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MI5 Laptop Stolen -- Along With Top-Secret Data 240

Posted by timothy from the this-notebook-will-self-destruct-five-four-three dept.
Tuscahoma writes "ZDNet has this story about an MI5 agent who lost a laptop containing sensitive information at Paddinton station. Does this sound like the plot of a bad spy movie (turns out that Julia Roberts picked up the laptop to return it, and now she's on the run for her life from enemy spies)?" This really does sound like a screenwriter's dream. I wonder if the machine's already been fenced, the hard drive wiped, and some Londoner is wondering at the "Property of M15. PLEASE return" in the BIOS.
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MI5 Laptop Stolen -- Along With Top-Secret Data More

MI5 Laptop Stolen -- Along With Top-Secret Data

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  • Gulf War Incident (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Alleged:

    The general battle plan for the gulf war was stored on a laptop computer that was stolen from an unattended car just before the air war started. See Colin Powell's _My American Journey_

    -- Ender, Duke_of_URL

  • Re:Old news (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I posted it three days ago because I knew I was going to do it tomorrow.

  • Re:well trained agents... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    a similar incident happened in New Zealand during the Muldoon years, though more ludicrous.

    A journalist who had pissed off Muldoon (our prime minister) was under survaliance by the SIS (think CIA/Keystone cops). The journo noticed the agent sitting on a park bench opposite his house, and when the agent left, he left his briefcase on the bench.

    Naturally the journo looked at the contents of the brief case and wrote an articlce on the contents of SIS agents briefcases. The contents are:
    1. Pencil (chewed)
    2. Notebook containing record of journo's movements
    3. A Pork pie
    4. A copy of playboy (well thumbed).

    The SIS *never* lived that one down. To this day there are jokes about the contents of SIS briefcases.

  • Here's one unencrpyted file (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Okay, I need some help here folks. I got the laptop, and I have one of the files decrypted. But I'm little bit confused about what it all means. Here's a what I got so far.

    #ifndef __css_descramble_h_
    #define __css_descramble_h_

    struct playkey {
    int offset;
    unsigned char key[5];
    };

    extern int css_decrypttitlekey(unsigned char *tkey, unsigned char *dkey, struct playkey **pkey);
    extern void css_descramble(unsigned char *sec,unsigned char *key);

    What is this?:-)

  • yes, they should. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But only if they're British.

    It never ceases to amaze me how incompetent the British have been, individually and as a nation, over the course of history. The first bit of recorded history we have of the British is them getting conquered by the Romans. The Romans were far more advanced than the British, yet somehow the British managed not to learn anything from their experience and slip back into the Dark Ages once the Romans left. They then got conquered by the French in 1066, and the conquerors evidently were none too bright either, because they let themselves assimilate.

    Britain then spent most of its time involved in some minor intrigue or petty civil war or something of the like, until, blindly following the rest of Europe who had about a fifty year lead, it decided to make a totally inept attempt at gaining an empire. This was successful for a while, but what do they have now? That's right. Nothing. They lost it all. And this is not even mentioning the fact that they had to get bailed out of two world wars by an ex-colony. Or that while Shakespeare may have produced fine literature by British standards, he's not really anything special in the grand scheme of things. Or that certain members of this sorry culture who felt the need to create a series of movies (the Bond films) for the sole purpose of holding on to their last shreds of cultural self-esteem.

    So, in short, yes, I wouldn't trust a British spy, or anyone from that sad little island, with ANYTHING without handcuffing it to the poor brute so that he wouldn't lose it.

  • I'd be scared if (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ...it was smeared with orange marmalade.
  • Don't you think that most government agents are pretty comspicuous anyways?

    Only the decoys. Why?

  • If you read the story in the Uk press you'll find that it was encrypted using the top-secret stuff that these guys use.
  • It's Elwood Blues who has the thing handcuffed to him. But it's not a laptop, it's his Briefcase Full Of Blues.

