Reply From: "Jay D. Dyson" <jdyson@techreports.jpl.nasa.gov>
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> While in a waiting area in the Los Angeles airport, a local executive
> felt the need to powder his nose. So he got up and headed off for the
> restroom -- leaving his laptop computer open and running on the
> waiting-area seat. When he returned, the laptop -- and all of its
> confidential, unprotected files -- were gone.
A few things need to be said about such an incident:
1. I believe this "incident" is fiction. Leaving a
several-thousand-dollar piece of equipment unattended
requires a caliber of stupidity that even the most
Dilbertesque executives are incapable of possessing.
Would anyone leave a wallet containing $3000 lying on an
airport waiting-area seat? No? Then what makes this
alleged "incident" so credible?
2. Unattended items are *routinely* confiscated by law
enforcement officials in airports. As I do a fair amount
of air travel, I know for a fact that unattended luggage
is considered suspect and subject to immediate impound.
No ifs, ands or buts. Ask any law officer at any given
airline terminal. And hey, I'm just a worker-bee who
travels on a fairly regular basis. Surely an "executive"
who travels far more frequently knows this simple truth.
3. Speaking from experience, one's laptop is MUCH more likely
to be stolen not while one is "powdering one's nose" and
stupidly leaving a laptop out on a chair. Your laptop
runs the greatest risk of being stolen RIGHT AFTER IT IS
X-RAYED BY AIRPORT SECURITY. Several advisories have
already been issued on the scam that has occurred across
countless international airports.
In such a scam, the mark sets his laptop on the conveyor
belt and then the thief and his accomplice move in. The
thief snags the laptop while the accomplice, who is in
line immediately ahead of the mark, slows the mark's
progress through the metal-detector gate by repeated
tripping the sensors. Of course, the mark can't go
through until the person ahead of him passes the gate
test. By that time, the mark's laptop and the thief are
long gone.
So please, if we're going to cite risks, let's at least make them
REAL risks. The situation in my third point is far more likely than the
unfathomably stupid actions as recounted in the opening paragraph of this
article.
- -Jay
( ______
)) .-- "There's always time for a good cup of coffee." --. >===<--.
C|~~| (>-- Jay D. Dyson -- jdyson@techreports.jpl.nasa.gov --<) | = |-'
`--' `-- As a matter of fact, I *am* a rocket scientist. --' `-----'
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-o-
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Received on Thu Mar 11 17:22:47 1999