Steps to take (Score 1)

Several years ago when I was still practicing as a lawyer one of our partners had his laptop stolen from the back of his car. Since this guy had his clue bit set, he had set the BIOS password. Of course we reported the theft to the police and alsocalled local computer shops. Sure enough, several days later a guy came into one of them and wanted help "fixing the hard drive". The mounties were called, the laptop was recovered and the perp was taken away forthwith. We considered ourselves lucky because there was information on the laptop covering something like 30 cases that our guy was involved with at the time. As a result of that theft we thought about the problem and did the following: (1) Set the BIOS passwords on all laptops; (2) Got copies of Norton "Your Eyes Only" for all laptops [product no longer available, but it basically set up an encrypted partition]; (3) Set up a script to synch the laptop to the network whenever someone logged in at the office; and (4) Bought those cable locks for each laptop. Now, in addition, I would (A) Change to a more secure OS than Windows 98; (B) Consider an encrypted filesystem [Cryptographic File System or Transparent Cryptographic File System, both for Linux]; (C) Buy a Defcon One instead of just a lock; (D) Buy one of those proximity alarmsthat sounds if your bag gets more than 15 or so feet away from you [for airports, etc.]; and (E) Buy one of those backup hard disks with a PC card attached to make backups while on the road.