Does your laptop's Wi-Fi make it more vulnerable to thieves?

It was a startling claim: Like a virtual trail of cookie crumbs, your laptop could be beaming out invisible signals that are attracting intrepid thieves armed with a common $5 gadget.

This alarming scenario comes by way of a press release from security vendor Credant Technologies Inc.

Citing a news report from Jamaica, Credant's vice-president of marketing, Sean Glynn, notes that "low-cost key fob Wi-Fi detectors for under a fiver, and quite sophisticated directional detectors for around the 30 pounds mark ... [and could be] used by thieves to detect the presence of an out of sight laptop."

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It was a startling claim: Like a virtual trail of cookie crumbs, your laptop could be beaming out invisible signals that are attracting intrepid thieves armed with a common $5 gadget.

This alarming scenario comes by way of a press release from security vendor Credant Technologies Inc.

Citing a news report from Jamaica, Credant's vice-president of marketing, Sean Glynn, notes that "low-cost key fob Wi-Fi detectors for under a fiver, and quite sophisticated directional detectors for around the 30 pounds mark ... [and could be] used by thieves to detect the presence of an out of sight laptop."

That's because newer laptops have a set time -- sometimes up to 30 minutes -- before they go into sleep mode when the laptop's lid is closed, Glynn asserts.

He said that window of opportunity aids thieves prowling offices or shopping mall parking lots looking for corporate laptops to steal immediately after work.

However, experts polled by Computerworld said that for most users, Wi-Fi doesn't increase their laptops' chances of being stolen.

For users who are careless with their laptop and its settings, there could be an increased risk of theft. But as long as they abide by these steps, those risks can be mitigated, they said.

The holes in Credant's scenario:

* Contrary to Credant's assertion, most laptops running Windows, Mac OS X or Linux today are set to go to sleep (in Windows, this is called S3 Suspend Mode) when the lid is shut, said Bill Gordon, director of wireless technologies for AbsoluteSoftware, maker of the Lojack for Laptops notebook recovery software.That should immediately turn off the laptop's Wi-Fi chip or card, said Kelly Davis-Felner, marketing director for the Wi-Fi Alliance. "I'm a little suspicious of this idea of an epidemic of laptop thievery," Davis-Felner said.

* Virtually all pocket Wi-Fi detectors by companies such as IOGEAR, Targus and Kensington can only detect the presence of a Wi-Fi access point. That's denoted by the SSID, the cute name you gave your home wireless network when asked by your router. Wi-Fi detectors cannot see Wi-Fi signals broadcast by laptops that are only connecting as a client, as most of them are, said Glenn Fleishman, a journalist who runs the blog Wi-Fi Net News.

* Most Wi-Fi detectors only pick up the strength of the Wi-Fi access point's signal, not where it's coming from, said Fleishman. Also, any wireless signal leaking out from a laptop in a bag or case would be very weak compared to a true access point, he said.

* While detecting a Wi-Fi signal could theoretically aid a parking lot prowler, it might actually deter a thief in a home or office because "it would suggest the presence of a person working," says Absolute's Gordon.

* On the MacBook side, the Wake On Demand feature in its latest OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) enables a MacBook to turn on if an Apple Wi-Fi base station wakes it in order to send it some data, said Fleishman. However, Fleishman doesn't believe that the MacBook would be broadcasting any detectable Wi-Fi signal.