Backblaze can legitimately claim it’s the only one of them

Backblaze, which costs $5 a month or $50 a year for unlimited backup of hard drives and external drives, works through software on a user’s computer that continually backs up data to Backblaze’s custom data center. Customers can use the service to recover deleted versions of files (say, for example, you edit a photo and then save it over the old one) or to restore data in the case of a hard-drive failure or theft.

So, if a thief steals a laptop, logs onto the net and starts using it, any new files made are quietly uploaded to the service, and the owner, armed with their password, can see them.

A few recoveries were made using this indirect tracking technique — including one where a thief was busted after the rightful owner found a term paper with the culprit’s name on it uploaded.

About a month and a half ago, Backblaze decided to release a proper tracking tool that lets it users see the IP address of their computer and displays its location on a map.