[Pro_bity]

Two choices IMO, 1) if you can afford it, replace the laptop. 2) If you can't afford it, then take up a collection from the attendees. As for adverse incentives, you should always presume that people are honest and good. However, to cover yourself (and it is a good idea anyways), make them fill out a police report. Keep a copy on file for yourself. This would give any would be profiteer pause, as there are real consequences to filing a false police report.

[tonywebster]

Taking up a collection is a good idea, gets everyone on their toes about watching each other's backs, and puts the responsibility on the entire community. If each participant threw in a buck or two, that's a new MacBook Pro.

[larrys]

My personal feeling is that a collection is more appropriate with an emergent problem "has no ride home and is stranded".

Once your laptop is stolen it's more of an issue of all your stuff being stolen as well (that is on the laptop) as opposed to just a piece of hardware. How are you supposed to do your thing if your laptop which is setup just for you has been stolen and you are at a hackathon?

(As a side note when I travel I travel with a cloned hard drive (encrypted) that can be used to boot another laptop.) Hard drive is always on carry on luggage as well. Cloning tool that I use is "super duper" (that's the name)).

[danielparks]

Sure, there's a lot more pain than just the cost of replacing the laptop itself.

That said, the laptop cost is a big expense for many people (especially students), so it's helpful. Also it's a nice gesture. (“Look, the community cares about you.”)

[larrys]

I think this is close to a "teach a man to fish" situation. If the community really cares shouldn't they be proactive in some way to work to prevent this from happening instead of reacting? And it seems that (from what others have said) from the behavior of participants (someone who replied to a comment I made) that this could easily happen many more times as the crowd increases in size.

[johnchristopher]

I like the collecting idea, especially if you couple it with a message to raise awareness.

Something like a little talk about HDD encryption, kensington locks, hidden softwares calling home, webcam taking pictures every 10 seconds and destroyed after a while unless asked to, etc.

[mjhea0]

I like the collection idea as well. However, I'd also lend them my laptop so they can still participate.

[Pro_bity]

Agreed

[wildmXranat]

I like this approach from beginning to end. It spreads the financial hit amongst the group, spreads awareness and addresses the possibility of adverse effects of folks trying to take advantage of the effort and good will.