Securing Your Laptop - Hardware and Paranoia

In January 2004, I was shooting the Michael Jackson arraignment in Santa Barbara for Reuters and the courthouse was an absolute zoo with photographers, fans, protesters, and tv crews everywhere. I was sitting next to another photographer in an outside area at the courthouse where we transmitting photos after Jackson had left. People were walking back and forth all around us. I had my cameras at my feet. He had his cameras at his side on the bench we were sitting on while we were both working away, completely focused on our laptops.

After we both finished and started packing up, he looked over at me and asked if I knew what happened to one of his camera bodies and his 16-35mm lens. He has set it down next to his other body with a 70-200 zoomer on it and his camera bag which were still sitting right next to him, but the one body and wide zoom were gone. It appears that while we were working, someone just walked up and picked up his camera and walked away. Neither of us the wiser until much later when the poor victim started looking for it. But where it was siting next to him, he couldn't actually see it when he was looking at the laptop. By luck, I had my gear by my feet where I could see it, because there was no more room on the bench.

This is one of quite a few stories I know of first hand where laptops, 400mm lenses, camera bodies, hard drives, entire camera bags and lighting kits have seemingly disappeared without a trace.

All of these stories made it clear that the easier something of value is to steal (and the more inattentive the owner is,) the more likely that someone will steal it. So make sure that you keep things secured so that they are not easy to walk away with... this goes for laptops, cameras, gps units and all that type of stuff that is easy to swipe and put on ebay. Unfortunately, if you are a photographer, you are a constant target carrying all of this type of equipment around.

I travel just about everywhere with one of my laptops. I am a photographer who is shooting 95% of my work digitally, so the laptop is a critical piece of getting the images off the compact flash card and to the paying client in a timely manner.

One of the challenges I face with dragging a laptop around all the time is how to keep it secure... especially in the times when I need it up and running so the client has remote access to the images, but I'm not right there next to it.

First thing I do is use a laptop cable lock... even when I am nearby. Keyed cable locks are not the greatest solution for security. In fact, they are pretty easy to defeat with a ball-point pen or cardboard toilet paper tube (this link is to a 8mb .wmv file that shows how easy it is to do.) Combination locks are a little better, but are not terribly hard to defeat if the criminal really wants your laptop.

Most of the time, thieves strike where they can take something and get away quickly. The fact that your laptop is secured to something, even if it is just a combo cable lock makes it harder for someone to make off with your computer without increasing the risk of being caught because they have to fiddle with defeating the lock, increasing their chance of being noticed.

If you are in a situation where there are other laptops present (like a photographer media room at a football game) it means that a thief who is looking for an easy target, will pass on your laptop if it is locked to the table and go for one that is unsecured. I also try to set up as far from the doorway as possible so that the thief will have to travel the longest distance away from their potential escape route (the door) to try to take my stuff. If there are going to be other people (editors) working in the room the whole time, I also try to set up near them (or at the same table) so that no one will mess with my stuff because someone would be right there if they tried to take it.

I also secure my laptop bag through the cable lock. Since most photographer carry card readers, extra batteries, backup hard drives and all the other expensive bits and pieces with their laptop, most laptop bags, without the laptop, still have $100-$500 worth of goodies inside and the bag with or without the computer is another common target of thieves.

I also use a zipper lock (like in the photo) on the zipper of my laptop bags. These locks are not super secure, but again, it deters the thief who is just looking for a easy target. It isn't going to be worth it to try to break into the lock to see what's inside the bag that is attached to the computer's cable lock... the thief will look elsewhere for easy pickings.

Protecting your thumb drive

How many thumb drives (jump drives, usb drives) do you have? Where are they? What is on them?

Thumb drives are a great tool for dragging stuff back and forth between different computers, but since they are so easy to use, most people end up putting all sorts of stuff on them that could be trouble if it fell into the wrong hands. I can't tell you how many times someone has handed me one of these usb drives with something on it I need and when I open it up, this person's entire life is on this little device.... files like creditcard_numb.doc, passwords.doc, adobe_serial_numbers.doc, banking.doc, and clientlist.doc are all sitting right on the top level of the drive.

Fortunately for these trusting souls, I am honest, but if they ever left the drive sitting in a Starbucks somewhere, how much damage could someone do to your life with all that info you carry around on there? It's a pretty scary thought.

And while many people take advantage of password protecting files like these, that is only good to deter the causal snooper... it will do nothing to prevent a committed crook from accessing your data.

Here is a video that shows how to break a Microsoft Word password in less than two minutes.

Here are the results of a Google search for "break ms password" Page after page of hacks and software to break into any MS document. Feeling concerned?

I've even met people who take pride in not having any personal info in their laptop, "In case it gets stolen," but keep all this data on a little jump drive. To me, this makes little sense since it is much easier to keep track of your laptop (I bet you know excactly where it is right now) vs. one or more little usb thumb drives (as you pat your pockets and look in your laptop bag.)

Here is what I would suggest...

A. Keep only what you need on your jump drive. After you have moved something from one machine to the other, delete the files. Just because you purchased a 2GB jump drive doesn't mean you have to keep 2GB of stuff on it.

B. Encrypt the drive so that is unreadable. I really like Knox which allows you create "vaults" on your jump drive or on portions of your hard drive. It uses Apple's File Vault for the encryption so it is Mac native, very secure (and works on both 10.4 and 10.5.)

Since it is a Mac-only program, if someone sticks it in their PC and tries to get anything off of it, they are not going to have any luck, but when you use Knox, it also installs the app on the jump drive its self so that when you plug it into another Mac that doesn't have Knox installed, it will automatically run the program so you can unlock the vault with the password.

You can turn the entire drive into a vault or you can just set it up so part of the drive is in the open for transferring files to other people's computer, or getting files from them (but see the next section below about doing that.)

C. Since thumb drives have become incredibly cheap, have one with your data on it, and have a second throw-away one that you only use for moving files back and forth with other computer users. That way, if you forget to get it back, you haven't lost access to your data, you are just out the $10 drive until the next time you see the person.

I find that having a few extras is always a good idea since my son like to pretend they are phones, guns, missles, walkie-talkies or any number of other imaginary items. I have also found a couple of them in odd places like in the sand box in the back yard and in the shower... but no one has come forward to take responsibility for putting them there.

Here are some other options for encryption programs (this is on the Apple website under software downloads in the network and security section.) Make sure anything that you download is compatible with your OS and the hardware you plan to use it with.