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Strategies & Market Trends : VOLTAIRE'S PORCH-MODERATED -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Judith Williams who wrote (1950)	9/18/2000 12:34:01 AM
From: T L Comiskey	Respond to of 65232

From CBS Market Watch.........RE Laptop Theft....... Partial Story several attendees at the SABEW conference said they noticed three unattended laptops shortly after the theft as they passed through an adjoining exhibitors' room. "It doesn't seem (Jacobs' laptop) would be the obvious choice 'If' the individual was looking for an easy target," noted Shawn Abbott, chief technical officer of computer security company Rainbow Technologies. Jacobs and about a half-dozen journalists were no further than 30 feet from his laptop when it disappeared. More than 100 reporters and editors from across the nation attended SABEW's 4th annual technology conference, a two-day event that ended Sunday. Trimble said the laptop, valued at about $4,000, was password protected and the data was backed up on a computer at Qualcomm's San Diego headquarters. 'However,' password-protected computers running Windows' operating systems, as Jacobs' was, can be easily be broken into. The level of security on Jacobs' laptop could not be determined. Qualcomm is the world's leading developer of a technology known as CDMA, which seems to have won the global battle to become the standard technology for making high-speed Internet access available on wireless devices. Those so-called third-generation wireless technologies are expected to connect the Internet to handhelds and other devices in the next few years -- initially in the Far East and Europe. Those markets are considered to have a potential value in the tens of billions of dollars, as everything from cars to airplanes are equipped with broadband wireless connections. Abbott, the computer security expert, said the case underscores the importance of securing information on laptops as people put more and more valuable information on them. He cited a study by Intel that he said found that $907 million worth of laptops were stolen in 1998. If security on Jacobs' laptop was limited only to password protection -- rather than a more advanced encryption scheme -- "it's extremely unlikely that it will take any more than removing the hard drive and hooking it up to another computer to read all the files," Abbott said. Technologies already on the market can prevent laptops from even booting up without the introduction of physically independent devices that include encrypted "ignition" keys or microchip-embedded smart cards. Qualcomm shares rose $3.63 Friday to close at $66.25. Copyright 2000, The Associated Press. All