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Comdex Bans Bags From Show Floor
ckd writes: "CNET is reporting that COMDEX organizers have a new security policy--no bags except vendor supplied plastic bags will allowed on the show floor. "While on-site, you should CARRY A PHOTO ID (DRIVER'S LICENSE OR PASSPORT) ON YOU AT ALL TIMES." They want you to leave your laptop in your hotel room, too! Oh, and no cameras at the keynotes, either. But they haven't announced that they're planning to strip search people ... yet."
...because all the companies exhibiting at COMDEX are so broke they can't afford to give me new t-shirts. What a clever way to save money on promo items!
But, what am I supposed to wear for the next year!?! I guess my Penguin Computing T-shirts will have to be worn twice!
I can understand a no bags policy, but barring people from entering COMDEX (fricken tech show for pete's sake) with laptops is just stupid. I note (IIRC) it doesn't say anything about PDAs, but still, wtf were they thinking? A better idea would be to have people turn it on quickly at the door (although this might slow things down a lot).
My other sig is funny!
Honestly, I don't see the banning of non-Vendor bags as a "security" measure. I see it as a "protect-the-people-who-are-here-profit" measure. It may have aspects of both, but its definately more the second one. Why not just simply have a mandatory security screening of all carried items before they are allowed into the premesis?
Attending COMDEX would be one of the things I look forward to most in my computing career. I'm only a highschool student now, but I hear very interesting things of the convention, and I'd enjoy talking to the vendors and seeing their flagship products firsthand. There's something about being able to see the new Athlon MP board, or a new video card, or the latest development in RAID technology, in person, that a catalog can't do, no matter how many pictures they put in.
somebody on the radio pointed out that as we get better and better at stopping individual acts, the response is for a smaller number of more dedicated enemy to plan more thoroughly. So, for example, the number of hijackings has long been on the decline, but the number of people killed in each hijacking has gone way up.
anyway, in the particular case of hi-tech and shows like comdex, having the toys banned kinda takes the wind out of the whole affair.
...as though I would go to a Comdex, anyway. The last one I attended was Spring 92, I think...Atlanta. It was large, and the porn and CDROM vendors had begun showing up in overwhelming numbers. The real COMPUTER people were always lonely, as all the geeks were crowded around the Penthouse Interactive booth, squirming and staring, or singing bad karaoke at one of the many booths that offered it.
Comdex has lost its lustre, while increasing the lust. (Not that there's anything wrong with lust...) I don't see it appealing to many but the most neophyte computer consumers. All the real industry types stick to more focused conferences. Myself, I will only attend developer conferences in my specialties, or pay for training courses with small, narrow topic coverage. The big shows are nothing but comic book conventions.
What'dya mean there's no BLINK tag!?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If someone wants to bring anthrax to comdex, why will they need to bring it in a bag? If someone wants to bring in an automatic weapon it should be pretty easy to pick up in a bag search. Explosives don't need a lot of space.
Whatever you do, don't be Irish .. (no wait that should read from anywhere from Morroco to the Phillipines, or even be Greek) and be in the wrong place at the wrong time until sanity prevails.
I've noticed a trend lately. More and more places are banning things that they've wanted to ban in the past, but were worried about the backlash from under the guise of "increasing security." Banning non-vendor bags and laptops in no way increases security, but the first does increase the visibility of vendor advertising. The second improves traffic flow by minimizing those cumbersome laptop bags and by keeping people from whipping them out at a vendor table
Similarly, my college's stadium is now banning bags along with a whole slew of other items that could be used for sneaking food and drinks in, which has been their primary irritation in the past. Now, under the guise of improved security, they can ban items that would've angered fans too much in the past.
Basically, the COMDEX people are taking advantage of the current political environment to sweep some minor annoyances under the rug. It's a disturbing trend right now.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
They seem to think that forcing people to turn a laptop on is an important security measure. You used to be able to not even have it x-rayed if you could get it to display a boot.
With multi-swappable bay laptops, or even older ones, why did they think this was a way to protect against a weapon being in the laptop?
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Isn't giving up your ability to carry a silly little bag worth it knowing that you won't be blown up by a hidden bomb.