    Hope this helps.
  • I travel constantly with my laptop, and I've been using Scramdisk to keep all of my sensitive data encrypted.
  • Heh, look at his tag line. You just replied to someone who is running JFK's campaign for President, this year. You might want to wander around propaganda for a while, come back, and then see if his post makes more sense :-)

    As in, he was (hopefully!) just kidding...
  • This reminds me of the time King Klinton lost the Football that has all the launch codes at the NATO 50th meeting.
  • This isn't the first time this has happened. During the Gulf war, something very similar occured.
    Even more serious, several months ago Bono lost his laptop that had the lyrics for U2's next album. Fortunately, he got it back and all was well.

    Look at it this way: they're not called 'portable' for nothing. It'll happen.
  • That's like asking why Microsoft has the Windows source code.

    The real question is why the data wasn't removed, or why the agent was allowed to carry his/her laptop out of headquarters. Or here's another one:

    Why didn't the laptop have an autodestruct?
  • There's no point in owning a laptop if you can't put work stuff on it!
  • Darn, don't real spies ever watch the movies? Everyone knows you carry your (documents/laptop/bomb) in one of those cool aluminum cases with the custom cut foam and you ALWAYS handcuff it to yourself. Stupid spies. :-)

    Skippy
  • hmmm, seems that we all now insite one of those strange loops RAWilson is always talking about....


    nmarshall
    #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
    R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE
  • They are also the ones (indirectly) responsible for the term 'spam' beimg applied to junk email.
  • The next Distributed.net project is to crack the encryption on the files in the laptop. sponsoerd by the IRA of course.
  • Cliché: Trite of overused expression or idea.

    The cliché he used may have been referring to an oxymoron, but that doesn't make it wrong to call it a cliché.
  • I read about this story a couple of days back, and was informed that the spy had the laptop stolen whilst queing for a ticket... he went to move and noticed that the laptop was no longer between his feet.
    He then looked around the station a bit desperatly (as one would :) only to get a bit worried...
    As for seeing people running through stations... I know that I wouldn't stop them and ask them what they were doing - more often than not, it's someone running for a train just about to leave.

    As it is, I have had a laptop nicked on the train... ok, not exactly nicked, but I left my laptop on an underground train, noticed that I no longer had it about two seconds after the train had left, and therefore started shouting obscenities.
    I had the train searched two stations later only to find out that some bastard had nicked it.
  • There's also the chance that the password is 'secret' or 'magic' though.

  • I know this comment was meant as a joke, but it has a serious answer: the reason you don't keep your valuables in a solid metal case that's handcuffed to you is:
    a: It's bloody obvious your valuables are in there
    b: You don't want anybody cutting your arm off to get it.

  • I can just see it now:

    Scene: office.

    RING RING.

    "MI5, M's office."
    "Moneypenny? This is James. I seem to have lost something."
    "James, *really*!"
    "Could you take a quick dash into M's office and see if there's a laptop somewhere?"
    "Only if you get it from me when you take me to dinner."
    "Yes, well.. that's all well and good now - but if it's not there, we might just have a tad of a problem. You see, it does hold a few fairly important documents, and I am sort of responsible for it, you know."
    "Is that a yes?"
    "I might have to dash off and save the world because of this. That would take prescidence, you know."
    "I don't hear a yes in that sentence."
    "It's a terribly nice world. I have saved it a few times before. Would be a terrible shame to see it destroyed now, you know."
    "James."
    "Nice lakes. Beautiful trees."
    "JAMES."
    "Appealing overpasses?"
    "Yes or no."
    Sigh. "Yes. Now would you please go look?"
  • Retrieving IP address....now.
  • "Good, Cheap, Fast, choose two..."

    Around here in SF, the cabs are

    Fast, Curtious, Cheap, Safe, choose two...

  • Wasn't some spammer skewered by a certain slashdotter for posting some BS about "being one with the markets"? It's likely that he needed a way to get his get-rich-quick secrets onto slashdot, while still appearing to hate spam.

