Study says more than 10,000 laptops go missing at US airports each week
By Donald Melanson 
posted July 6th 2008 11:05AM
posted July 6th 2008 11:05AM
As we've seen, laptops have a tendency of getting stolen from even the most unsuspecting places, but a new study has now found one not entirely surprising place where your laptop is particularly unsafe: the airport. According to the Ponemon Institute, more than 10,000 laptops are reported lost at the 36 largest airports in the US each week and, of those, 65 percent are not reclaimed. They also reported a further 2,000 laptops lost at medium-sized airports, with 69 percent of those not reclaimed. According to the institute, folks also aren't very confident that they'll ever see their laptop again once it goes missing, with 77 percent of the people surveyed saying they had "no hope" of ever recovering a laptop lost at the airport, and 16 percent saying they wouldn't even do anything to attempt to recover it. Of course, there's no shortage of suggestions out there for preventing your laptop from getting lost or stolen, and Network World's Richard Stiennon has a couple of good ones at the link below.
[Via Network World]
[Via Network World]
Ocean (im not 'clak'),
You are not smarter than a 5th grader.
There
Their
They're
Do you know the difference? Apparently not. There are plenty of grammar tutorial programs for the Windows platform and they're quite inexpensive considering their value. Are there any for your Mac? Buy one before you post again, please.
"U.S. airlines carried 561.9 million scheduled domestic and international passengers during the first nine months of 2006" = 748 million passengers per year Wiki Answers
When I was flying regularly most travelers (unless you were going to Florida or Nevada or around holidays) were business travelers with laptops. If there are 10,000 per week lost, or 500,000 per year, then that is less than 1.5% to 2% of the possible laptop carrying people. While the actual number lost is large, it's statistically insignificant out of the possible events.
Most are just misplaced. Fliers who forgot they left it in a cafe, under a chair, by the gate, in the plane seat, and so on. There are constant reminders about "report abandoned luggage" - so worried travelers will certainly not let a bag sit idle before getting someone over to take it away.
tom budas,
considering that the average "large" airport (internation and major hubs) have an average of over 100,000 passengers travelling per *day* then the figure of 35 missing laptops per day doesn't seem so crazy.
Do a little research (as I just did) on airport volume. Even if the reported figures of yearly passenger traffic are slightly skewed (by even 20%) it still is a staggering number of passengers and flights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic
And as for you having never encountered them, that doesn't make it not true. I've never encountered an Amish man, or a person who has been mugged at gunpoint, yet reportedly, they exist.
If 100,000 people flew out of the airport on the same day as you, and 35 of them had laptops stolen (or go missing) then the odds of you encountering them is quite low. When you further consider that they may not realize their laptop is missin guntil after the flight, the odds of you "encountering" them is even lower.
As for security not seeing people leaving the airport with laptops... that is just a dumb statement. At 35 laptops per day, it would b ehighly unusual if security *did* overreact to seeing a person walking out with a laptop in their hand, or bag. I myself sometimes have two with me when I travel (a small subnotebook for reading and writing, and a larger notebook for graphics and music work). I would find it highly doubtful that any single individual is responsible in the vast majority of cases. If someone were to reach over and nab a notebook and then nonchalantly walk out with a carry-on bag with a laptop in it, it would not seem unusual at all. Before we scream for tight laptop security at airports, ask yourself if you'd like to be harassed everytime a TSA agent sees you with a laptop and demands proof of ownership.
Security is a matter of personal responsibility and accountability. Do not rely on the watchfulness of others for the safety and security of your own private property. Do not blame the loss of said property on the lack of alertness of others. I would wager that not 1 out of 10,000 of us has even said a word or given a second thought to seeing a fellow traveller pick up a bag and/or laptop and walk away.
Think, people. Think. :)
ratnikh,
The article stated 10,000 just in 36 airports go missing per week.
10,000/36=277 per week per airport
277/7=40 per day
I doubt that 40 laptops go missing each day at one airport.
Go slit your wrist with a macbook air please.
That was to ocean or w/e... this comment reply system fails.
You're pathetic.
Not reclaimed? Goes to show people are idiots and do not put forth the effort to check with claims or security for their laptop. Lazy fools...
The Puerto Rican airport. Laptop stolen from my locked suitcase by the American Airlines baggage handlers. I know it was in there before the flight as I saw the suitcase go on the belt and off the belt in Hartford CT. Later that year, American baggage handlers were arrested by the FBI in PR for smuggling drugs on and off in, you guessed it, suitcases. Mind you they LEFT my camera and other assorted goodies in my suitcase. Go figure. I was screaming at the AA leftover baggage lady as I knew the damn thing was less that 30 yards away. Ready to jump over the counter and go get it myself. She said "my fault and "it was not stolen here". Uh huh.
