As laptop computers get smaller and lighter, and even more so with newer Tablet PCs, the need to secure what is on them increases constantly. If a laptop is stolen, the data on it may be worth more that the device itself, if not properly secured.
Of course, many people ignore this, preferring speed of access over security, as in the case of this story from Forbes. Thanks to Max for pointing it out ...
Ten O'Clock Tech
From The Laptops Of Terrorists
Arik Hesseldahl, 04.29.05, 10:00 AM ET
If you can't catch terrorists, then the next best thing seems to be snatching their laptop computers. And as luck would have it, they're just as sloppy about protecting their sensitive personal information as the rest of us.
At least that appears to have been the case when U.S. military forces came surprisingly close to catching the terrorist mastermind of al Qaeda in Iraq, the Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
On Feb. 20, the Pentagon says al-Zarqawi was in a truck heading from Fallujah to a meeting in Ramadi when U.S. forces pulled over one of the vehicles in his convoy. Another truck in the group turned around and sped away. When they finally caught up to that truck, Al-Zarqawi was gone, but he had left his laptop in the car. And what they found on it says some hopeful things about our chances of ultimately rooting out and capturing the bad guys.
It turns out that terrorists are just as lazy about protecting their data as your average PC owner. There were, according to news reports, recent digital pictures, apparently of al-Zarqawi, tucked away in the "My Pictures" folder common to PCs running Microsoft's Windows.
Reports have varied about the information found on the computer. Reportedly, among the nuggets are names and addresses of friendly contacts, information about al-Zarqawi's medical condition and, possibly, financial information. All of this is valuable, and reduces the number of rocks under which the lowlife can safely hide.
It's not the first time a computer used by a terrorist leader has wound up in official U.S. hands. In 2003, when Pakistani soldiers captured Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, they also found his laptop, which according to some reports contained a rather tantalizing array of information. That information included at least a dozen locations along the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which had been used by the terrorist kingpin Osama bin-Laden himself.
Of course the intelligence analysts will have to consider the possibility that the laptop was intentionally left by who they think was al-Zarqawi to throw them off his scent. But if the machine proves to be one that belonged to an individual at or near the top of the U.S. list of most-wanted terrorists, then it should give us some hope about eventually bagging some of the biggest fish in the war on terror as the months and years unfold.
Bruce Hoffman, director of the Washington office of Rand and a terrorism expert, says terrorists have some of the same problems the rest of us do in trying to keep prying eyes from their data. "They tend not to have heavily encrypted computers, they're not using strong passwords. And just like business travelers, they lose their laptops."
Certainly there are ways to protect data. Several companies build software that encrypts sensitive files or that can create secure sections of a hard drive. I've played with scores of these programs over the years, but I generally use PGP Desktop, which among other operations allows you to encrypt your e-mail communication--provided that whomever you're sending the message to also uses the program--and locks sensitive files.
But for every step you take to ensure data security, there's an extra step required to get the information. This can become tiresome if you're impatient or need to use the information freely. It's just like having to lock and unlock a restroom door several times a day. It doesn't take a leap of imagination to see how a terrorist constantly on the move might find the need to constantly encrypt and de-crypt his files a pain in the neck.
The smart terrorists, Hoffman says, learn from these captures and adjust their habits accordingly. In the pre-Sept. 11, 2001, days, Osama bin-Laden was a regular user of a satellite phone, until he learned along with the rest of the world that the National Security Agency had been listening to his conversations and that officials there occasionally played a recording of him talking to his mother.
"The ones that survive do so through natural selection," Hoffman says. "They keep getting smarter, because they pay attention to the techniques used to capture the others."
Still, I find it strangely encouraging to think that the one bit of information that might one day lead us to the prize--Osama bin-Laden fitted for his own set of leg shackles--is just sitting somewhere on some lazy terrorist's laptop.
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