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12,000 Laptops Lost Weekly At Airports
kthejoker writes "Apparently companies are even worse about losing our data than we suspected. From the article: 'According to a study of 106 major US airports and 800 business travelers published by the Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer, about 12,000 laptops are lost in airports each week. Only 30 percent of travelers ever recover the lost devices. Nearly half of the travelers say their laptops contain customer data or confidential business information.' Kinda scary..."
Perhaps they should have purchased insurance? .
After all, the workers know not to steal the ones with the insurance stickers.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
Truecrypt or similar commercial offerings are available and reliable. Protect your data and ours.
Where the hell are the 40,000 unrecovered laptops a year going? Is there really that much of a market for used (stolen) laptops?
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
This story is bunk. It does not pass the sniff test.
600,000 laptops a year just floating around in thieves hands.. I don't buy it..
Bad science.. bad study.
The story doesn't say how many are recovered before the laptop loser leaves the building. it is probably 90%. I can live with 60,000 a year stolen.. but 600k.. blah.
According to a study [...] published by the Ponemon Institute and Dell Computer, about 12,000 laptops are lost in airports each week. Only 30 percent of travelers ever recover the lost devices. Nearly half of the travelers say their laptops contain customer data or confidential business information.
In what I'm sure is completely unrelated news, the release of this report coincides with Dell releasing a new service - Dell Mobility Services Aim To Protect Notebook Data, and New Dell Services Help Users Hunt Down Missing Laptops.
"Goodness me, how unlike the FBI to abuse the trust of the American public." -- The Onion
I thought this was going to be another story about TSA outright stealing laptops. Glad to read it's about people misplacing them instead. Whew.
When I travel with a laptop, I make sure it's my only carry-on. I store extras in the front and inner pockets of the laptop bag. You're less likley to lose something if you've only got 1 thing to remember.
Camping on quad since 1996.
This number of lost laptops in airports is pretty hard to believe. Worldwide laptop production is like what, 60 million units? This article seems to be telling us that one percent of all the laptops made every year in the whole entire world are lost in U.S. airports.
It's a pretty big number given all the other ways a laptop can meet its end. Where are they all going? Is there some kind of giant warehouse somewhere?
No wonder mobile sector of the computer industry is booming.
Bibo Ergo Sum.
12,000 / 106 = avg 113 laptops / airport / week.
Seems a little high. The pdf doesn't mention what was counted in "lost/stolen" laptops. Do they count every time someone couldn't find their baggage on the belt and reported it (and it just so happened they had a laptop)?
Only thing the pdf says about it is this:
The article does say though that the study was sponsored by Dell supporting its ProSupport Mobility whatever. It claims that Ponemon conducted it independently.
Either way, encrypt your laptops, and try to setup RDC or somesuch, so you can prevent sensitive data from being cached. But encryption should stop casual thieves 99% of the time. I assume Dell's stuff they're selling is meant to wait until someone accesses the internet with a stolen laptop and try to track it that way. But shouldn't the top priority be to prevent data from being accessed in the first place?
What's more important? The data or the hardware cost?
Billy Brown rides on. Yolanda Green bypasses Gary White.
It also could be done to avoid the costs associated with recycling outdated hardware.
But, in this day and age, isn't every abandoned piece of luggage treated like a WMD? I would expect a lot more bomb squad activity at airports based on these (surely inflated) numbers.
Really, let's look at who sponsored this study... Dell, and what do they have to gain from having businesses think that their laptops are all going to be lost?
Why, insurance from them obviously. They do have very good lost/accidental insurance cover (which I got on my current laptop because work paid for it)... but it costs money, and obviously makes them money overall.
So, take these results with a monstrous rock of salt.
and VPN into my network here. (In defense, I keep NICE toys up here. Stuff the client doesn't need to know about.)
The client picks up the cost and I don't carry anything when I travel.
The safest place to keep my data is right at home.
When the job is over I wipe the drive anyway, hand it back to the rental place and catch a flight back.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"Los Angeles's LAX reported more laptop losses than any other airport, about 1,200 per week. Most of the airports said they generally keep the laptops for some period of times, then destroy them if they are unclaimed."
Destroy perfectly good computers??? Why??? Just destroy the drive, at most. Come on, how stupid can you get? Put them in schools, give them out to students, sell them to another country, but for Pete's sake don't throw them on landfills.
I think "Lost" should be replaced with stolen. The numbers are absurdly high, if 624,000 laptops are going missing at airports each year then that is a threat to national security and the goverment should do something. This article is a troll.
You know, you put your stuff on the belt, walk through the detector, and they ask you to step aside for special screening without giving you a chance to collect your stuff. Or the detector beeps, and they need to ask you to step aside so they can check you with a wand. And all the while this is happening there is a crowd of people between you and your stuff. You can't see it. You can't tell the TSA agent to let you go so you can keep an eye on your stuff.
It is a miracle I have never lost anything at during security check.
That's actually a little surprising, because I've been on flights before where someone checks a bag and then doesn't show up for the departure (there's always at least one), and they have to open the cargo hold up and search for his bag to remove it.
I read the internet for the articles.
But still, what kind of moron loses their laptop while traveling? I can't imagine letting it out of my sight or even out of my reach.
It doesn't take a moron. It takes someone who's momentarily distracted, tired, or asleep.
I could say it takes an uncompassionate git to make such a sweeping statement with no regard for the wide variety of circumstances under which people that travel.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
How pampered does one have to be to forget a laptop? I paid a lot for mine, and I'm not leaving it ANYWHERE.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I heard for every driver that got killed in a car accident, 1 out of 5 was drunk. So I better drink before getting behind the steering wheel, if sober drivers are more likely to get killed!