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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.
...Why do they keep giving these 800 people laptops if they're each losing over 12 per week?
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.
.... and the answer is yes.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That is nothing compared to the amount of passenger's luggage that is lost daily by the airlines.
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.
I Heart Sorting Networks
My experience working in a hotel...
Business person (men and women) leave laptop in hotel room. Contact said person to return it.
"Oh, no, don't send it back - it's a year old - I claim on insurance and get a new, faster, better laptop. You can have it."
I can't help thinking an airport is a better place to "upgrade" your laptop - none of those pesky hotel staff trying to return it to you.
Recycle PCs and build a wireless community network www.hillsborough.org.nz
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.
They're missing because I caught them all!
You know... that comes out to about 1004000 laptops every five years.
If we could only get airport personnel to increase their "output" we could scrap that pointless One Laptop Per Child project.
Those things cost money.
These would be like... for free.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
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.
... the laptops have not been "lost". The owners simply don't know where they are.
I recommend checking eBay.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
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.
A lot of salesmen I know would be the type to "lose" their laptop, cell phone, etc when what they really want is a new one. Losing it is the easiest way to get what they want.
I Heart Sorting Networks
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.
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.
...we've got all the security personnel in airports watching the wrong group of people!
Caveat Utilitor
unlike the laptops that can usually be retrieved, private information once made non-private, is sometimes considered priceless...how much loss does this result in for Persons and Establishments alike?
All the laptops?
Anonymous Coward
Who read that as "the Pokémon Institute" the first time through?
When life gives you lemons, you CLONE those lemons, and make SUPER-LEMONS. -- Dr. Cinnamon Scudworth, Ph.D
How were they recovered? Is it from phone software? Lost & Found? eBay?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The TSA decided to do a random screening on me and take me away from the X-Ray machine one day. I said "Wait, where's my laptop?"
The TSA guy said "don't worry about your laptop, calm down." In the meantime, I turn around and it it pops out of the xray machine, unattended, laying on the conveyor belt, about 10 meters away from me.
I respond "I will not 'calm down.' It has confidential information on it and my company has a policy that it is not to leave my presence when traveling."
So he calls the police on me for being "irrational."
No, I'm not kidding.
Now are they really lost as in "don't know where I put it" or lost as in "somebody took it". I guess the title would say "stolen" and not "lost" if that were the case but how do you lose that many laptops ?
I found most of them, and No ! You can't have them back.
"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.
I know the chances of recovering is very low without phoning home method, but there ways to increase the chances even if it is very tiny. Check eBay, Craig's List, Google (e.g., with serial #), etc. (including international ones if stolen outside of USA). Report it to police, where it was stolen (e.g., airport), etc. Anything else else I missed?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Don't know...
Bus I rode today did smell funny. But buses always do smell funny.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
"Truecrypt or similar commercial offerings are available and reliable. Protect your data and ours."
Whatever happened to "Information wants to be free?" Or does that only apply to bootleg copies of Iron Man?
I'm confused.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
I just got myself my first laptop in 5 years. I need to compute on the rode again. Since I am a longtime Debian user the choice was easy. I got the current beta installer for Lenny:
http://www.debian.org/devel/debian-installer/
And lo and behold: encrypting every partition was very easy to set up using it.
I imagine every current distro should have that feature build into the installer. Just look for it next time you install a laptop.
And if you have to use Windows there is always Truecrypt. So I don't see any reason why the data should not be encrypted.
A figure of 350 is quoted for San Francisco (small print "Laptop loss frequencies were collected from a confidential field survey as either a direct weekly estimate or as a range variable as reported by airport officials. Exact loss frequencies were typically not calculated or available for review."; which I read as "we guessed").
That's 100 per week per terminal at SFO (ish). That's around 14 a day or 1 an hour. 40% were of these were at security - about 1 every 2.5 hours.
At airports that broadcast it, I'd guess that you get "can XXX please go back to security and collect their YYY" every 30 minutes or so. YYY is usually "bag"; although I've heard "laptop" (and on at least one occasion "shoes") as well.
