Security lessons from 3GSM Barcelona
Rating: Beware the ides of February
By Tony Dennis
A chance meeting with Martyn Warwick –
who’d attended Telcordia’s E5 conference with me last week – at
London’s Waterloo station sparked off a scintillating conversation
about personal security at the forthcoming Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona this February.
Martyn is an expert on this subject,
having accumulated loads of information on the various muggings and
thefts which take place every year in Barcelona during the
conference.
Martyn revealed that his efforts to interview the good
Burgers of Barcelona last year on the subject of pick-pocketing and
muggings had proved fruitless.
So here’s a collection of previous
3GSM anecdotes which should forewarn future attendees of the dangers.A personal favourite concerns a Dutch
journalist who stayed in the same hotel as my goodself last year. He
put his bag down on the kerb for no more than two minutes.
Sadly
when this journalist reached down to retrieve his bag, it had been
switched for another bag which was empty. The crucial point is that
the thief had actually managed to obtain a genuine 3GSM bag so the
switch was even less obvious than it might have been otherwise.
The
best advice would seem to be to disguise yourself. Don’t carry the
conference bag or wear your badge on the way back to your hotel. I
personally have a denim bag for my laptop. It’s not black and it
doesn’t say Toshiba or Dell on it. So hopefully muggers won’t know
I’m carrying a computer.
A final piece of advice is to carry a
second form of photo ID besides your passport. It might be worth
obtaining a photo driving licence if you’re a Brit.
I actually
possess a Citizencard which I obtained for free. Oddly enough, I
obtained it to avoid having to take my passport to Glastonbury. But
that’s another story.
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