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..."

Insurance

Perhaps they should have purchased insurance? .

After all, the workers know not to steal the ones with the insurance stickers.

Look at who sponsered the 'study'

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.

OK, so I'm looking at the actual report now...

It's here [dell.com]

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.

Re:Look at who sponsered the 'study'

Really? While I understand the nature of conflict of interest, on the spectrum of things that are open to interpretation, this one seems closer to "fact" than "opinion". You walk into an airport with a laptop, you walk out without one, boom... you're one of the 12,000.

Sometimes facts are facts regardless of who's spouting them. If I told you the next new Moon was August 1, would you "take that with a monstrous rock of salt" because I was in the outdoor evening lighting business?

I believe the conflict of interest was spelled out pretty clearly in TFA: "Dell used the report to support its launch of Dell ProSupport Mobility Services"

Your analogy is pretty bad, you're talking about a binary event that we not only know to the day, but to the second. The study was done by sampling, and oh btw, if you read the study it does not say "about 12,000", it says "up to 12,000". A proper analogy there would be: Human beings grow to up to 8ft 11in [guinnessworldrecords.com] in height. I'm sure you can see how a company presenting that as typical needs to be taken with a monstrous rock of salt.

Re:Insurance

You've obviously never lost a company laptop... They definitely care and can show it by giving you an "off the shelf replacement" which turns out to actually be a Kaypro luggable ;)

I've observed a similar thing with replacement Blackberrys...

Always use protection

Truecrypt or similar commercial offerings are available and reliable. Protect your data and ours.

This raises important questions

...Why do they keep giving these 800 people laptops if they're each losing over 12 per week?

Re:This raises important questions

Reminds me of the statistic: Every 2 seconds an American woman is raped.

That poor woman...

Math

Where the hell are the 40,000 unrecovered laptops a year going? Is there really that much of a market for used (stolen) laptops?

www.ebay.com

.... and the answer is yes.

Miniscule

That is nothing compared to the amount of passenger's luggage that is lost daily by the airlines [usatoday.com].

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.

Re:Miniscule

I have done some software development work for the Airlines, and one thing I learned is your bags do not necessarily follow the same path you do (yes even on a direct flight). The fact that you checked them early actually was probably your mistake because you gave them a chance to put them on a different flight.

And from my own personal experience it is frustrating trying to communicate with the baggage complaint desk person (could there be a worse job?) because the airline doesn't consider them lost, only delayed, and they are sure to remind you of that throughout the conversation.

Lost? Insurance scam more likely

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.

Pokemon Institute

published by the Pokemon Institute ... about 12,000 laptops are lost in airports each week

They're missing because I caught them all!

208000 laptops per year...

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.

Re:208000 laptops per year...

I get it 12,000 laptops per week times 17 1/3 weeks per year means 208,000 laptops per year.

208,000 laptops per year times 4.8269231 years means 1,004,000 laptops in five years.

What are you on? Glue?

In unrelated news...

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 [crn.com], and New Dell Services Help Users Hunt Down Missing Laptops [investors.com].

Hard To Believe

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.

Seems a little high

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:

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.

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 [dell.com] 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?

I rent a laptop when I get there

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.

Re:I rent a laptop when I get there

Is it just me, or did the above post sound like it was written by a hit man? ;)

You know you live in a decadent country when...

"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.

Common sense

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.

Re:Relieved upon reading the article...

I can't imagine anyone checking a laptop. Carry on definitely the way to go. Watch a movie while you're at it.

Not me...

http://www.xkcd.com/178/ [xkcd.com]