Being brief here – Ramona and I had a quick talk about keeping files on a laptop secure even if you lost the laptop. One good solution that I know of is a software package called True Crypt.
True Crypt allows you to create an encrypted file on the computer that TrueCrypt will mount as a regular drive. You store your important files inside the True Crypt drive and they are encrypted/decrypted on the fly.
Using this solution will keep your files secure so long as you log off of your account when you put the laptop away. And that’s what you should be doing when you travel anyway.
So, if someone did snatch the computer and try to pull files off the hard drive…Â well, the chances of them being able to break TrueCrypt depend on how good of a password you used.
Anyway, I use TrueCrypt to store some important work files that get backed up to a third party (Mozy). Not that I don’t have some trust in Mozy, I just want to be very sure about the security of the files when they get transferred somewhere else.