MINNESOTA COMPUTERS STOLEN AT RECORD RATES Laptops stolen at record rates:

Laptops stolen at record rates
Shanthal Perera
Since August, the number of laptop thefts have doubled since the beginning of the year. After 21 university-issued laptops were recorded stolen in Winona in the last three months, Kevin Kearney, community liaison officer at Winona Police Department, is advising students to be extra cautious of their machines. Laptop theft has remained a bane at Winona State University since the inception seven years ago of its laptop program, one of the first programs in the United States. The recent surge of thefts is troublesome. During the previous school year, 27 laptops were stolen, an average of three per month. Already into the 2007-08 academic year that average is seven per month. While not all cases involve Winona State laptops, students are at high risk and pay a hefty price. The $2,000 machine is only a portion of the megabytes of assignments, notes, music and videos that students store electronically. Earlier measures by the university to prevent laptop theft involved informing students on practical solutions. Last year, Winona State offered students a technological tool to add to their armory. Computrace, a computer tracking program, is offered to students as a security measure. The cost is $50 for a two-year term. Computrace is not an installed program, but is built into the computer’s operating system. According to Dean Feller, technical support center manager, it is almost impossible to override it. Feller said the number of students who have Computrace has increased by four times since last year. Besides a guarantee of finding the stolen laptop, Computrace also offers financial protection. If the laptop is not retrieved in 90 days, the student is paid $1,000. There has only been one case when a stolen laptop with Computrace was not recovered and the student received $1,000. There was always a concern of Winona State being targeted because it is a laptop university but considering the rate of theft, that doesn’t seem to be the case according to Feller. Winona State began its laptop program in 2000 and today there are about 8,000 laptops on campus, most of them Gateway M285 models and Macintosh Mac Books. The biggest impact of laptop theft is on students, said Feller; both financially and academically, said Feller. He said there’s little impact on the technical support center or Gateway. They can be very easily remarketed and resold, he added, which makes them prime targets. Feller said that he has seen trends where many students have been careless, leaving the machines unattended or out in the open. Feller said some thefts occurred after late night parties when strangers may have had the ideal opportunity to explore. Feller said theft by force was unlikely. “Not all of them are careless students,” said Kearney. While students are advised to not keep laptops out in the open, even at home, Kearney said they should have a right to feel their homes are safe. While most laptop thefts occur off-campus, Don Walski, head of Winona State security, confirmed there have been a few within campus. Since January, there have been three cases of laptop theft on-campus, two of which belonged to faculty members. In the preceding years, there has been a drop in laptop thefts on-campus, according to Walski. In 2006, there were 44 laptop thefts related to Winona State of which only eight were on campus. There were a dozen thefts on campus from a total of 64 Winona State laptop thefts in 2005. Walski said the two main problems were that students had to leave their bags outside when entering the Jack Kane Cafeteria and the Winona State Bookstore. Chartwells changed its policy after discussions with Winona State, allowing students to take their bags into the cafeteria. In addition, security cameras were installed outside the bookstore. Since the introduction of cameras, there have been no thefts outside the bookstore, said Walski. Winona State Security also makes regular rounds in the dorms to find unlocked rooms and inform students of the dangers. “If I give you $500, would you leave it on the table and go? Probably not,” said Walski. The low rate of recovery was a concern, admitted Feller. “Chances of you getting it back are very slim. It has happened though.” Kearney could only make guesses as to what kind of people were involved with the thefts but said it could be anyone who identifies the opportunity. “I wish I knew! We don’t have enough people coming forward and giving information. They could be college students? They could be of out-of-towners?” Winona Police haven’t received any notice of unusual characters in the area when and where thefts have occurred and Kearney surmised the culprits are probably people who fit in. Charges for laptop theft, a gross misdemeanor, could amount to 90 days in prison and/or a $3,000 fine. Feller said the university itself has been pushing legal actions against individuals responsible for laptop thefts. “You are taking a big gamble because the software is pretty good,” stressed Feller, giving notice to anyone who thinks they can get away with laptoptheft. “We have a large number of machines with Computrace installed and we’re going to start catching people because of the program,” Feller said. Shanthal can be reached at SJPerera6454@winona.edu.