the camera lens when the picture is taken!

Unfortunately, Apple only allows the use of the camera when the application is running on the foreground, so the webcam module won’t work if the application is sent to the background. Bummer, I know.

In other words, if you’re not a Pro user you’ll need the app to be running in the foreground for the Webcam module to work (i.e. the user must tap the Prey icon on the phone, which is not likely to happen). If you are Pro, however, you’ll be able to send the On-Demand, push notification that, if opened, will raise the app to the foreground.

The bottom line is that if you want to take pictures remotely, you’ll probably want to upgrade to Pro. :)

Camouflage mode

Oh yes, almost forgot about this. If you installed the app on your device then you probably saw an option called Camouflage Mode. When Camouflage is enabled, a random image is shown instead of the Prey logo when the app’s icon is tapped by the user. This is just to trick the guy into thinking that Prey is a game and not the reason of his future arrest!

We’d love to be able to hide the Prey icon altogether, but unfortunately that’s not possible on iOS. However, what you can — and probably should — do is to move the Prey icon into one of iOS’s subfolders (like Utilities, which includes the Clock and Calculator). This way the thief won’t notice the application at a first glance.

Thanks beta testers

Last but not least, we’d like to thank everyone who helped us test and debug the iOS version since its early days. As promised the code is available in our repository so feel free to fork away and send pull requests. We want to build the best way for keeping track of your phone, tablet or laptop and we know that openness is the way.

So that’s it — happy hunting guys. Enjoy the app and don’t forget to submit reviews through the App Store!

Update: 0.5.1 was just pushed. Fixed an issue regarding password on Standalone mode and checks for On Demand mode.

Good news for all Prey users. Version 0.5 is available for download and ready to roll. Codenamed “Cloud Strife”, 0.5’s changes include:

• On Demand support for laptops/desktops (via a secure, persistent TCP connection) and Androids (via Google’s Cloud To Device messaging system).
• Updated Lock for Mac to make sure it triggers deactivation of module on Control Panel when successful password is entered.
• Offline actions support: You can now force the actions to be kept running even if the device goes offline.
• CronService for Windows optimizations and fixes (read note at the bottom!).
• Android: Lock module support for 2.2+ Androids. You need to grant permissions on your phone after updating, otherwise it won’t work.
• Android: can now reassign current SIM as the valid one, so you don’t need to disable the SIM lock function to stop getting alert messages when switching SIMs.
• Windows Lock binary rewritten in C#. Better focus management. Task Manager disabling works as it should in XP and Vista/7 as well. As we’re not bundling WinLock.dll any more, there shouldn’t be any more false positives.
• Mac Geo Module: support for weird chars like slashes.
• Mac & Windows screenshot grab in JPG which is lighter than PNG. Reports should get faster to destination now.
• New strategy for capturing webcam shots in Linux (waaay better image quality and lightness). Thanks to everyone who helped on this.
• Linux: Change the delay to give wifi time to work when using autoconnect (thanks Drew!)
• Linux: When using autoconnect mode in the config, Prey will use the network with the strongest signal available (again, thanks Drew!)
• Fixed file sending in SCP mode (screenshot, picture). (#76)
• Mac installer fixes. You shouldn’t get any more “Unverified” states anymore.
• Removed rubbish on Mac/Linux log files.
• Linux: Fixed Wifi device getting (using iwconfig now).
• Linux: Lock module should work on distros with Python 3 installed.

And a couple of other smaller fixes too.

Important: On Windows, running Prey as a system service –rather than at user-level — should not only be the default option but the way of running Prey on Windows, so we’re deprecating it on next release. If you’re still running at user level we strongly encourage you to switch modes. You don’t have to if you don’t want, but Prey will refuse to auto update until you do. :)

That’s it. Hope you enjoy 0.5 and, as always, happy hunting!

Hello everyone!

The latest and greatest of Prey is packed and ready to go. Codenamed “Solid Snake”, version 0.4 features two new modules, a lot of fixes and enhancements and some important code optimizations. If you wish to know how to update you can scroll to the bottom. Otherwise lets cut to the chase and see what’s new!

Windows System Service

Because you asked for it. Now Prey can run in Windows not only as the current logged in user but also as a System Service, which makes it much harder to remove. This is the setting by default for new installations, but can easily be changed with one click. Users who auto updated and want to switch must open up Prey Config and select “Run as System Service” under the Options for Execution panel.

New Mac installer

We’d seen the current Mac installer was having some trouble with odd passwords so we decided to take matters into hands. We rewrote the whole thing in native Cocoa + ObjectiveC so not only there won’t be any more issues with passwords (hopefully) but also it’ll look and work much nicer. Good one Carlos!

