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Most people are pretty well acquainted with the facts of life on the road: You limit the amount of cash you carry, you avoid flashing around large bills, and you keep your wallet deeply buried. That's all good.
 | Now consider this: When you walk around town, an airport, or a hotel with a rectangular, reinforced cloth or leather briefcase in your hand or slung over your shoulder, you may as well be carrying a flashing neon sign that reads: "I'm carrying a $1,500 laptop computer that's yours if you can snatch it. And if you're quick and smart, you should be able to get into my bank and credit card accounts before I get around to closing them down." |
And believe it or not, nearly everyone has, at one time or another, accidentally left the computer bag behind at a check-in counter, at a restaurant, in a waiting room, or in an overhead or under-seat storage space on an airplane. It takes only a few seconds for a quick grab to lead to a prolonged headache.
 | The first step you should take in keeping your laptop safe on the road is to consider how you treat your laptop's physical security. Here are some suggestions: |
- Keep your laptop well contained. Make sure you have a sturdy bag to hold your computer.
- Remove logos or buy a nondescript bag. Some laptop cases come festooned with the logo of the computer manufacturer. Why in the world would you want to make the expensive contents of your bag even more obvious?
- Display contact information on your laptop bag. Just in case you misplace your computer and an honest person finds it, make sure your bag has more than a few tags with your name and phone number listed; you might want to add the phrase "Reward for Return," but not your home or office address. Some users (and some companies) have decided not to list the name of their company on the contact information to make it just slightly more difficult for a thief to use information on the hard disk.
- Don't put all your eggs in one laptop bag. Don't write down your computer and Web site passwords in a notebook or on a sheet of paper and store it in your laptop case. If you absolutely must have a written record of your passwords, encrypt them and put them in your wallet, a buttoned pocket of your jacket, or the suitcase with your dirty socks.
- Don't leave your house and car keys in the laptop case. To begin with, your key ring shouldn't have your name and address on it; that way, if you lose your keys away from home, there's little chance someone will figure out who they belong to and what doors the keys open. But if you store the keys in your laptop case and there's any way for a thief to figure out your home or office address, you've undone that safeguard.
- Never let your laptop out of your sight. Develop a strategy for getting through airport security (and some building X-ray machines) that allows you to keep a constant eye on your laptop. Try putting your shoes, coat, laptop, and everything else through the scanning machine first. Then watch to see that they go through before walking through the metal detector. If you go through before the computer passes into the machine, you might find yourself on the wrong side of a security barrier and out of sight of the machine.
| When you travel with someone else, split up the task — one of you goes through the machine first and keeps track of items coming through on the belt, while the other one lags behind to watch your stuff's progress. |
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