Appeal For Stolen Research Laptop Brings It Back
from the appealing-to-best-interests dept
Interesting story from South Africa where a visiting professor was mugged at knife-point by a bunch of kids. They took his laptop, which apparently included all sorts of data about AIDS that he apparently hadn't backed up anywhere. He told a reporter who wrote a story about it, and within hours was contacted by two "businessmen" who returned the laptop. They said they had "located" the laptop, and were very nervous about handing it over, because they were afraid they might be accused. Eventually, they returned the laptop anonymously to the reporter, who gave it to the professor. Of course, I'm still wondering, who travels internationally with a laptop that has such important data and doesn't have some sort of backup? What if the laptop had simply been bounced around on the flight, and its hard drive destroyed?
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
fp
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
A complete idiot? If the guy's that careless, how effective a researcher can he really be?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
He was on day ten of a data-gathering trip. It's difficult to pack all the extra gear to make field backups of the collected data, and it's difficult to connect to the home office to make remote backups.
Film photographers have two choices: take the film home or mail the film home. There are no backups until the film is developed. Digital photographers are in much the same boat unless they have the budget for a satellite data phone to CNN, or a fragile CD-R device.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: No Subject Given
Most of these idiots refuse to let IT or anyone
else backup or otherwise touch their laptops
because of all the "sensitive" information on
them. Turns out most of the sensitive info is
really porn, personal emails, or games.
[ link to this | view in thread ]