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TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

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Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#121

Post by franciscop »

ari_ wrote: post #61

1. Standard rule for traveling: Your bags move along with you. In other words, you only step up to the x-ray machine as your bags are about to pass through. You never, ever, take your eyes off your stuff. It irritates the hell out of the TSA people, but who cares? In this particular case I think he was trying to do this, but forgot to take off his belt. I would have walked through and got patted down next to my bags.…

I always try to do this, but I also opt-out of the scanning machines. Any way to make them work together? When I opt out I am required to wait outside an undetermined amount of time until they decide I am not going to change my mind and just get me through the x-ray and pat me down. I always try to keep an eye on my stuff, but it's impossible at times. No problem so far, but I worry something will happen.

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#122

Post by a3n »

DavidSJ wrote: post #35
mjlee wrote: post #20

Interestingly (to me) the author used the phrase "on accident". I googled it and found this: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/215/is-it-correct... As a British English speaker, this stopped me in my tracks. I'm wondering if it had the same effect on the American English readers of this article.

It's not proper American English either but it's becoming increasingly common.

Not becoming, I heard and used it as a kid in the sixties.

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#123

Post by sokoloff »

kriro wrote: post #64
Xylakant wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put any message you want on your macbooks login/lock screen. Mine contains contact information just in case I loose it. Might actually pay off to put a sticker on it as well.

Two sided sword. If the person that took the laptop is actually a thief he/she conveniently knows you're currently not at home upon boot. Since this theft requires at least some criminal energy (I guess there's an outside shot of just being a grab and run) I wouldn't put it past the thief to immediately loot your home or have an accomplice do so.

Use a work address, email address, and a cell phone number. Agreed that home address is a bad idea, just like on luggage tags.

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#124

Post by jasallen »

mjlee wrote: post #20

Interestingly (to me) the author used the phrase "on accident". I googled it and found this: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/215/is-it-correct... As a British English speaker, this stopped me in my tracks. I'm wondering if it had the same effect on the American English readers of this article.

I'm American and it drives me crazy to hear this, but it is regretfully not terribly uncommon.

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#125

Post by ascagnel_ »

blowski wrote: post #101
gonzo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if JFK Airport removed TSA and just let people walk on to the plane, would you board one? Yes.

Do you think people aren't trying to attack planes, or that the TSA has zero effectiveness in stopping those people?

The latter. The TSA screening process (a recent report had them pegged at 5% effectiveness[0]) is next to worthless and itself creates a security hazard/potential attack vector. The TSA screening process is also entirely reactionary -- shoe removal only became a thing after an attacker tried to hide explosives in their shoes.

If the TSA was pro-active and had a reasonable degree of effectiveness, then I'd be more willing to put up with it. As it stands, the $85 pre-check fee is more of a "pay us money and we won't actively put you at risk for no benefit" fee.

[0] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-u...

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#126

Post by Xylakant »

uptown wrote: post #100
lucaspiller wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I do: 1) Enable disk encryption (System Preferences -> Security and Privacy -> FileVault) 2) Regular backups with TimeMachine to a USB drive. It your machine is lost you can use this to restore everything back to how it was pretty quickly. By default TimeMachine backups aren't encrypted, so make sure you check the "Encrypt backups" option when enabling it. 3) As well as using "Find my iPhone" (which requ…

Something I've never tested -- how does TimeMachine handle things like a locally installed Apache instance somewhere on the primary disk? If I lose my laptop and do a restore to a new machine does it set things back as-if nothing had changed?

You can have TimeMachine either recover the user data, programs, or the whole system. It's not a full system image, but so far it's been working fine. Migrated across 4 or 5 machines using TM.

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#127

Post by azth »

rossng wrote: post #89
nikanj wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crashplan. $99 per year.

I use Crashplan, but it's a bit rubbish. Backblaze is much better if you don't need to use it on Linux.

What issues have you had with Crashplan, out of curiosity? One thing about Backblaze is that they do not keep backups of files that do not exist on your computer, and that you need to connect your computer to the internet at least once every 90 days (or was it 30?)

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#128

Post by hellbanner »

If you truly hate security theatre in the USA, boycott travel. Tell your boss, your family, your friends that you can't travel because you refused to be treated poorly by a parasitic and incompetent organization.

But, if your paycheck is more important to you than restoring diginity, the (governmental) terrorists have won :)

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#129

Post by avian »

orph4nus wrote: post #93
manojlds wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not required to remove laptops from sleeves while sending through the scanner?

No you don't. As a nomad I fly a lot, and I always leave my laptop in its waterproof bag.

As a settler that travels ocassionaly I am often required to open or even turn on my laptop at the security check.

Re: TSA gave my MacBook Pro to another passenger at LAX, and now it's gone

#130

Post by mark_l_watson »

I have mixed feelings about TSA: the people who work for TSA at the checkpoints have always been polite, which is good. The bad thing is that I feel like security is really weak in the USA. In comparison, in India, everyone was searched on the flights I took, and a personal search seems much more effective.

Re: stolen MacBook Pro: ouch! I have several older Linux laptops, so when I travel I grab a laptop that is old and expendable. Since I always encrypt my disk and most of what I do is in bitbucket, or on a cloud service, losing a laptop would just be an inconvenience. I find it more relaxing to not have things of high value with me when I travel.

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