Earlier this week The Ponemon Institute released a study on the number of laptops that are lost in airports each week. That would be 12,000.

The magnitude of that number is simply mindboggling.

While I backup my data, the thought of losing my computer is enough to send me over the edge.

I can't imagine what it would be like to go on a business trip only to discover the laptop you just put through security is either not in your briefcase of in the hands of someone else.

It seems like there are a couple of easy things could greatly reduce the number of left behind computers.

#1 Airports should start allowing us to put some personalized item with our computer as they go through the scanning device.Think shoes. If we had to put our shoes with our laptops chances are we could see an immediate and drastic drop in the number of lost laptops.

But, if for security reasons that is not a possibility..why not

#2 Tattoo Your Laptop. It's already being done by the folks at Etch Design Studios
in Atlanta Georgia--where about 450 laptops are lost each week. Custom painted laptops  are also available by smooth-creations.com

Having a tattooed computer would definitely help if it landed in lost and found where there might be hundreds of other computers that look just like yours. If your computer is password protected, how will the folks in Lost and Found identify it anyway?

I did a spot check at my airport -- Twin Cities International --and the folks there told me that 5-6 laptops are left behind every single day. The airport officials say they try to page the people but if they don't come back for them, the laptops end up in lost and found.

Lost and found did not share with me what they do with the laptops, how long they keep them or what percentage are reunited with their rightful owner.

"It is,"says Susan Jayson..Director of Research for The Ponemon Institute, " harder to retrieve a lost computer from an airport than getting a piece of lost luggage returned." While individual airlines control the lost luggage for their passengers there doesn't seem to be any real process for helping travelers get their computers.

Technolgoic Logic writes,

Please explain to me how, during this process, 10,278 laptops are lost every week at 36 of the largest airports and 2,000 from mid-size airports. (I'm not done. It get's worse.)

"About 77% of people surveyed said they had no hope of recovering a
lost laptop at the airport, with 16% saying they wouldn't do anything if they
lost their laptop during business travel. About 53% said that laptops contain
confidential company information, with 65% taking no steps to protect the
information."

During an interview,Ms.Jayson told me that The Ponemon Insitute decided to conduct the study after the chairman and founder of the Ponemon Institute, Dr. Larry Ponemon, picked up the wrong computer after he had gone through an airport security checkpoint. Fortunately, the real owner of the laptop was right there and alerted him of his mistake.

Not sure what came next, but when it was time to study just how many computers are lost in airports, Dell Computers decided to fund Ponemom's study -- oh and the findings were so substantial that   Dell not surprisingly announced this week it is offering up its own solutions to the lost computer problem--a new software for laptop tracking, recovery,and remotely deleting information from a computer.

Dell is partnering with Canadian Software Development Company AbsoluteSoftware which in addition to providing this service to Dell Computers offers the software for individuals as well.

While having the ability to delete data remotely may help, it doesn't mean that sensitive information isn't compromised before the owner realizes the computer is gone.

For that there are now a whole new range of products to encrypt hard drives from the open source on-the fly encryption to  bitLocker for Windows Vista Enterprise,Windows Vista Ultimate or Windows Server 2008 computers.

How important is the encryption? Yesterday I was also chatting with some folks from SecureWorks- an information and network security provider about the increase in identify theft. They were interviewed in the recent case that involved hackers breaking into ATM machines and getting access to people's PINs.

While much of the theft occurs by criminals physically altering the ATMS to capture your PIN, they reiterated what many of us know but may think it can't happen to us...that there are malicious trojans specifically designed to get into your hard drive and capture your credit card and banking information.

The folks at SecureWorks also say we should have at least two computers and separate our email computer from the one we do business transactions on.

Okay, so I need to tattoo my computer so no one will mistakenly grab it in the airport secuirty checkpoin, if it does get taken I need a GPS system to track it down and remotely remove all data, and to make sure criminals don't hack into my checking account  I need to set up a kosher kitchen of sorts for my computers.

Elana writes about business culture at FunnyBusiness