So if the "loss incidents" includes people going back to security to collect stuff that they've left there it seems not unreasonable (although maybe a little high). If it's supposed to be some tealeaf legging it out of security the wrong way with someone's laptop I don't believe it - if that happened every 2.5 hours you'd notice it.
I never let my laptop out of my sight anywhere - as has been said, prevention is better than a cure. Do not check it in, take it on as hand luggage. If security wants to check your machine to prove it's not a cleverly disguised stick of dynamite, watch them. Keep an eye on your luggage, and if you see someone opening up a bag and helping themselves to its contents, take a picture with your mobile phone or equivalent: otherwise, it'll be your word against the baggage handler's.
Another thing that tends to stop the machine getting lost/stolen is to take it around in a bag that is not specifically a 'laptop' bag. I stick my Eee PC into my bag, a fabric satchel, and while it does mean that cables get a bit tangled up, everything is safe and it's less likely to draw thieves' attention to it. It also has the added advantage of being able to wrap it around your ankle, so if someone tries to pinch it, you'll feel it tugging against your leg.
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
Send them pre-charged.
When kids use up the battery, they can mail the laptops back to the first world where they will be recharged and returned to the kids - for a small fee naturally.
Its not our fault they are godless, electricityless lazy savages.
We are trying to HELP here, hello! They could get off their asses and help us help them.
You know... like... put those sockets on the walls of their huts so they could recharge the laptops themselves.
I mean... how hard can it be. You like.. need a screwdriver and thats about it...
BTW and FYI - All my posts in this thread were meant as sarcastic jokes. Since someone already branded me insightful, I find I might need to mention that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I find it interesting 14% of those who responded to the survey classified themselves as a job role in "information technology". This is the third highest behind sales (24%) and management (20%). Not necessarily a result of job role, but rather, of company culture towards such losses.
http://www.xkcd.com/178/
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
The numbers just don't sound right to me. I almost shut down an airport terminal once, because I forgot to tell the TSA agent that inside my laptop bag was also a Targus Chill Mat, which looks like an aluminum two-burner silver grill with wires sticking out of the sides. One of my children is severely handicapped and hooked up to complicated medical devices, so we have to go through the secondary intensive screening EVERY time we fly. Since we always have to go through the secondary screening process, our carry-on bags are opened by the TSA agents, and they're the ones who take the laptop out of the bag and put it on the conveyor belt.
The Targus chill mat sent everyone around us scrambling into panic mode, and the rent a cops with guns were circling it, staring at it and trying to figure out what the hell it was. Luckily they were in my husband's line of sight and he was able to explain what it was before they cuffed us and hauled us off to Guantanamo. My point is that if one Targus Chill Mat packed inside a laptop computer carry-on bag can cause this kind of commotion, I absolutely do not believe that there are 12,000 abandoned or lost laptops found inside of airports every week.
My B.S. meter is pinging wildy. This story is fishy. I do a lot of flying and I've never heard any airlineannounce that someone left their laptop. I've heard it for jewelry, cameras, purses and even shoes (wtf?). But never laptops. What's the first thing a business traveller does when getting past the TSA goons? Find an outlet and hotspot and start sending emails. They need a laptop to do that, so they're going to notice if they left it behind.
Of course, this story could be true. After all, the TSA makes you remove your laptop from its case or bag and place it all alone in its own plastik bukkit. So someone in a hurry could certainly forget their laptop. But 12,000 a week stretches my credulity to the limit.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
It's here
First up:
"Laptop loss frequencies were collected from a confidential field survey as either a direct weekly estimate or as a range variable as reported by airport officials. Exact loss frequencies were typically not calculated or available for review."
It's all just averages using methods that are vague.
Then... 22% of these lost in the major airports are recovered before the flight... (15% in the minor) but they include all of these laptops that were lost for a number of minutes.
Then there are 9% (Major) and 20% (Minor) that are recovered after the flight.
Come on, we're talking most likely badly taken figures in the first place, and then including laptops that aren't really lost at all.