Nope. I will carry a bag with me and be secure in its contents wherever I goddamn please. I pay damn good money every goddamn year to make sure I don't have to worry. Unfortunatly, the morons I give my money to are more interested in fucking spying on everyone than making me safe.
"Gee, lets continue to sell fertilizer and fuel oil to cash customers, even though we just had a building blown up with it! Even though these guys need a license to store it, we won't require a license nor even proof of identity to buy it! Oh, but we better spend a few more billion tapping everyones email. Oh, and after you get done reviewing everyone's cell phone conversations for the words "The Eagle Is Blue, Mustafa" you might want to look into stopping the sale of anthrax to nations on the known hostile list. Just make sure you get all the cell calls first, mmkay? Oh, and if you get any more phone sex calls like that last batch, save em for the office party on Friday."
Oh, and I can't just stop paying them. How's that for a contractual fuckup??!?!
.sig: Now legally binding!
Apparently security coordinators at COMDEX read slashdot. They especially noted the satirical remarks regarding: "What next, strip searches?".
Security personal were noted as saying, "Thats a great idea!" While some were skeptical, others went so far as to improve on the now open source communities ideas. Later, a unanimous decision yeilded on implementing open source specifications for strip searches with body cavity investigations. These would later be utilized at the convention.
COMDEX Security Marshals have decided to fully develope this open source concept and protocals. They are currently in talks with several venture capitalists to fund a new e-commerce web site. No further details were provided at the time of announcement.
Additionaly it should be noted that have been talks concerning a fork in the now ongoing works. One security personal was quite upset with the current implementation.
"I just don't like limiting myself to one hand. Power user's should be able to use two if they really want."
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Now we just have to pray that nobody carries a bomb under their coat, or a gun in their pocket, or anthrax in a plastic baggie, or a Potential Enemy Neutralizer in their shirt pocket, or a pointy steel-toed boot...
Come to think of it, I won't feel safe until everyone is naked.
Save me, O Comdex, from the evil, evil terrorists!
You don't need to be Kreskin to predict Comdex's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Comdex faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Comdex because Comdex is dying. Things are looking very bad for Comdex. As many of us are already aware, Comdex continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Famed Comdex speaker Spencer F. Katt states that there are 7000 visitors to Comdex. How many visitors to Networld/Interop are there? Let's see. The number of Comdex versus Networld/Interop posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Networld/Interop visitors. LinuxWorld posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of Networld/Interop posts. Therefore there are about 700 visitors to LinuxWorld. A recent article put Windows World at about 80 percent of the trade show market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Windows World visitors. This is consistent with the number of Windows World Usenet posts.
Due to the troubles of Comdex taxi lines, abysmal attendance and so on, The Interface Group went out of business and was taken over by Softbank who run other troubled trade shows. Now Softbank is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.
All major surveys show that Comdex has steadily declined in market share. Comdex is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Comdex is to survive at all it will be among trade show hobbyists, dabblers, and dilettantes. Comdex continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Comdex is dead.
sulli
RTFJ.
I use Microsoft Passport, it's a tech show afterall no?, MS passport is the Most Secure Thing available, Microsoft told us you guys do support latest technologies that big corporations shove at us, no? yeah... it's your sponsors....what? sorry, but it's in my laptop that you didn't want me to bring in at the entrance.
Joking aside, I have one word for comdex since a few years... unorganized computer flea market... And it could be so much more, computers did take off since 5 years with the internet and all that, why did Comdex go completely the opposite direction?
--- Metamoderating abusive downgraders since my 300th post.
Guard: Sorry no bags!
Me: It's not a bag it's a case.
Guard: No laptops. No cases. No kidding.
Me: I left the laptop at home.
Guard: What's in the "case" then?
Me: Stuff. You know. My camera, PDA, cell phone, GPS, DriveWallet, GameBoy, portable CD player, a MP3 player, this runs a wireless Linux server (holding up a SBC with a short antennae) which is grabbing frames from the camera on my hat.
Guard (holding hand on head): Oh, just go. NEXT!!!
Guard: Sorry no bags!
Next me: It's not a bag, it's a valise.
You realize, of course, that this means there will be an abnormally large percentage of hotel rooms in the area with laptops in them, and thieves will know it...
I wouldn't go to any conference that required me to leave my laptop in an unattended room, particularly if I knew people like maids had keys.
