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After reading some posts online, I'm wondering how many people actually steal laptops in university, particularly in the library. If you've done it before, please leave comments on your experience. Thanks!
PS. I'm also wondering how people get past the passwords set on the laptops once they are stolen. I thought laptops were encrypted or something?
Laptop theft is a problem for us. I'm struggling to remember a single case where the thief was apprehended. The biggest problem is never the equipment but the data. Clearly you don't want student details (including addresses and photos) getting out into the wild because of the reputational impact, but - worse - you don't want to lose something that's key to fifty million pounds worth of research.
We have a policy of encrypting laptops with very strong keys (a brute force attack would take several trillion years to crack them). The weak point, however, is the owner of the laptop. I'm not going to reveal how (in case you're interested in stealing laptops) but I could identify the pass phrase for 30-40% of all laptops regardless of how strong it was (in fact, the stronger ones are more likely to be discovered by me). It's nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with the stupidity of people. It's also nothing to do with me personally. Most people in my industry know (though I'd hope none of them are irresponsible enough to say it here).
As a final note, I would like to see stronger penalties for data theft (because it's can only become more and more harmful). If someone steals a £500 television, I'd give them a warning if it was a first offence. If someone steals a £500 laptop, I'd push for a mandatory prison sentence up to a maximum of five years.
It's become ten jobs rolled into one and, because of that, they can't come up with a job title for me. If you combine health, education, computing, analysis, communications, imaging, technology, problem-solving, teaching, training, video, mentoring, administration and politics, that's probably about 80% of it. The other 20% is a thousand small things.
Knowledge-wise and skill-wise, I'm a complete all-rounder. When anyone asks me what I do, I always wish I was a butcher or baker or policemen; something I can describe in a single word.
I haven't done it and I'll never let mine out of my sight. It also has a very strong password, encryption and fingerprint security.
Cracking a password is easy on Windows XP and earlier systems.
For Windows 7, it depends on the length and whether letters, numbers and symbols were used.
If cracking will take too much time, you could boot with a Linux Live CD to steal their data (most people don't encrypt) or format the HDD and load a new OS to use it.
THIS IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY.
DON'T GO STEALING OTHER PEOPLES LAPTOPS.
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That being said, If someone left their laptop on, logged in, and unattended, I'd take the opportunity to change their wallpaper, hide their work, fill it with porn, spam their Facebook, etc. to teach them a lesson.