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This is assuming that you (/police/ISP) can get the [rough] location of a laptop based on IP address.

If your laptop is stolen, and the thief unwittingly connects it to the Internet, and you have Skype on the laptop could you get the public IP address of the laptop and then go to the police and get it tracked? Or activate the webcam to see the surroundings, but without having Skype ring/notify the user?

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Would you like someone else being able to do that while you were using the laptop? I understand you're probably trying to catch a thief (or trying to evade capture yourself [I hope not...]) but really...think about it. Would that not be a serious serious violation of privacy? And isn't "remote control" exactly the type of security hole OS vendors are constantly trying to patch? –  Mussnoon Nov 1 '10 at 17:55
I didn't say remote control, well if I personally got your IP address (as many web masters do) I can't see where you are in the world, without going to the police and them to the ISPs. So finding your IP address from a skype profile is really not that bigger deal? –  Jonathan. Nov 1 '10 at 19:20
If someone steals your laptop, are they even going to be able to login under your account so Skype starts? You almost certainly want one of the tools designed for this that will run in the background. –  Zoredache Nov 1 '10 at 20:02

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Why not use something like Prey? It does what you're asking without trying to kludge Skype into doing something it's not designed for.

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