lock for laptop for going through TSA
 

i have to fly on Christmas Day and need to bring my laptop. I will be alone so the buddy system of watching each other stuff won't work. I see some people have used a locking cable of some type. I have looked on websites and they talk about a locking port or something on a laptop.

Is this something installed? I bought my laptop at frys and I don't see anything like a locking port or hole.

any ideas?

Welcome to Flyertalk.

Which laptop did you buy? Pretty much every one for years has had a small hole on the side or back for a locking cable. It looks something like this, the little hole on the far right

http://clicksafe.kensington.com/Port...op-ports-2.png

What do you plan on locking it to as it goes through security in a bin all by itself?

Most laptops (not all) have a small, rectangular slot for locking, called the K-slot; it'll look something like this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...-lock-slot.jpg

To use it, you get a cable lock like this:

http://www.kensington.com/kensington...book-lock.aspx

This lock will obviously not stop someone determined to steal the laptop. What it _will_ do is keep hotel maids, college roommates, and coworkers honest.

http://stoptheft.com/site/products_security_plate.php <- I also had one of these on my laptop. I got a laptop in 2003 for grad school, but not being a student or needing a laptop anymore, I'm a desktop-only kind of guy right now.

When I go through the TSA with my tablet, I lock my backpack with a Master 630D non-TSA combination padlock. It locks the zippers tightly together, and while a box knife could make short work of the backpack, I use it to prevent TSA sleight-of-hand from making my property disappear.

The last time I went through the TSA with a laptop was in 2004--I put it by itself in a plastic tray, and Mrs. Mahohmei was on the other side to grab it. At this point in time, the TSA had not yet reached the eleventh circle of the underworld that they currently occupy.

If you're traveling alone with a laptop and have to open your TSA-friendly laptop bag, get that Kensington security cable and leash the laptop to something like a carrying handle on the laptop. This way, if a TSA clerk (or passenger, but most likely a TSA clerk) is going to steal the laptop, they have to take the entire bag, barring physically destroying the bag's handle right there on the spot. This isn't foolproof, but it'll make them look for an easier mark.

Today, given the TSA's theft record, if I had to travel with a laptop, I'd refuse to use anything _but_ a TSA-friendly laptop bag. There's no way on earth I'd leave my laptop, on a tray, where a TSA clerk could easily filch it.

http://www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/...rocedures.shtm

Laugh of the day: "Transportation Security Officers know what the inside of a computer should look like, and they can recognize irregularities."

This is the same TSA that caused someone to miss a flight because a MacBook Air didn't look laptoppy enough.

Locking a laptop at a checkpoint is a waste of time, effort & money. There's nothing to which you can lock the laptop and, if you could, it's on a moving belt and the item to which it's locked is just as easily stolen as the laptop.

Unless you spend the money on one of those TSA-compliant laptop cases, it comes out of its case and goes into a grey bin with nothing else. But, even if you deadbolt the thing to a backback next to the bin, that doesn't help.

There are many things in life to worry about. This and being hit by an errant meteor are not two of them.

Yeah, I don't quite understand the threat profile you're looking to defend against here.

TSA: They Steal Anything.

I'm well aware.

That being said, what are you locking the laptop *to*? You're hand carrying a laptop through security presumably rather than checking it, so again, what's the actual threat profile you're attempting to defend against?

What are you looking to do to foil a theft attempt?

And, if you are, a locking it to anything which is itself portable (like another bag) is futile.

This would appear to be someone who does not regularly travel with a laptop as many FT do, asking. The simple answer is, don't bother, this is a solution looking for a problem.

If it's really a problem, hire a companion to travel with you. Have them go through, send the laptop through, have them retrieve it, hand it back to you, fly with you to your destination and so the same thing on the return.

Let me refresh your memory:

http://www.aero-news.net/index.cfm?d...1-77141fa7fa69

http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/lo...n-ipad-thefts/

http://www.wsvn.com/news/articles/lo...#ixzz1s6kP31Xd

http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/ci_18339547

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may...-spot-20110522

Kudos to the OP for asking a reasonable and prudent question about basic travel security.

You're missing my point. I'm not arguing in any way, shape, or form that the TSA steals things. They do, and it's blindingly obvious.

I'm asking what the point of a lock for a laptop is in the face of that threat. What are you locking it *to*? Kensington lock ports only help you fasten the laptop to an immovable object, which is in dreadfully short supply on a conveyor belt through an x-ray machine. They don't impede boot, and can be removed given time without damaging the laptop in any way.

My question is less "who would steal your laptop" and more "how is this not like locking a convertible with the top down?"

My hope would be that a laptop + bag would be more difficult for a TSA clerk to filch and conceal quickly vs. a lone laptop.

I saw an elaborate setup not too long ago. Someone had two laptops in one of those wheeled laptop bags. Both laptops were pulled out of the case and were attached with the cable lock to the wheeled laptop bag. The laptops were placed in separate bins and pushed into the x-ray machine in this order - laptop, bag, laptop.

The owner opted out. It took two TSA blue shirts to carry his setup to the opt out area.

It's not locking a convertible with the top down - it's putting a Club on the whell of the convertible.

You lock it TO the outside handle of your carry-on bag, as has been stated earlier in this thread. Then you lock the bag itself, so the device can't be stuffed back into it for a quick take away. Potential thieves will then leave it alone and steal from others who DON'T have their laptops locked to a bag, rather than expending their limited brainpower coming up with elaborate schemes to defeat the steel cable and stuff a laptop into their pants.

You see, TSOs could slip a laptop, netbook, or tablet down their pants (and have), but even the largest TSO would have a difficult time stuffing an entire carry-on bag/laptop combination down their pants, and waddling away form the c/p, without someone noticing.

Is that a stolen carry-on bag with a laptop locked to the outside of it, or are you just glad to see me?

Ah, that makes much more sense.

Thanks!

^*1e100

...and the laptop wasn't stolen. :D