Gary, the web link has changed.  But was this for CompuTrace by Absolute.

http://www.absolute.com/

If so, I believe they are taking advantage "sleep/power down" disk area for
lap top computers.  Basically the Laptop makers create the DOS/Windows
partition somewhat smaller than the whole drive, and put the sleep area
after the big partition.  I think Computrace is inserting itself in-between
the two and changing the partition size.

On laptops that sleep partition size is often a hidden BIOS setting.  This
would allow them to insert the trace program, yet prevent its destruction
with FDISK/MBR and the ordinary FORMAT command.  However pulling the drive
out of the PC and using DISKManager (Ontrak) on it would pretty much wipe
out the trace program.

But I doubt the thieves are smart enough to do that,  most of them want to
pawn the stuff fast.  The result is the poor soul that buys this really
good bargain PC and connects to an ISP, may discover later that the laptop
was stolen.   If he is lucky, they only get a good tongue lashing by the
police, if not, they also get arrested for having stolen property.