New configurator for Linux

No more keys to mingle with in Linux as well! This was something we still owed the Linux community. Written in PyGTK so it integrates nicely with the GNOME desktop. Additionally, when installing the Debian/Ubuntu package Prey will check if there was a previous installation, and if so it will copy your configuration so you don’t have to set it up twice.

SSL support

At last! All account setup though the installers is now done via SSL, so there will be no more passwords flying openly in the wild. We still need to “SSLize” the password log in for the Control Panel itself, but it’s on our top 10 priority list so be sure that it’ll be done in the forthcoming weeks.

New Lock and Secure modules

As we promised, Prey now has a way to remotely remove any stored passwords either in your keychains or your browser cookies, and can additionally hide your profile data from Outlook and Thunderbird if you wish to prevent unauthorized access to your emails and contacts. This module is called Secure and you can find it under the Action Modules list.

The second module we’re releasing today is a rad new one called Lock. As the name implies, it lets you lock down your computer from being used unless a specific password is entered. How does it work? Simple: if you activate the module, your computer will show an unremovable/oncloseable/unhideable/always-on-top/fullscreen black window which won’t let the user do a thing until the password is entered (or the module deactivated).

It looks like this:

Both modules work in Mac, Windows and Linux — Android users will have to wait a bit! — and from our tests they work real good. Check them out, although we advice you to be extreme careful with the first one as it can do real damage!

By the way, a huge applause to Mark (a.k.a MKHCB on the mailing list) which wrote most of the stuff for the Windows version of the Lock module, and inspired us to write the Linux and Mac versions to provide multiplatform support.

Asynchronous actions (important!)

We realized there was no good reason why actions should be bound to reports, so we decided to separate them. If you’re using Prey with the Control Panel, actions now are run regardless if the device is marked as missing or not — if it is, they will be triggered right after the report is delivered. In other words, be careful not to enable an action module by mistake as it will be activated even if the device is not missing!

Oh, and just to make sure you don’t get any unexpected behavior from Prey, we batch-deactivated all currently enabled action modules so your PC won’t start screaming if you had left the alarm module on.

The reason why this doesn’t apply to non Control Panel users is that the current way of activating modules in Standalone mode doesn’t allow us to differ between report and action modules. In other words, in Standalone mode, modules are still run only when Prey gets the “404 Not Found” response.

Additional changes and fixes

• Geo module should now work in all XP systems, thanks to Premik’s excellent contribution.
• Much better parsing method in Linux’s geo module. The bug that made it fail on some Linux systems is now also gone.
• Webcam module in Linux now takes two pictures (and uses the last one) so the camera can adjust better to the lighting conditions on the room. Pictures look a lot better!
• Debian package install in Linux now detects if there was a previous config and copies all data so you don’t have to resetup your PC.
• SFTP transfer method for Standalone mode (Thanks Birdtori!)
• Alarm module in Mac sets the volume to the highest level before sounding the siren.
• A whole lot of optimizations, some of them that specially made Mac go a bit crazy sometimes (good one Carlos!).
• New Curl bundled in Windows systems (version 7.20) which includes SSL support for setting up new accounts.
• Additional custom options for Curl requests (such as using HTTP 1.0 instead of HTTP 1.1 for passing through proxies) through a new $curl_options parameter.
• Lots of fixes here and there for modules (e.g. uptime in Windows if service wasn’t started, netstat for Macs, etc).
• Better auto connect routine for Macs, this should fix Snow Leopard issues.
• Better: OS detection logic, logging management, auto update checks, handling of processes.

How to update

There’s two ways to update to the new version. You can simply download the new package and run it, or you can also log into your Control Panel account and select the Auto Update feature for your PC’s. In this case, however, we suggest you run Prey in Check Mode afterwards to see if everything worked out smoothly (it should show “Version 0.4″). From our tests the Auto update works real solid, but you never know!

And that’s about it! If you’re interested you can look at the full commit list or simply browse the code itself. As always, we’d love to know what you think of the new features so drop us a line any time though the mailing list.

Thanks everyone for the feedback, and happy hunting!

Original picture by Borya.

Did you notice the little birdie at the top left? Hehe.

Now, as good as the geo functionality may sound, it’s not just a new module we’re releasing today. We’re talking about a completely revamped, rewritten, retweaked, restructured, reoptimized version of Prey. Not only did we take care of a lot of bugs and feature requests we’ve received, but we also packed in a whole new set of stuff that makes us really proud of this new release.

Geo… how?

Okay, basically what the new geo module does is — having that your computer has a Wifi card installed — it scans the area for existing Wifi hotspots, and then attempts to obtain a geo fix using Google’s Location API, pretty much the same way Gears and Latitude positions you on a map. This means you don’t actually need to have access to any of those hotspots, your computer just needs to detect them. And boom!

To try it just install the new version, log into your Control Panel account and activate the geo module for your device. That’s it! When set to missing, your computer will report its location in addition to everything else.

