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CEO's laptop nicked: company secrets on the loose

Was it one of us scum journos that stole it?

The personal laptop of Qualcomm CEO Irwin Jacobs has been nicked from a hotel conference room just after a briefing with business journalists. The laptop, which appears to have no better security than a simple password and was said to contain a number of valuable company secrets, was left on an adjacent table for 15 to 20 minutes while Jacobs spoke to a small group of journos.

Jacobs said after the theft was discovered that the information on the laptop would be useful to foreign governments.

Qualcomm is a top wireless technology company, making chips for various devices and holds a huge number of valuable patents. It is also the leader in CDMA - the technology that will make 3G phones possible. The data wasn't encrypted and ran on Windows. Oh dear.

Apparently, there were a half-dozen journalists within 30 foot of the laptop when it was nabbed. None of them noticed anything. We were just wondering whether "borrowing" the laptop could be justified as picking up source material. Mr Jacobs is said to be not terribly happy about the situation. ®

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