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Sometimes sensitive data security matters even more than money. Yes, this time a Dell laptop computer, a external drive and some more valuable things were stolen from Edmon Low Library between 27th and 31st of January. David Peters, coordinator for the special collections and university archives said, “I had some international coins missing too, but those are minor compared to my external drive”.  Theft is becoming very common at Colvin and personal items are disappearing from campus, in classrooms and in on campus restaurants and residence halls in a big amount.

How Burglary  took place

As reported by Peters that as soon as he stepped into his office on Jan. 31 around 8 a.m., he sensed something wrong there. He could easily make out the difference by how things were placed in his room like his piggy bank was missing and the external drive was unplugged from the USB cable. Later, he discovered that his laptop was also missing from its case. On the discovery of this event, he contacted the library security and OSU police immediately.

Peters said in a statement, “My initial reaction was a sick feeling”. I told myself, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me’. “I felt pretty sorry for myself at first, I had other, less valuable things to me that they could have taken, but the big things are what were missing” he said.

Peters said the cops took down his statement and were looking at possibilities on campus, but nothing has been resolved yet. He said “My external hard drive contained personal research also. Folder headings on the hard drive are: Gallagher, family, family photos and Microsoft Word and Excel files. The irreplaceable family history and photos on the drive are what matter the most” he added.

Description of  the stolen things

Describing the details of the stolen things he added  that  the Laptop was black in colour with gray  trim and had a plastic cover. Its original power cord was left when it was stolen. Laptop was about five years old and its worth was less than $50. He also mentioned that the laptop belonged to a service organization called the Stillwater Rotary Club and the record it contained is almost impossible to rebuild from scratch.  He told that the 50 GB Western Digital passport external drive was less than two years old and worth about $20.

Peters is ready to offer a sum of $100 reward for everyone if  the laptop and hard drive are returned back, without any further probes. He also announced any expenses related to its return will me reimbursed.

If you use the Laptop encryption software or full encryption software in your device, nothing can harm your data even when your device is taken or stolen. Nowadays encryption is very simple, you just need to install it in your system.

Laptop Encryption Software with Alertsec

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• How to retrieve data from an external hard drive, when it was the enclosure that went bad? (ask.metafilter.com)