08/ 26/ 2005
by Reid Goldsborough
What’s the worst thing that could happen when traveling with your laptop computer? Next to the plane crashing, it’s probably losing the laptop or important data on it.
There are many ways this can happen, and many ways you can prevent this from happening, said Kevin Coffey, a police detective and president of Corporate Travel Safety LLC of Calabasas, Calif. This applies to business travel as well as traveling for pleasure with your laptop in tow.
Laptops can be stolen, lost or broken. Carelessness is usually the cause, Coffey said. “In the majority of cases I’ve investigated, it turns out that people were simply not paying attention to their laptop,” he said.
Take these scenarios:
* You’re on a crowded shuttle bus and place your laptop with your other luggage. A thief notices, places his suitcase next to yours and nonchalantly walks off with your laptop and his suitcase at the next stop.
* You’re waiting in line at the airport to check in with your laptop and other luggage beside you. Somebody drops something on the floor behind you, and you turn around to see what happened. When you look down to move your laptop and luggage forward a minute later, your laptop is gone. A thief distracted you, while his partner stole from you.
* You empty your pockets of your keys, take off your shoes and place your laptop and carry-on bag on the conveyer belt at the airport screening station. Everything goes smoothly, but when you turn on your laptop, it’s not yours. You walked off with a same brand of laptop belonging to someone else, and someone else walked off with yours.
* You leave the conference room for a break along with everyone else. Some people are still in the room, so you don’t feel a need to lock up your laptop with its security cable. The registration person has taken a break too, so a thief is able to pick up the registration badge of a person who wasn’t able to attend, walk into the room and walk out with your laptop under the coat wrapped around his arm.
* You stay an extra day after the conference to sightsee. You leave your laptop in your room without securing it. A thief wearing an Armani suit walks into your room while a cleaning person is there, scopes the room out quickly, says he forgot his laptop, slips the cleaning person a $10 bill while complimenting her for doing a good job and slips out with your laptop.
Coffey said similar scenarios present themselves in the office as well. In fact, the office is the most common location for laptop theft. “Office creepers” –– thieves who dress up as a maintenance worker, exterminator and so on –– go from cubicle to cubicle, looting unsecured laptops employees leave on their desks.
Coffey offers good tips on preventing these and other mishaps at his Web site, Corporate Travel Safety.
One laptop security product he recommends is StuffBak, a system to affix laptops and other valuable items with identification labels. The labels include a control number, a toll-free phone number and the notice that anyone finding the item will receive a reward for returning it.
You can affix your laptop with an identifiable marker, such as a piece of yellow tape, like you would a piece of luggage. This prevents someone who has the same laptop brand from inadvertently walking off with yours.
Needless to say, try to keep your eyes on your laptop, straddle or stay in contact with it. Don’t place your laptop on the airport security conveyor belt until you’re ready to walk through yourself. Don’t leave it in plain view in a parked car.
Loss, of course, isn’t the only risk when traveling with a laptop. Damage is another. Laptops have built-in shock resistance, but you can still break one if you’re not careful, preventing access to your data.
I recommend Brenthaven’s Duo 15 Shoulder Case and Backpack. It cradles the laptop inside shock-absorbing material, along with providing extra storage space for accessories and other materials and multiple ways to carry it.
If your laptop is lost or damaged, an online backup service, such as those provided by Xdrive and IBackup.com, can save the day.
Reid Goldsborough is a syndicated columnist and author of the book Straight Talk About the Information Superhighway. He can be reached at reidgold@netaxs.com or at www.members.home.net/reidgold.
