You may have heard about the Fidelity Investments laptop which contained the personal information of 200,000 HP current and former employees that was stolen recently. Yep - my data was on there. And here I thought that my relationship with HP had ended.

So I've spent the last couple of days printing out my credit report so I can see what accounts I can close to better track activity. Then I registered a fraud alert with Equifax. I had mixed feelings about that one, but I thought in the end it made more sense to do it than not to do it. Of course, I'll have to keep doing it every nine months from now until a few years from now if I want it to mean anything. Evidently it is not uncommon for identity thieves to hold off on using the data for a period of a couple of years to give their victims a chance to cool down from the panic period and get lazy about monitoring their accounts.

There's a lot of information about identity theft out there, but there's nothing I've read that makes me any less nervous about what could happen. And there's just not that much you can do except keep on your toes. I've closed down all inactive accounts, put password protection on my bank accounts, registered a fraud alert... I don't know what else I can do that makes any sense.

I keep hoping the laptop was lifted by someone who just wanted the hardware. But even if that were the case, by now the media has made it clear that the robber has made of with something very valuable indeed. The temptation to make a bundle on the black market might be too much to resist. And whoever this person is, they are capable of theft. So selling other people's personal information for a price is something they would likely be capable of. I just don't see a silver lining on this one.

So keep your fingers crossed for me and the other 200,000 victims. Thanks Fidelity Investments, for you bone-headed data protection policies. (What the hell was that data doing on a laptop to begin with?)