The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Man arrested after military laptop theft tabloid pitch

Fighter aircraft details

Free whitepaper – PowerEdge M610-M710 spec sheet

A man has been held in connection with the theft of a military laptop, following an attempt to sell its secrets to a tabloid newspaper for 15,000.

The 2000 laptop contained "specifications for the next generation of fighter aircraft and details of how they can be controlled from the ground", according to Whitehall insiders, cited by the Sunday Times.

A thief stole the laptop from a naval intelligence officer at Paddington railway station, in London. Apparently unaware of its contents, the thief sold the PC onto to a dealer for 100, or so.

The dealer then tried to sell the story to a tabloid newspaper, the ST reports. In what some may regard as a tactical blunder, he failed to return the laptop to its rightful owner, the Ministry of Defence. ®

Free whitepaper – SPECjbb2005 performance and power consumption on Dell, HP, and IBM blade servers

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes