It seems the governors of some states in the U.S.A. have been receiving mysterious laptops, and no one is quite sure who is sending them, or what they may contain.

According to Computerworld, West Virginia Governor Joe Mahchin received a mysterious shipment of 5 HP laptops a few weeks ago that no one is quite sure where they came from.  Seeing as the incident was just too odd, his office reported it to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and they looked into it.  It seems his office wasn’t the first to get such a shipment, nor was he to be last.

In total, four states received such shipments, and six more were scheduled, but those have since been held up from being delivered.

The belief is that these laptops may be true “trojan horses” with some sort of nasty surprise hidden inside of them to compromise security in the offices of these governors.  Luckily the West Virginia governor’s office had the right mind set to report this and did not attach the suspicious computers to the network.

This is a great object lesson about never trusting any strange computer equipment.  If someone hands you a USB thumb drive, and you aren’t 100% sure what’s on it, don’t use it.  Same with laptops, desktops, PDA devices etc.  Always be careful with unkown computer items.