LMFAO @ 10,000, what a bunch of BS
Its over nine THOUSAAAAAAAANNNNNDD!
I do not criticize people for typos in comments. That is fine (there are probably going to be some in mine). But in a news article, it really makes them sound amateur and insincere. "Our there" instead of "out there?" C'mon! Networkworld just lost my respect.
This is why I never fly, your personaly belongings fall into a black hole and end up on eBay.
Those numbers seem very high, almost 40 a day per airport, per day. Obviously not all of these are being picked up at the security checks, some must be people not keeping a close eye on their bags whilst waiting in the airport. Some of those opportunistic thefts could be avoided with an anti-theft laptop bag such as the ones made by Pacsafe.
The advice at the link sucks.
Never put your laptop through first, because if you're held up at the screening, your laptop is an easy target for the people who are already through. Send all of your other stuff ahead, hold on to your laptop as long as possible, and then push it through the X-ray when you're walking to go through the metal detector.
If you're held up, there's a good chance everyone else on the other side will have already left by the time all of your other stuff goes through.
As a limo driver for 12 years I spend considerable time in airports, mostly JFK, LAG, EWR, PHL and ABE, I read a similar news report years ago claiming 8500 laptops lost each year at SeaTac (Seattle Tacoma) airport.
Damn! I've been keeping a sharp lookout for these laptops. Haven't found one yet. I did find a Blackberry once on the shelf over the urinal at PHL. I finally broke down and bought one.
I'd have to guess theses missing units are going out the back door with airport personnel, or the researchers and statisticians are really pumping up the numbers.
I love these advertisements disguised-as-stories.
"The Ponemon survey was commissioned by Dell, which on Monday announced new security services to commercial customers that include tracking and recovery of lost laptops and prevention of data theft."
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Gee, what a coincidence!
just do what i do instead of taking a laptop just take you deskop a monitor and a power supply everywhere you go. have someone try to get away with that.
No wonder: just a few days ago in JFK - the "highly motivated and well trained" people from the TSA mixed up my laptop with another laptop while I had to drag myself through a "secondary".
Then the "forgot" one of my bags until I insisted that this was mine, too.
That most of the computers are not recovered doesn't amaze at all. Go to TSA.gov and look at their feedback blogs. Not a single positive entry and many report missing items and all this even though they have of course heavy censorship by the TSA on their blogs (for JFK there are only 13 comments posted and more then 720 deleted). Go figure.
1. Get a flight
2. Bring cheap old laptop bag.
3. Throw cheap old laptop away at airport.
4. Claim missing laptop.
5. Sue for lost laptop.
6. ?????
7. PROFIT!
I'm trying to start a blog similar to the TSA's one but doesn't have their level of moderation on it - i.e. we can get a real picture of the level of complaints. It's at http://www.scareports.com . Please drop by and even more so make comments on any of the stories so far or send us your own.
You know what Phoenix I did do that and guess what it happen to walk off as well. I was not so much heartbroken cause they "misplaced" a small form factor pc but why they had to run off with the pc but don't take the keyboard and mouse ...
I'd believe that these are work handed out laptops and therefore you just go back to work and request a new one. I find it hard to believe someone would not track to the ends of the Earth to recover their $2K laptop with personal files and data on it.
I have a problem with the math. Read the article on PC World and it says 637,000 laptops a year in the USA. This represents almost 2% of ALL laptops sold in North America last year (trust me on the last stat, it's what I do for a living.) And by the way, surveys are notoriously unreliable. Unless you are using them to sell more laptops. "There are 3 kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics."
How many people are claiming their laptop was stolen at the airport while their kid is sitting in the living room playing with it? (Rhetorical question--I strongly suspect that most allegedly stolen laptops were stolen by the claimant from his or her company.)
Actually, I've never seen a windows machine lost. I've seen a few macs where the owner actually took the laptop bag, looked at the laptop, and walked away with the empty bag. The security person then yells for them to go pick up the laptop.
I guess it's because all apple computers look the same. But there might be something to be said about some people who own apple computers...
"the Ponemon Institute"? This is a reliable source of information why?
If any company that sells security and privacy "services" can plant scare-tactic stories with phony numbers on your website, maybe you should rename your site "Enquirer" as opposed to "Engadget"
Something does not sound right about this. Bad journalism. There is no attempt to define anything but the Gross number 10,000 LOST laptops at airports. The article really tells me nothing of interest.
I might even go so far as to say it was fabricated because of the lack of details in how, when and where. Come on, where is the journalism here?
I keep asking myself, How could you lose a Laptop at an airport? And 10,000 individual ones to boot. I think the journalist should be investigated.
I have my laptop rigged to explode if I don't log in within a 24 hr period.