Clarion West Update

The word from Jay Lake's Livejournal and other places is that the community rallied swiftly and the victims of the thefts are back to work.  I'm so glad.

I know if I was in that position and I took my main computer with me I'd have financial information compromised, passwords revealed, and I would have lost a heckuva lot of work.  So.  Let's all be security conscious from now on.

When you're robbed in your own home there's really not much you can do to protect the sensitive information on your computer.  (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)  Some programs allow you to have passwords required and such, but by and large, I think it's okay to trust your home environment and then deal with theft when it happens.  

When you're traveling, though, that's a whole 'nother ballgame.  Thieves are taking more and more advantage of the fact that people carry laptops everywhere.  They've taken to breaking into more hotel rooms (a family member of a coworker had this happen and lost a brand new laptop--it was a nice hotel, too) and watch for people being careless at restaurants, etc.  If you're traveling with your laptop I think it's wise to backup your data much more frequently than you normally would, protect any confidential information with password roadblocks (yes, I know it's a pain to have to type a password to get into Quicken or whatever but believe me, it's worth it) and to have a non-mental list (because after you've suffered a theft you're going to be very upset!) of what might be compromised and who to call about it.  Credit cards.  Checking and savings accounts.  Passwords/auto sign-ins to forums that are the same as or similar to the sign-ins for more important things like online banking, Paypal, Amazon, ebay, medical records and/or medical insurance sites, car loans/mortgage info, etc.  (BTW, thieves *love* it when you use the same password or even just the login for everything.  If they seize control of your email, even briefly, they can snag a lot of information in a very short time.)  

Life's too short to live in a state of fear that someone might snag your private info and steal your identity or your money or destroy your credit.  But do think about security when you travel, and do make that list of numbers you'll need to call to inform folks that your laptop was stolen so they can start suspending accounts and such and help you protect yourself.

There's a lot of poopyheads stealing laptops so take care out there.