Honor Amoung Theives

Well kids, its that time of the year again.

Time for another major ecological disaster?

No, but almost as bad. 

For university students across the nation, it is time for everyone's favorite end-of-the-semester tradition: The Final Exam.

Basically how it goes.

Many of you have no doubt already taken them, and for many more they are still to come, but it is most assuredly the season, and if you are in an institution of higher learning you are likely to be sweating about it sometime between mid-April to mid-May. 

Pictured: "Sweating"

But exams aren't the only fun thing us students have to deal with. No, for a lot of classes final projects of various types are what constitutes the big final grade. These projects can take many forms, from large research papers to complex programs to diagram rich presentation to sexual favors for the professor, but the one thing they all have in common is they are worth a big chunk of your grade and you spend most of the semester working on them.

Also acceptable: One stimulant-fueled night of desperation.

In some ways, these projects are even worse then an exam. With an exam, all the time you spend cramming and learning the material is a solid investment, and the knowledge you gained can never be taken from you. 

However, after pouring hours of you life into a project, any number of things can rob you of the final product: You lose your flashdrive, your hard drive crashes, your apartment catches fire, ect.

But perhaps worst of all?

Some fuckhead steals your laptop.

Laptop theft, especially on college campuses, is a bigger problem then you might realize. Its become so prevalent, people have written guides to keeping your computer out of criminal hands, some even produced by major universities, and laptop theft insurance is a booming business along with various pieces of software for tracking down your stolen tech. 

My library even put up a sign. The clipart lets you know how serious this is.

Now, I get it; Laptops are small, light, and valuable, everything someone with sticky fingers wants in a target. There is a huge demand for them, so selling them off second hand is a piece of cake, and people have a nasty habit of leaving them unattended in public places. I can hardly blame a robber for taking an opportunity like that (besides, you know, the whole stealing other people's shit thing). 

But listen, the hardest part about having you computer stolen isn't that you have to buy a new one (which does suck, certainly, but its not the end of the world). Its the fact that, if you never made a proper backup like most average computer users, you have lost all of the information on that system.

Mr. Grab-n-Go doesn't really get anything from your data though. I mean, sure, they could try and find bank info on there to steal your identity, but cracking into even a lightly protected laptop is more trouble then they are probably willing to spend on it. Especially when they can just send your grandmother an email signed by a "Nigerian Prince" and get the same result. No, they probably just stole for the value of the machine itself.

So, the thief gets no added value from your data, but to you your data is the most valuable part of your laptop.

Given this, I suggest a simple solution that will make thieves less dickish and victims less screwed: Leave the Data. 

It goes like this: If you are a thief and plan on snagging some poorly minded laptops, brush up real quick on breaking a basic windows password (ask the internet, its not hard. Most people won't have anything more then that as far as protection goes). When you steal a laptop, before you fence it, boot it up and gain access. Open up the My Documents folder, and throw everything that looks important into a .zip file. Now, open up the computer's default web browser and open a tab for each of the major free email services (Gmail, yahoo, ect) and each of the major social networks (Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, ect.). Chances are, the owner's username and password are saved for at least on of them. Now, pick the one you think they are most likely to check, and use it to send that .zip to them. 

There, now the victim has their data back and you can sell your ill-gotten laptop just as easily. Win-win.

Oh, right, its 4/20 isn't it? Whoops. ~insert lame stoner joke here~