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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
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
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.
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.
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.