    My point is, don't automatically jump to conclusions on this guy. Maybe he is a dunderhead, but a traitor? That's not quite our place to say.

  • Of course, we expect CSIS to make stupid mistakes. After all, they aren't a real intelligence agency anyways. All they ever do is whine "oh no, not more immigrants! Immigrants are bad! They're all terrorists!". The CSE (Communciations Security Establishment -- Canada's equivalent of the NSA) is more a spy agency than CSIS.

    But MI5 is supposed to be full of a bunch of James Bond-like smart and handsome people, right?
  • Why was the M15 agent carrying sensitive material on a laptop? Even if it was encrypted, that doesn't sound like the most brilliant of ideas.
  • And this is not even mentioning the fact that they had to get bailed out of two world wars by an ex-colony.

    Yeah, the Australians did a pretty good job in both wars, didn't they ?
  • It was really just an MIS drone who lost a laptop. The 'top secret' info was the 2 gigs of g04t-pr0nZ he'd been downloading on his company's T3.
  • ....and behind the name of the programming language 'python' mighty kick ass language too.....
  • The spokeswoman said the computer's data was encrypted and confirmed that any information held on it would be very difficult to retrieve. She would not disclose what type of encryption was in place or how strong it is.

    Every byte was xored with 'A'. :)
  • It's called "The Peacekeeper." More information is available here [imdb.com] at the Internet Movie Database [imdb.com].
    --
    DeCSS source code! [metastudios.com]
  • ha. come on man. i was laughing 'cause i found your shit funny, but if you're going to argue, do it right. McKinley was assasinated a decade and a half before the US joined World War I. the ship was the Lusitania. as for World War II, there was much more than the bombing of Pearl Harbor - our ships being at danger, etc. you make some humorous arguments, but you need to back them better with facts.
    --
    DeCSS source code! [metastudios.com]
  • i'm more embarrassed about the treatment of japanese americans. i don't care how late we joined. and you also need to realize something else - the US was sending England TONS of supplies via the lend lease program. we were in the war before it was official. it also took us a while to get into the war 'cause we needed to prepare. yeesh. as for WWI, yeah, we waited a bit on that. hindsight is always 20/20, eh?

    as for his comments, they're rude but amusing. many americans perceive an arrogance from most britons. i have nothing against britons i meet, 'cept they all seem to look down on me FOR SOMETHING I CANNOT CONTROL. and DAMMIT does it ever irritate me, 'cause i NEVER did anything to them. it's a hateful world and it's silly. cut your shit out, yeah? "fight fire with fire" doesn't fucking work.
    --
    DeCSS source code! [metastudios.com]

  • i got it from someone else, though i don't remember their username. be jealous of someone else, not me :)
    --
    DeCSS source code! [metastudios.com]
  • Did you hear of the one where an MI5 agent and some fellow horrays went out on a bender?

    As the taxi was taking them home it just happened to be approaching the house of a suspected spy. So the top secret agent had the taxi pull up, the passengers spilled out onto the pavement of a quite well to do residential area, then proceeded to scream obscenities through the suspects letter box. Including the immortal line, 'Come on out you commie b*****d, I want to give you a good thrashing'.

    Loosing a laptop seems a rather minor misdemeanour after that don't you think?

  • No, it was the Powerbook, you were close.

    Watch out for the MIBs!


  • Certainly. A quick google search finds us these two existing references.

    This from canadanews.about.com [about.com]
    and
    another from www.indiatribune.com [tribuneindia.com]

  • who taught him that slick trick?

  • how? (Score:1)

    by Yablo ( 98362 )
    if you had a laptop with extremely sensitive information, wouldnt you make sure it never left your sight? how does one lose a laptop like this?

    also, i wonder if there is going to be a reward or something for it...
  • It took some time to break all of NT's famous security, but I did it! This is what I found: screen shot. [goodsol.com]

    This dude knew exactly what Windoze is good for. My commendations for a shrewd hire, MI5! I almost feel bad about embarasing him.

