My MacBook Pro was stolen last week in San Francisco, and since that event I’ve been reading up and chatting with people on how they protect their machines.
Curious to hear from others on what steps people take. I’ve summarized the various measures below:
Passwords:
This is the most basic level of security — assuming everyone does this:
Disk encryption:.
OS X has FileVault built in so assuming lots of people use this. There is an Open Source TrueCrypt option out there as well that works on Macs and PCs:
Tracking your laptop:
As Newsweek and a few others have pointed out recently, you can install software so that you can login or track your machine from anywhere:
What is your backup strategy ?
And finally, should we all just use 100% cloud services and not keep anything on our local machine ? Basically turn them into Firefox/Chrome web laptops. I personally like that direction, but feel that upload speeds aren’t quite there for things like video and lots of photos. For email and docs that seems like the way to go for various reasons including security.
Raanan Bar-Cohen 
What about physical security? Were you mugged? Was it stolen as you were using it? Did they break into a vehicle? I use a Kensington cable lock if I’m leaving the laptop in an unfamiliar environment. And when in Florida, I carry a couple anti-mugging devices with me to take care of that situation. 😉
I probably should be using FileVault on my portable. As for backups, I use hourly Time Machine, nightly full drive ghosting, nightly home directory sync to Amazon S3 with JungleDisk — so I’m not at all worried about that. It’s just the security of my data and my client’s data that is my main concern.
@Mark —
It was a stolen from a relatively secure indoor location — the police are still investigating so they don’t want me to reveal the exact details. But ya, using a lock of some kind is another good idea to consider.