[stcredzero]

What should we as a community do about this? Honeypot Laptops.

Laptops modded specifically as honeypots. They could be modified to maximize battery life, and pass muster as an ordinary laptop under casual observation. However, their real purpose is to sit there in extremely low power mode, waiting for someone to move them, at which point, they fire up their radio and gps, and signal cameras and security personnel on-site to start watching.

Are onboard accelerometers good enough to do dead reckoning positioning of the device within the building, provided they have good data to work from?

[serf]

>Are onboard accelerometers good enough to do dead reckoning positioning of the device within the building, provided they have good data to work from?

Sort of. Dead reckoning with accelerometers is only as good as the error correction. Accelerometers tend to gain error factor very quickly without using a form of sensor fusion such as a partnership with a magnetometer to cross reference things like yaw with.

"indoor gps" is a point of intense interest right now it seems like for in-shop marketing and other (evil) things.

[diminoten]

That's arguably entrapment, and not your job.

Leave the detective work to the cops, Bruce.

[stcredzero]

I had heard that the police in Washington state in the 90's used to leave sets of rims in the back of pickup trucks parked on the side of the road as a means of honey-trapping thieves. I also heard the cops referred to it as a time-saving measure. "Entrapment?" That's stealing, plain and simple!

Anyhow, how would that be different than someone walking out of a building with any other piece of a school's or a hackerspace's equipment? What are they going to tell a judge: "It was an unattended laptop. I had to steal it!"

[diminoten]

The key word in your first sentence was "the police".

[stcredzero]

An unattended laptop in such an environment is not an inducement to steal. All that's happening is that a particular piece of equipment is secured a bit more than usual.