Forget about updates, for real

Remember Prey previously supported auto-updating of modules? Well, one of the biggest new features is a full-fledged updater for Prey as a whole, including its core, binary files, whatever’s in there. This means that hopefully (in case you want to use that feature) this will be the last version you’ll need to come and grab here, and to install by hand. From now on you can just toggle the Auto Update checkbox on your device page and Prey will take care of the rest.

Important to note is that this option is disabled by default, not only because it’s a new feature but we want you (now and always) to be in control, and not touch anything unless you ask us to.

No more keys to mingle with

Another big update is that from now on, Mac and Windows users won’t need to copy and paste the dreadful API and Device keys from the Control Panel in order to set up Prey. Just enter your login credentials (if you’ve already signed up for a Control Panel account) or your user information (in case you haven’t) and the installer will take care of everything.

Well, here is the complete list of changes (or the most important, at least) for this new release of Prey, version 0.3.7.

All platforms

• New Geo module for geolocating PCs using wifi hotspots as reference.
• Double check for network connection, in case the network blocks ICMP (ping) requests.
• Hidden temp folder for better cloaking when Prey is woken up.
• A lot of code optimizations, better handling of functions and variables, less filesystem access.
• Fewer requests for communicating with Control Panel.
• Split core into smaller chunks; better structure in general.
• Added hooks for asynchronous job support for modules.
• Updated email client to version 1.56.
• Better logging of actions and responses, to make debugging easier.
• Enhanced security for Control Panel, clients now get a unique one-time URL for posting reports, to avoid eventual device spoofing.
• Added updater so you don’t need to reinstall the core files for each release (to use you must enable “Auto update” for your device on the Control Panel).
• Optimized parsing of traces. They are also now handled with URL encoding.
• Email’s from Standalone mode are better formatted, and they don’t include the previous header message any more.

Mac

• Using now LaunchDaemon for running Prey, no more Cron. (Good one Diego!)
• Better installer, no more API or Device keys needed.
• Installer checks for previous configuration and restores it on installation after verifying the keys.
• No more “Darwin” references, now straightly “Mac”.

Windows

• Easy Guest account set up through configurator for password-enabled systems.
• New configurator, no more API or Device keys needed.
• Wifi autoconnect finally! A huge thanks to Pablo Poo for this one.
• Can now set delay easily through Configurator, as well as managing other features.
• Delay is now handled in the Windows registry.
• Custom installation path support (you can now install Prey on C:\HarmlessLittleProgram or whatever you like).
• New routes for platform-specific stuff (cron.exe, prey-config.exe, etc).
• Better handling of security permissions (ACLs).

Module updates

• Session: Better uptime output in Windows.
• Alert: Support for text-to-speech in Linux (requires festival or espeak installed).
• Alert: Now shouts the message only upon request. Disabled by default.
• Session: Get current logged in user
• Network: Get gateway IP as well.
• Webcam: Better quality of pictures in Windows.

That’s it! We’ve also made small usability enhancements to the Control Panel, such as making the latest reports easier to find, and also better management of system paths for the Session module.

New Terms of Service

You may have noticed that the Signup form now includes a link to a Terms of Service page. This is something we were missing and is really important (and frankly, better for everyone, for you and for us). These Terms cover only the use of the Control Panel as a service, as the Standalone mode doesn’t require you to use the web application.

Now, the Terms as an agreement isn’t done between you and me but rather between you and my company, Fork Ltd., as obviously I cannot risk getting into trouble directly as a person. This also means that now Prey as a project is officially backed up by Fork, which also means that we as a company are now commited to make this thing keep rolling on for good. Hopefully in time we will be able to redirect some resources towards having a better server infrastructure and getting more developers involved, but for now it’s just a technical issue, and we wanted you to be the first to know.

Anything else?

Yes indeed. We want to make it easier for developers to dig in Prey’s code and to push their own modules, so we want to tell you we’re now putting our hands on providing better documentation for hacking Prey and building new modules. We’re also launching (finally) the translation management platform we’ve been working on for a while.

If you have any questions, feedback, as always, let us know. Hope you like this new release, and happy hunting!

In general we can say a huge amount of code was rewritten for this version, mainly to make Prey a modular piece of software. This allows us to have more control over Prey, we can detect and correct bugs much faster, and best of all, it allows more developers to start playing and developing pluggable modules to Prey to make it even better!

We still need to do a lot regarding developer documentation, but anyone who wants to give it a shot can check our code repository and start playing around.

We would also like to thank everyone who’s contributed up to now to the project, being it through code, submitting new ideas and reporting bugs too.

As always this is a work in progress so it’s quite possibly some bugs will appear, but with a little help from our friends (yes, that’s you) well squash them out before anyone notices. There still a lot of stuff to do so if you can give us a hand we’ll gladly appreciate it.

Exciting things are ahead!