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Him declaring innocence provided for a good laugh > The FBI confiscated “an unusual amount of computer equipment” that Mr. Liu had brought with him, including
by prklmn 9y ago
Him declaring innocence provided for a good laugh
> The FBI confiscated “an unusual amount of computer equipment” that Mr. Liu had brought with him, including the laptops and tablet and also two smartphones, a smartwatch, a computer thumb drive, two digital video cameras, several SIM cards and high-capacity storage drives, according to the affidavit.
- tambienben 9y agoIs that an unusual amount? That describes my electronics inventory pretty accurately.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wavefunction 9y agoWhen you're trespassing?
- tambienben 9y agoI thought this was my office, I swear!
- leggomylibro 9y agoI would say several SIM cards and large storage drives probably isn't part of everyone's going-around-town bag. The rest doesn't seem TOO out-of-the-ordinary. For me, someone who occasionally carries two laptops (bulky company-issue, light personal worktop) and a sundry of perboard assemblies that would make the TSA raise an eyebrow. But I think even that might count as 'unusual' if you're talking about the average population. How many peoples' jobs require them to occasionally have 24/7 access to their work computer? How many people carry around devices solely because they vaguely intend to tinker with them at some point, and you never know when you'll have a spare hour? Probably less than 10%. Also, side-note, as much as I hate the TSA's security theater, I've never actually had problems with bringing things that look like bombs through security. Including a wired belt with a black box covered in electrical tape (compass)...good thing I'm white!
- lambda 9y agoI have an SSD (along with a USB SATA enclosure to connect it), a spinning disk, and at least one USB thumb drive in my bag that I bring to work every day (along with my laptop). This is in part because I switch between working from home and working at the office fairly often, have travel time in between, and need to have access to more VMs than I can fit on my laptop's internal SSD comfortably. I also may have SIM cards rattling around somewhere; when I travel internationally, I buy a local prepaid SIM, and I may have older SIM cards left over from the last time I replaced one.
- praneshp 9y agoIt's valid for your usecase, but I still agree with your parent comment that your bag's contents are unusual.
- noir_lord 9y ago> and need to have access to more VMs than I can fit on my laptop's internal SSD comfortably. Exactly the same with me, I regret only getting the 256GB internal drive with my Thinkpad but I wanted the 2560x1440 so I had to trade something off (since it's a personal machine not a work machine), I suspect I'll be upgrading it before long.
- noir_lord 9y ago> I would say several SIM cards and large storage drives probably isn't part of everyone's going-around-town bag. My laptop bag right now contains, 3x1TB USB3 drives, a Thinkpad T470P, an iPad Mini-2, 4-5 4-16GB thumbdrives, two phones (Nexus 4 and a Moto G5 Plus). Not a spy, just an enterprise web developer.
- usrusr 9y agoDepending on circumstances and numbers, hoarding SIMs might be a bit more difficult to explain than the rest.
- ender341341 9y agoI'd say most of it seems reasonable for someone traveling for business, but the SIM cards seem weird. I can understand carrying around a few phones/devices that happen to have SIM cards in them but not really SIM cards by themselves.
- rconti 9y agoHuh. I've got a little SD card case with like 10 nano-SIMs in it, in my backpack now. .. time to do some house cleaning, I guess. Then again, I didn't break into the office I'm sitting in.
- bcoates 9y agoIn some areas juggling prepaid SIMs is a good way to optimize your wireless expenses and/or maximize your coverage. You can buy phones and wifi adapters with goofy numbers of SIM slots (like 16) to facilitate this.
- qsymmachus 9y agoYou carry two laptops, two smart phones, and two cameras on your person?
- freehunter 9y agoI’m sitting in a clients office right now with all of that: two phones, two computers, each phone with two SIMs, a smart watch, about 1TB of external hard drive and flash drive storage, etc. Then again I’m a traveling IT consultant. Then again (again) the guy described in the article could be me, just without my employee escort.
- goialoq 9y agoWhere are your 2 dedicated cameras?
- dagw 9y agoI used to when travelling for work. Now I have a dual-sim phone so I only carry one smart phone.
- 1_2__4 9y agoYou often carry around two laptops and a tablet? For what? And your arm muscles must be massive.
- xmj 9y agoMe, in airports.