    Leave 1 million pounds sterling (in silver!) in the LSU quad fountian at 2AM, April 1st or I will disable this critical piece of software and erase it's entire history. No tricks!

  • I know this is just a pipedream, but it would be nice if whomever stole the laptop put the encrypted data on the net. Then we all could try cracking it, a la the RC5 project (I'm probably getting the name wrong. Correct me if I am.) It would be interesting to peer behind the curtains at the machinations of the British government.
  • I sent it in two days ago...
  • I know its an old cliche:
    " 'Government Intelligence' is a contradiction in terms. "
  • Terribly offtopic (thus I post as AC to protect my karma).

    I just "got" your .sig. I knew I had heard that somewhere! (From Sneakers. I guess you'd have to see the movie to get it. Strange movie. Not like what I envision Hackers to be. Who was that lady? She was the perfect social engineer ;))

    Welcome to Slashdot. Please do not feed the trolls.
  • We are Bringing them their Menus in Bavaria! In Bavaria, Where The Mountains Stick Out of the Ground!
    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Oh, and the /. "Funny" icon is the Monty Python foot.

    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Hey! Britian happens to have spawned Douglas Adams and Monty Python!
    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • I can't beleive anyone at all would ever say "Monty Python Sucks Ass" - those four words just dont fit together.

    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Monty Python is a comedy troupe which was behind classics such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They also had a late sixties-early seveties tv show called Monty Python's Flying Circus. They are outragously funny but in an absurd way. There are transcripts of all the flying circus skits, and some of the movies at Stone Dead Productions [stone-dead.asn.au] They also have a lot of great information and facts about Monty Python. Monty Python is not to be confused with The Full Monty which is an entirely different thing aside from the fact they're both English and both have "Monty" in the title.
    ----
    Don't underestimate the power of peanut brittle
  • Because perhaps it would make them a higher profile person, and they more than likely don't need or want that.

    An example would be "enemy" agents would just need to watch for people with briefcases chained to their hands, and they would then know that person is in posession on sensitive information, or at least something quite valuable.

    Something you might find interesting. At my place of employment, we do some government contracts, and do have what we deem "secure labs" where Classified and even at times Top Secret data is stored. They have procedures for all electronic equipment (such as physically crushing tapes and hard drives for disposal), however a co-worker of my noted "You know what, I bet they don't zero out the RAM when it goes out of the lab.". Ingenius observation!
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Not sure if this is just stuff that I've seen in the movies or if it's true to life, but don't these people usually have the things handcuffed to them or something?

    I know that the US president has a guy follow him around with a briefcase handcuffed to himself. Supposedly this has to do with our nuclear weapons, but I don't think there has ever been an official statement about what's inside.

    I once saw a movie like this too. I think it starred Dolf Lungren(i butchered the spelling there), the Russian from Rocky IV. Anyway he lost the briefcase, and had to save the world and chase down some terrorists in some midwestern missle silo. Wish I could remember the name of the movie.

    Wigs
    --"Only after you've lost everything are you free to do anything"

  • At this rate, the thief will be posting next: "I posted it three days ago because I knew I was going to do it tomorrow." Tomorrow never dies. James Bond will definitely be on the case.

  • No encryption is safe from a chop shop. They can just break the laptop open and sell the parts.
  • Actually, it was the microphone he traded the Bluesmobile in for.
  • Slashdot goes tabloid?

    The article says that the laptop contained "sensitive" data, but it makes no mention of the classification involved. Encryption does not imply a security classification; you'd expect (and hope) that agencies like MI5 encrypt all classified information (particularly if it's left around where any Artful Dodger can pinch it.)

    Just the facts, Ma'am.
  • Well...microsoft windows source code is shit, perhaps even on par with AOL... :) But you are right, the laptop should have had a autodestruct Go Go Gadget Auto Destruct
  • This isn't the first time this has happened. During the Gulf war, something very similar occured.


