What's the worst thing that could happen when traveling with your laptop? Next to the plane crashing, it's probably losing
the laptop or important data on it.
There are lots of ways this can happen, and lots of ways you can prevent it, said Kevin Coffey, a police detective and president of Corporate Travel Safety L.L.C., of Calabasas, Calif. This applies to business travel as well as traveling for pleasure, with your laptop in tow to watch DVDs.
Laptops can be stolen, lost or broken. The cause is usually carelessness, Coffey said in a phone interview: "In the majority of cases I've investigated, it turns out that people were simply not paying attention to their laptop." 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, you notice your laptop is gone. A thief had distracted you while his partner stole from you.
You leave the conference room for a break 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 is over to sightsee. You leave your laptop in your room, without securing it. A thief in an Armani suit walks into your room while a cleaning person is there, 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 and that the office is the most common location for laptop theft. "Office creepers" - thieves who dress up as maintenance workers, exterminators and so on - go from cubicle to cubicle, looting laptops that employees leave unsecured.
Coffey presents good tips at his Web site on preventing these and other mishaps. One security product he recommends is StuffBak, a system to affix I.D. labels on laptops and other valuable items. 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.
One laptop-security product I recommend is 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.