No bomb squad required. They would just put it in the garbage bin with all the suspected liquid explosives at the secuity gate.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
Are that many people that stupid that they won't bring their laptops as carry-on luggage?? I could hardly part with my laptop, let alone, trust it to baggage handlers.
sounds like in each airport lounge there is a cluster waiting to be discovered! :)
I just can't be bothered.
So Dell's primary business is selling laptop insurance?
I don't think so...
OTOH -- if that stolen laptop is from Dell -- better make sure you never call up for support on it.
Dunno about other laptop vendors, but Dell's been getting keeping close track of machines purchased by companies -- what company owns them, who is calling on their behalf...etc.
If all laptop vendors did that, it seems it might drop the worth of stolen laptops, since they are not notoriously reliable and long-lived.
this study is BS.... this is how Dell Justifies putting RFID chips in their laptops. "Laptop Get Stolen? Enhanced security Dell Laptops only $4500! and we can track your laptop wherever it goes!! Fu*k You Frank! jeesh sheeple
Lots of laptops disappear when they get their hands on them.
Get your teeth into a small slice: the cake of liberty
I'm not running a damn thing off the PC except for loading a CD-ROM.
Since I use the laptop as a dumb terminal, it's relatively secure and fast enough for what I need.
And if I sound like a hit man, make that Musical Hits and you're closer than you think. :-)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
While I find the number rather high, and odd that it hasn't been discussed before, my anecdotal evidence with cell phones makes it at least plausible.
I lost a car charger at a small airport (MEM) and went to the car rental place. They pulled out a big bin of cell phones and accessories, and said take your pick. They also said take a phone if you want. When I asked, they said it was a week or two's haul.
I felt a bit cheap trying to track down my $5 charger, and unfortunately they didn't have one that worked with my phone.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Slashdot had some truly nasty things to say recently about US customs poking through data on travelers' laptops.
I wonder, how often does that happen, and whether people just losing their hardware (and the data) to complete strangers is not a far scarier problem...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
twelve thousand laptops a week, out of how many? a million? 10 million?
It sounds like at least some portion of these laptops are being lost as luggage. Which leaves me to ask, why not take the matter into your own hands and take your laptop with as carry-on?
After all, aren't you bringing it with you so you can work on the road / in the airport / on the plane / in the cab ? I bring my laptop as carry-on every time I fly. Its been on two international flights with me this year. I've never had a problem finding it by the time I get back to my home airport.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Anyone else notice that the head of the institute's name is one letter off from being "Pokemon"? Coincidence?
Also, the numbers, according to the article are guesses/ranges estimated by airport workers - as someone else said that means they made up the numbers and extrapolated. According to this article, nearly a half-million laptops (436800 by my math) *disapear*? Really?
I call bullshit on this number.
436800 laptops at an average cost of $1,100 per (these are Corp. laptops) takes you to nearly a half-billion dollars worth of hardware "lost" each year. No one noticed that? Insurance companies aren't mentioning that when they pay out on the claims?
It simply makes no sense. Period.
Ken
Ken
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of those. No, seriously.
There is more to science than physics!
www.iomalfunction.blogspot.com
You don't need a finger for a fingerprint reader. Unless the employee took care to wipe the whole machine before handing it in, you don't even have to ask the employee.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
I had a calculator like that once - it didn't last long.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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!
So Dell's primary business is selling laptop insurance?
I don't think so...
Then you've never priced up Dell equipment.
Dell's primary business is not PCs, it's not servers and it's not laptops. It is "optional extras".
Optional extras being things like CPUs, RAID cards and more than one hard disk in a server (even when the server is a 4U model which exists purely so you can fill it with CPU and disks), 3 year onsite 24x7 support, upgraded monitor and, of course, laptop insurance.
Yet another example of why handhelds will replace laptops.
http://everylaptopleftbehind.com/
Alert Negroponte!
Tell him of the good news - most laptops now come with Windows.
C'mon... think people! 12,000 laptops a week? Where would they store all these laptops? Do the math, isn't that like 20,000 cubic feet of laptops? http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/03/2143254# Get More Comments Every. Friggin. Week? Dell just wants to sell more security devices.