    ...phil
  • Well, imagine an agent trying to go to, say, WC and do the usuall stuuf there - with laptop handcuffed to him. It'd be a bit inconvenient, no? Same with eating, buying tickets and many other regular activities...
  • Disclaimer: I'm British

    On the humour front, I love a line I recall from a humorous TV program some time in the seventies/eighties (cold war still going strong). Sorry if this is offensive :-)

    "The Americans are trying to make up for being late for the last two world wars by making sure they are really early for the next one".

    Anyway, as to "many Americans perceive an arrogance from most britons" - that does seem quite possible.

    But is this because Brits feel superior, because Americans feel inferior or because Americans feel Brits feel superior?

    How do you perceive what I'm phrasing now? I'm just trying to be precise...

  • Oh no! (Score:2)

    by Pyro P ( 7396 )
    With the M15 laptop stolen, how are we going to get our next Mozilla milestone? This will set back development immensely, and it's all the English government's fault. I bet Microsoft paid off the English government to have them lose it.

    Wait...that's an I, not a 1...

    If 90% of everything isn't crap, your standards are too high.
    We will never be able to come to a consensus on which 10% ISN'T crap.
  • Wow.

    Instead of trying so desperately to get First Post, how about giving some detail on the other incident?

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • Just to clarify things, the agency is called MI5, not M15 .. another agency is MI6.

    --
  • IIRC, it's been said before that MI5 and MI6 spy on each other...

    I think MI5 is domestic and MI6 is supposed to be international, but there is overlap.

    --
  • IIRC, there is an encrypted ext2fs that you can use, where you supply the password when you mount or something..

    I wonder if it was this, or some Win32 based encrypted filesystem.

    --
  • Not to nit pick too much, but the slashdot authors are just a little dumb/misinformed/sloppy sometimes. It's MI5, not M15. You'd think if the guy who submitted the story got it right, the /. authors would have the capability to either look at it and figure it out, or use their mad copy and paste skilz to do so.

    Doug

  • We know the data is safe because they are using the Super Secure(tm) Windows NT 4.0 operating system. Oh yeah, it is also in its prime state for high security, being it not connected to a network and all.
  • There must be a joke in there somewhere to call this whole line of work the 'intelligence business' :-)

  • Let's say you're an agent in a competing agency, and you're local to this area at the moment. Wouldn't you be trying frantically to get this laptop before it's returned or discovered? And if you're in a competing agency, you might just have the technology to decrypt it in a timely fashion.

    We're the guys who are always talking about how the NSA has such amazing technology and can decrypt things sooo much faster than we or distributed.net can come close to, aren't we?

    --
    linuxisgood:~$ man woman

  • A similar thing happened in Toronto a while ago. A CSIS agent (one of the Canadian spy organizations) left a briefcase in his car while attending a Maple Leafs game. The briefcase had a bunch of sensitive documents and was stolen when his car was broken into.

    Maybe Canada and the UK use the same training programs for their agents :)

    Dana
  • The guy who had the laptop was an 'intelligence' officer/operative/whatever. (Not a particularly good one, I'm guessing.) He would have been PRETTY conspicuous with a pair of handcuffs connecting him to his luggage. It's probably a good idea to NOT handcuff yourself to things if you want to blend into the background and gather top-secret information on Ireland while typing it into your laptop...
  • ...to make this scenerio more embarassing -- make the laptop
    be a 'cute little pink iMac' laptop. >:D
  • Re:I heard this on the radio this morning in the UK

    In this age of unlimited interconnectivity, it's amazing what we consider "Old News" these days.
    _________________________

  • because if he takes his work home with him, who's looking over his shoulder? in this day of wide-area networks and 9823749823742-bit encryption transmission or whatever, i don't see any reason whatsoever for classified to be on a laptop, when the last thing you want is for information to be carried around, especially out of the scif. i work for the nsa myself, and believe me if i tried something like that, i know they'd make sure that i had my own room in hell. otoh, seeing as the director of the nsa was fired last year for allegedly 'taking his work home with him'...
  • Didnt this story break on Thursday?
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • It was Bear, Paddinton Bear
  • Yes, and these are the kind of morons that the government wants to give the key to every encryption system used within the UK.

