Continuing your work should not be a major issue: you have been making backups, right? If yes, simply restore your data to a new laptop, or any other computer you have access to. You may now walk around with a self-satisfied grin. If you have no backups, or they are too old, join the club: you now have first hand experience of why it’s a good idea to plan for things that only happen to others.
How do you prevent unauthorized access to your data? Hopefully, your answer wasn’t “just use a password to log on”. While this suggestion is in the right spirit, it relies only on the operating system, which is far from bullet proof: Windows, Mac, and Linux provide straightforward super user access. So operating system logon passwords aren’t a satisfactory solution.
To make matters worse, data on the computer can be accessed by completely bypassing the computer’s operating system. The worst part? It’s not very difficult, either: try it for yourself. (As an aside, and like that article explains, this is an excellent way to backup data from a computer that you are no longer able to boot.)
Perhaps you’re thinking “then surely the answer must be a BIOS password”? Although a step up from relying on your operating system, BIOS passwords can also be circumvented using various means.
So if you can’t trust your operating system or your hardware to protect your precious data, what can you possibly do? The solution to your woes lies in one word: encryption. This will ensure that information on your computer is complete gibberish to anyone who isn’t in possession of your password (which hopefully will not be taped to your laptop’s screen…).
A very practical solution is provided by TrueCrypt. This software, which won’t cost you a dime, encrypts your entire hard drive, sheltering your data from prying eyes. You simply enter a password when turning your computer on, and the software does the rest for you: it’s completely transparent, and your computer won’t be any slower. Also, if you later change your mind, you can easily reverse the process and remove the encryption from you hard drive.
Linux users have a better alternative: home directory encryption using ecryptfs (as proposed by Ubuntu/Kubuntu). This will essentially give you the same benefits as using TrueCrypt, but you will be able to perform differential backups of encrypted files. In other words, it is very easy to back up only the encrypted files that have changed, without ever having to decrypt them. This is a boon when backing up to a remote server that isn’t under your control, or even the cloud: if there ever is a data breach, your leaked files will be encrypted anyway…
I hope this post convinced you that a few easy proactive steps will allow you not to skip a beat if the unthinkable ever happened and your laptop was stolen. Have you ever had your laptop stolen or lost? How did you bounce back?