Free Beer for Life / Money / Anything

We all need to have more serious backup timetables..

[Visit Thailand]

Recently the mainstream media has been featuring more and more stolen laptop stories.

Stories of money and now free beer for life.

A New Zealand brewery is reportedly offering a lifetime supply of beer for the return of a stolen laptop.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

something we are all familiar with:

The company has back-up copies of the material stored on the laptop but these are not up to date, the newspaper said.

Now, is it just me, but with more and more international media featuring these stories won't it create more interest in stealing the laptops?

Could we see a laptop for ransom problem become more apparent?

Anyway I am off to back up ...... just in case my laptop gets stolen and I get my company name splashed all over the media, worldwide for free ..... ahh beer, mmmm free beer.

[edited by: Visit_Thailand at 11:46 pm (utc) on Oct. 18, 2007]

[Dabrowski]

There was a story here, some guys laptop was stolen. Turned out he worked for a bank and hundreds of customer account details were on the thing.

Shame the guy who nicked it probably just sold it down the pub.

[vincevincevince]

In a town near where I was born they'd pray for ships to be wrecked on the nearby rocks. Perhaps the modern version is that you find a certain brewer's laptop?

On a serious note: the biggest underlying message here is that data need proper management. e.g. a bank employee who needs account details on a laptop should have had all personal details replaced by an internal account identification code which could be matched up again when his work is finished.

This management needs to take place at the point in which data is transferred and needs to be controlled by limiting the means by which data can be downloaded; i.e. do not allow the download of personally identifiable data, only offer options for those with ID codes instead - if the operator needs to see personal data, show it on the screen but don't allow export.

[engine]

>lifetime supply of beer for the return of a stolen laptop.

Any stolen laptop!?! I'm sure I can oblige. ;)

[Lipik]

Visit Thailand,
Your last sentence sounds very much like Homer Simpson ;-)

[Visit Thailand]

Your last sentence sounds very much like Homer Simpson ;-)

Didn't like the movie so much but love the series if nothing else to do.

I personally think that manufacturers need to give more options like the Vista encryption system or even more advanced options like PGP etc - but not as a default but as an option for advanced users.

I have lost data numerous times in the past and it is a nightmare. Once it was so severe I thought I had lost everything when I could not even get the backed up data from an external HD. Bad days.

Just imagine if the guy that gets free beer for life is an England or a South Africa supporter and happens to live in Paris and is there tonight!

[edited by: Visit_Thailand at 2:45 pm (utc) on Oct. 20, 2007]