    Too bloody right they are !!!!!!

    As well as the (*irony*) beautifully crafted RIP bill (*/irony), in their infinite wisdom, the UK government now are bringing in a new 'Terrorism Act' which redefines terrorism as being err.... anything that the Government want really. So swiping a lap-top some MI5 civil service type left unattended can get you 'Enemy of the State' status as well....... bit like being chased by the Keystone Cops, I suppose.

  • I lost my watch on saturday in the men's locker room at the downtown YMCA, It had sensitive data on it, like the actual secret correct time as set by an atomic clock in a government institution somewhere in midwestern united states. I had it strapped to my wrist as so many have suggested is the best way to save it, but I fear it may have been sabotaged by enemy spies who I also note were eyeing me in the shower room.
  • I don't think this agent was a spy, but apparently this laptop contained information on the state of terrorist activity in N. Ireland. Since the data was important enough to be encrypted, the theft is a major concern.
  • Just a few years from now, a scenario like this will be unthinkable. Intel recently announced a new technology [zdnet.com] using fingerprints and tiny Smart Cards for user security with laptops. If terrorists are to make any use of a stolen computer, they'll have to steal the owner's digit as well.

    I must say I don't really feel comfortable about all this new technology...
  • Weren't some MI5 agents executed in WWII for selling secrets to the Nazis? It's likely that this agent needed away to get the secrets to the people who paid him off, while at the same time looking innocent.

    It wasn't stolen, it was *sold*, people.

    Bowie J. Poag

  • This is why I want /. to have a user blacklist (Score:3)

    by Cardinal ( 311 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @12:54PM (#1172178)
    I know it seems harsh, but this is one reason I'd like to see a username blacklist feature available on Slashdot. The idea doesn't impress me, but it seems necessary now that stuff like this guy is showing up posting advertising spam with a Slashdot account.

    Moderating is all well and good, but it won't always catch them before I read a thread. It seems much easier to provide a simple list that I can add 'impulsiveprofits [slashdot.org]' to, and never have to think about him again.

    Look at his profile, he's posted 8 times this week, each one spam advertising.

  • Giving the keys to the kingdom to the morons. (Score:3)

    by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @03:02PM (#1172179)
    Yes, and these are the kind of morons that the government wants to give the key to every encryption system used within the UK.

    Yes, I know you're watching me...

  • Stolen Laptops (Score:3)

    by Accipiter ( 8228 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @01:19PM (#1172180)
    I remember reading something awhile back about a few laptops being stolen. Turns out that both of the laptops ran the distributed.net [distributed.net] client. The next time the laptops connected to the net, the blocks were uploaded and the IP address was logged.

    Both of the computers were recovered. :)

    It was posted [slashdot.org] on Slashdot awhile back, and here [wired.com] is a link to the original story.

    On a note to the story, what's going to happen to the MI5 agent? I'm assuming that he will be quietly discharged, and a few months down the road he'll disappear. (That usually happens to clumsy government agents. heh.)

    -- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?

  • I had a laptop stoling a couple years ago and was just wondering what typically happens to them?

    I've always assumed that they end up being bought and sold on the internet's own black market... you know... EBay [ebay.com].

    I'm only half-joking. Think about it, you have an open market where people all over the world can legally bid on your merchandise, and no effort is ever made to verify that the product being sold is not stolen (though there is some insurance the the product actually exists). Once someone buys it from you it becomes a legal item again, as that person has their "reciept" from the EBay auction...

  • Re:Stolen Laptops (Score:3)

    by JamesO ( 56897 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @02:02PM (#1172182) Homepage
    Nah - apparently he was giving directions to some people, and an 'opportunist' just grabbed the machine and ran.

