over 10,000 laptops are lost or stolen every WEEK at US airports.

Data loss for corporations is normally much different than data loss for a government agency or for cases where PII (Personally Identifiable Information) is lost.

If a corporate sales jock goes through the airport and has their laptop stolen they will likely lose a bunch of sales contacts, perhaps e-mails that related to sales contracts and such, and their own personal information (perhaps some of their own pr0n )

Compare that to a laptop used by a government agency where reporting requirements are very strict. If the government laptop contains any personal identifable information, heads will roll. Even if it doesn't contain PII, it could contain business critical or mission critical information and again reporting requirements are pretty stringent.

If a business loses a laptop that contains information that could be used for identity theft, then there's going to be a lot of fuss, but otherwise not so much. A lot of times the employees for private businesses don't actually report the loss until well after it's happened and there's virtually no chance to do anything about it. The employee doesn't want to pay for the loss or face the music from their bosses. Even in government or government contracting theres a lot of hesitation to want to report, but at the same time the gov't contractors and gov't personnel know that they can be a whole world of trouble if they don't report the loss.

Ken S said:

I really have to doubt that number. I used to have 200 sales people all with laptops, all traveling extensively and in five years I can't recall one lost laptop. A couple were broken, but no one ever lost it or had it stolen. I would highly doubt that the group that worked for us was any more/less careful than the average person.

10,000 a year...maybe

Click to expand...

I might find 10k a month believable.

Although, in this article is seems the number is even higher...

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147739/laptops_lost_like_hot_cakes_at_us_airports.html

"Close to 10,278 laptops are reported lost every week at 36 of the largest U.S. airports, and 65 percent of those laptops are not reclaimed, the survey said. Around 2,000 laptops are recorded lost at the medium-sized airports, and 69 percent are not reclaimed."

This seems to imply ≈12,000 a week. The 10,278 is "at 36 of the largest U.S. airports" seems to imply that the numbers are incomplete and could be higher. I don't know enough about airports to decide what that really means.

Of course the survey was commissioned by Dell, who promptly announced new security services.

Mike