Wired announced that 630,000 laptops are lost at airports each year. In the United States – no other destinations are included.

This is absolutely nuts. Where are these laptops going? There aren’t that many ‘hot’ laptops for sale – ever.  Also, if the lost computers were going to other countries, would we not have heard something by now? It is 630,000 each year. That number could keep several small nations outfitted with all the computing they need until it’s time for a battery replacement.

from Wired -

TOP OF THE NEWS

–More Than 630,000 Laptops Lost at Airports Each Year

(June 30, 2008) More Than 630,000 Laptops Lost at Airports Each Year (June 30, 2008) A Ponemon Institute survey of 106 airports in 46 states found that as many as 637,000 laptops are reported lost each year. Overall, more than 12,000 laptops are reported lost at the airports every week, and 67% are never recovered. The 36 largest US airports account for more than 10,000 lost laptops each week. The laptops are most commonly lost at security checkpoints and departure gates. The survey also included feedback from 864 business travelers: 53% said their laptops held confidential data; 42% said their data was not backed up; 16% said they would do nothing if they lost a laptop while traveling on business; 77% said the chance of recovering a lost laptop was less than ten percent. The study was commissioned by Dell, which has just released “a suite of data protection and asset protection services,” including laptop tracking and remote data deletion.

One can only surmise that either the bad laptop gremlins are hard at work at the airport, or these units end up resting on that apocryphal pile of mismatched socks that disappear from the washers and dryers of the nation.

[my first thought was typo, but it has been double checked – astounding!]

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