    They're not taking disciplinary action...

  • Hmmm... (Score:3)

    by randombit ( 87792 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @12:49PM (#1172183) Homepage
    I suspect that unless he snuck the laptop out (bad spy!), either the data is not that sensitive, or the entire hard drive was encrypted (or both).

    Though actually, I'll bet there are a lot of people who would like to get ahold of the encryption software or hardware (probably hardware), in order to reverse engineer it. Not neccesarily for any bad purposes, mind you, I supsect that people such as Ross Anderson or Lars Knudsen (a couple of cryptographers, for those not in the know) would love to get ahold of something like that and be able to say that they broke a cipher used by MI5.

    Also, I doubt this guy is actually a spy of any sort: more likely a desk worker of some sort.

  • Dilbert Principle (Score:3)

    by Nezer ( 92629 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @02:32PM (#1172184) Homepage
    "On a note to the story, what's going to happen to the MI5 agent? I'm assuming that he will be quietly discharged, and a few months down the road he'll disappear. (That usually happens to clumsy government agents. heh.)"

    If you're fimiliar with the Dilbert Principle, this agent will be promoted to upper-management in no time at all. :)

  • Bad Publicity (Score:3)

    by Spire ( 101081 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @12:41PM (#1172185)
    Is publicizing the theft/loss the right thing to do in this situation? What could MI5 possibly gain by announcing to the entire world that one of its bumbling agents has lost a laptop containing "sensitive government information"? If nothing else, the information might make the person who found (or stole) the machine realize that he has something really valuable in his hands, and decide to fence the sensitive information to MI5 enemies, or demand a huge reward, or even hold it for ransom. The saying goes, "There's no such thing as bad publicity," but I wonder if this might be an exception.

  • Paddington Laptop (Score:4)

    by Nightpaw ( 18207 ) <jesse&uchicago,edu> on Saturday March 25, 2000 @12:44PM (#1172186) Homepage
    I think this would make a good children's story:

    A nice family finds the laptop in Paddington Station and decide to take it home and take care of it. It tends to get into little adventures and hilarity ensues.
  • You wouldn't believe how many stolen laptops get sold as-is to unsuspecting computer shops.

    One of my former roommates bought such a laptop, only to find out later it was stolen from the CEO of a certain major corporation. He found out after looking at the hard drive, which not only had Windows 95 installed on it, but lots of files relating to executive business of said corporation.

    The bizarre part is apparently no one at the computer store ever looked at what, besides Windows 95 itself, was actually installed on the thing, nor did anybody try to format the disk.

    I don't think they ever caught the thief.....so some details have been obscured.
    ---

  • What happens to stolen laptops? (Score:4)

    by e_n_d_o ( 150968 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @12:56PM (#1172188)
    I had a laptop stoling a couple years ago and was just wondering what typically happens to them? Do the thieves sell them as is or do they wipe the HD, install a fresh Win9x (or maybe the latest OpenBSD :)) and then take them to the swap meet? My laptop was a WinNT 4 Server used for demoing web apps, and I doubt the average thug would know what to do when he couldn't just hit ESC to bypass the password prompt. Maybe such systems just wind up in the trash? Are there actually big time laptop-thieving operations or do people just steal them because they can't afford to buy one capable of running Win2K? My apologies for the lack of facts and plethora of questions.

  • Re:how? (Score:5)

    by choco ( 36913 ) on Saturday March 25, 2000 @02:12PM (#1172189) Homepage
    According to the reports over here...

    1) The bloke with the Laptop was buying a ticket. This can frequently be a long, tedious complex process - especially at Paddington Station. One of Londons stations which serves some of the rather less -well organised rail companies. And you wouldn't believe how complicated buying a ticket can be in this country at the moment.

    2) He put the Laptop down, between his legs.

    3) Someone snatched it from behind and ran off. The guy realised at once and gave chase, helped by a couple of Transport Police. But the thief got away.

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