Update (4/25): He made it up!
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Did you hear about the Berkely professor (Jasper Rine) whose laptop was stolen, and he warned the crook that the feds would be looking for him?
You can listen to the audio here and read the transcript here. The relevant portion:
You are in possession of data from a hundred million dollar trial, sponsored by the NIH, for which I’m a consultant. This involves some of the largest companies on the planet, the NIH investigates these things through the FBI, they have been notified about this problem.You are in possession of trade secrets from a Fortune 1000 biotech company, the largest one in the country, which I consult for. The Federal Trade Communication is very interested in this. Federal Marshals are the people who handle that.
You are in possession of proprietary data from a pre-public company planning an IPO. The Securities and Exchange Commission is very interested in this and I don’t even know what branch of law enforcement they use.
Your academic career is about to come to an end. You are facing very serious charges, with a probability of very serious time. At this point, there’s very little that anybody can do for you. One thing that you can do for yourself is to somehow prove that the integrity of the data which you possess has not been corrupted or copied.
I’m not a techie (euphemism for nerd), but the warning sounded scary to me. One of Michelle Malkin’s readers thinks the professor is bluffing:
Interesting speech from Professor Rine. And a total bluff. I…have extensive knowledge of data communications, radio communications, radio signal tracking, computer security, and so forth. There are several things that Professor Rine stated that demonstrate that his story is false.
Laptops are stolen all the time, but I didn’t realize laptop stealing at Berkeley was so newsworthy.
Note: Well, thanks for telling me about the typos. 
Don’t be shy. If you see a misspelled world word, please let me know pronto.
