[rubberband]

I'm thinking they are hoping to find exploits that the security researcher(s) are working on, and may not be known to others (use a 0-day to steal other 0-days).

I'd presume that a decent security researcher's laptop would have much more valuable things on it, compared to Bob the Waiter's laptop.

Educated guess. Grain of salt, etc...

[13of40]

I don't know - I think primary research on these things might be easier than sifting through all the "exhaust" on someone else's laptop to figure out what they've discovered.

[saagarjha]

On difficult targets this is unlikely to be the case.

[whimsicalism]

yeah although there might be easy things like correspondence on a bug report embargo