What is this for?
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Many years ago, it was discovered that equipment theft could be a major problem. If someone were to walk away with an expensive computer, obviously that’s not great. Or at a trade show or presentation where a laptop might be left out, having a way to lock it up can prevent someone from stealing company assets. Nowadays, it’s become an extremely important security concern since a bad actor just walking away with a company computer can cause a massive security problem, especially if the computer contains trade secrets.
To combat this problem, the Kensington Lock company stepped up and lobbied big companies like IBM, Dell, and HP to include a spot on their computers for a very specific type of lock to be attached. This also spread to include things like TVs and monitors, external hard drives, and basically every other mid-sized gadget you might want to protect. These locks theoretically make it harder to steal a computer by just walking away with it.
Now, Kensington Locks aren’t the best locks out there. Many of them use “Tubular” locks that have a very notorious design flaw involving a bic pen, and they’re certainly not strong enough to stop a really determined thief from cutting the lock. But, the mere presence of a lock is a really effective tool at preventing someone from committing a crime of opportunity, especially in a busy office, library computer lab, or the floor of a trade show. Most locks are good for nothing more than keeping honest people honest, but that’s totally okay.
EDIT: After a bit of research, it looks like Kensington actually makes a ton of different locks for a ton of different purposes. Even though the Kensington lock “port” that you used to see all over laptops is slowly disappearing, I guess they have enough brand recognition to keep going.
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