Any tools you use you should learn how to use first. That goes for a knife as well as a laptop. When I see people use stuff with sharp edges I invariably cringe as they point them at themselves and at others while putting force on them. Even passing the scissors from one hand to another comes with a protocol (sharp end towards the giver).
Laptops are powertools, use them well and they'll do you good, abuse them and they'll eat your research data.
Odds are the researcher messed up and uses the 'theft' as an excuse for something or other, otherwise that reward would have been a bit higher, $1,000, $500 of which is probably the second hand value of the laptop, that can't have been much data.
I agree with your basic premise that we collectively should help to make stuff like this impossible (dropbox is a nice step in the right direction making it easy to have multiple versions of your stuff) I just don't believe this particular case is a good example of what happens when 'we' fail. This user carries the blame and responsibility, not the IT staff there, nor the manufacturer of the gear.
Smart enough to use a laptop? -> Smart enough to burn a DVD once a week or so. Maximum loss is one week of data, and that's assuming you place those DVDs in a different physical location from the laptop.
Of course that's too much of an investment for such valuable data.
Laptops are powertools, use them well and they'll do you good, abuse them and they'll eat your research data.
Odds are the researcher messed up and uses the 'theft' as an excuse for something or other, otherwise that reward would have been a bit higher, $1,000, $500 of which is probably the second hand value of the laptop, that can't have been much data.
I agree with your basic premise that we collectively should help to make stuff like this impossible (dropbox is a nice step in the right direction making it easy to have multiple versions of your stuff) I just don't believe this particular case is a good example of what happens when 'we' fail. This user carries the blame and responsibility, not the IT staff there, nor the manufacturer of the gear.
Smart enough to use a laptop? -> Smart enough to burn a DVD once a week or so. Maximum loss is one week of data, and that's assuming you place those DVDs in a different physical location from the laptop.
Of course that's too much of an investment for such valuable data.