Security by Ubiquity?

This past November, a couple of old roommates dropped by for a weekend. While they were here, we took a walk around campus, for old time's sake, I guess. One roommate commented on how much things had changed since he was here. For one thing, there was much less blasting going on when he was still here. I bought my first laptop then, about 5 years ago. Hardly anyone had laptops at the time. Queen's ITS was still pushing desktops at the time, though if I recall correctly, they had more laptop offerings that year than desktop, unlike the previous year. Now, my friend observed, almost everyone has a laptop. Back then, nobody would think of leaving their laptop anywhere unattended without locking it. Today, I was walking through Mac-Corry [1], where I saw a laptop, attended by no one, locked to nothing, with only the coat of the owner draped over the seat to accompany it. I guess if everyone has one, there isn't much of a market for a stolen one. As for me, unless I can find a door to lock it behind, my laptop still will not be more than a few feet away from me. But then, I've always been old-fashioned.


[1] One of the main places to buy and eat food on campus, for those of you who don't go to Queen's.