Laptop Thefts Strike River

A string of recent laptop thefts have Harvard University Police Department officers investigating possible connections between the incidents, according to the student victims.

“The officer who came, she said she would give it to the detective who would then possibly open up an investigation,” said Kevin C. Porter ’10 of Lowell House, one of three students whose computer was stolen from a river house dorm room in the past several days.

Harvard police spokesman Steven G. Catalano would not comment on the specific incidents but wrote in an e-mailed statement that an average of about 40 laptops are stolen annually. He added that four had been taken from dorm rooms since the start of the year, including “laptops left unattended [and] unsecured.”

Rebecca M. Rohr ’08, another of the three theft victims, whose laptop was taken from her bedroom in Quincy House, thought her suite was secure but said her efforts may have been foiled by humidity.

“I have four roommates, and we’re pretty sure that the door was locked,” Rohr said. “But sometimes it stays a little bit open when it’s humid outside.”

She added that her roommates were probably in the suite at the time of the incident.

“I actually think that it happened when they were all sleeping in the morning,” she said. “Nothing else was taken in the room.”

Both Rohr and Porter left their computers in bedrooms that were one flight of stairs away from the entrance of their suites.

“They would have had to walk in and go downstairs to take it,” Rohr said.

According to Porter, the third theft victim is a friend of who lives in DeWolfe, a detail he said interested the HUPD officer when he alerted her to the connection.

Catalano advised students to be more conscious of securing their laptops, even in their dorm rooms.

“The best way to protect your laptop is to always lock your office or residence when leaving, even for a moment,” he wrote “You should also explore options to secure your laptop to your desktop.”

“Most importantly, never leave your laptop unattended [or] unsecured in public ever,” Catalano added.

Porter’s Lowell House tutor, Mark D. Hempstead, was only aware of the theft in his house, but wrote in an e-mailed statement that he had responded to the incident by telling his students “to lock their doors, not to allow individuals to piggyback in behind them, and to backup their data.”

Both Porter and Rohr agreed that the worst part of the thefts was losing all the data they had accumulated on their computers.

“I got a new one, but I didn’t have any of my stuff backed up so I lost all of my contacts,” Rohr said. “So, if you’re writing an article about it, you should strongly recommend students back up their contacts.”

—Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.