In the past several months there have been a few notable news stories about laptops being stolen which contain personal identification information… from private corporations to the United States Military, lots of identity data has been compromised. The reaction amongst folks not in the computing industry is often one of surprise, but my IT experience makes it entirely believable.
Laptops get stolen, and it’s not because the average laptop theif is a genious. When I worked in IT at a certain large three-lettered corporation, we had a couple laptops stolen that contained sensitive information. One was left sitting on the seat of a truck at an adult video store. The truck’s window was broken and a few things, including the laptop, were stolen. The other happened after someone put their briefcase (with laptop) into their car in their driveway in the morning. They started up the car, left it running to warm up and went back into their house. When they came back out, someone had stolen the car with the laptop inside.
Mike has it right: use some common sense, people. Don’t leave your laptop somewhere you wouldn’t leave a pile of $100 bills.
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