The truth is, short of a strip search and body cavity search of each and every attendee, there's no way they can ensure people won't bring something dangerous into the conference. If they want to try a few basic security procedures like metal detectors and xrays to help ensure that ordinary everyday lunatics don't come in with guns and big knives, sure, that's nice. Anything else is pointless excess.
I'll even voulenteer to make very, very certain that none of the booth babes are smuggling in anything even remotely dangerous. Yup, I'll be quite thorough; you never know what they might be hiding in those tight little outfits...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
For christ's sake, if they want people to be safe at Comdex, just let them strap on their sidearms. When's the last time anyone went berzerk and committed mass murder at a gun show?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
People aren't terrified; people are hysterical. They're not really scared, they just feel like they have to do something.
People are thinking "some guy could walk in here carrying some disease and kill everyone". Yes, he could. And "someone could plant a bomb here and blow us all up". Yes, that's possible. Or "maybe some crazy terrorist has nuclear weapons and he's going to blow up planet Earth". Yep, could very well be. That's always been possible (to a degree) and that always will be possible (more so with each day that passes).
Doesn't mean it's any more likely today than it was yesterday or 30 years ago.
The attacks on the WTC and Pentagon were not based on madness or religion. They were not attempts to kill a lot of people. There are much better ways of doing that. They were political acts, against symbols of the USA's military and economic rule. Even the airline names were carefully picked. And although of course I don't approve of them, I can understand them. It seems that most americans can't.
Some time ago there was a war in Somalia. People were killing each other with knives, stones, machetes, etc. Sometimes with their bare hands. Someone asked an observer if that meant this was a particularly violent conflict. He said no, it just meant they had run out of bullets.
Using airplanes full of people to blow up buildings is no more "cruel" or "barbaric" than using a cruise missile. Certainly no more cowardly. But some people (most people) just don't have cruise missiles. And some people (most people), when left with nothing to lose, will not mind losing what they have, especially if losing something so worthless (their life) can have such a big impact.
The way to avoid being blown up or infected or assassinated is not to isolate yourself and shoot everyone that comes too near. The way to avoid being struck by your enemies is to have no enemies.
The strikes on the WTC carried a message: "you are not out of range; if we really want to hit you, we can." I've known that all my life (possibly because I live in Europe and we've had a few thousand years of history and wars and revolutions and all that sort of stuff); most americans seem to have discovered it in the last two months. And they think they have to do something about it, because they can't stand the thought of being vulnerable; of not being untouchable. Today on the BBC I saw this american congressman (or maybe he was a general) saying "We have to bomb Afghanistan because we have to do something and we can't think of anything else to do". The only problem is, it's not accomplishing anything (apart from killing people that don't even know what's going on, making more enemies and worsening the USA's image worldwide).
And this brings me back to the silly security measures and to the way this hysteria is being used to limit people's freedom. If the only thing you can think of doing has no practical effect, then don't do it. Think of something else, or don't do anything. If someone really wants to strike, they will always be able to strike. I don't know if these "security measures" are a deliberate attempt to take away people's freedom and give more powers to the state or if they're just good-natured (but misguided) attempts to keep people "safe". Either way people should stand up for their rights and refuse to have their freedom taken away. It's not that "the terrorists win", it's just that people lose. Someone said that a nation that can't balance security and freedom doesn't deserve either.
I'm not a religious person; I don't believe there's life after death. But I still consider my freedom more valuable than my life.
Over here, there was some attempt to ban patrons bringing in drinks not supplied by the sponsor of a major sporting event. Things like water.
More recently, I was stripped of my water bottle at a major outdoor music festival ostensibly because it may have been alcohol and was forced to buy water at extortionate rates.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I used to love COMDEX. I worked for a large Fortune 500 company, and I would always lie about how many purchasing decisions/budgets I had influence over. Everyone thought I was crazy and asking for new spam, but they didn't know about procmail. They were only marketing guys, after all. But when the other marketing guys who were aiming to market at me saw my membership stuff, I could weasel my way into plenty of free stuff.
The best meat-space schwag I ever got was getting into the last Digital party. Picture a huge hall, about 100 people, two bands, and about every possible type of food or drink you can imagine. And me and my brother in Chuck Taylors and t-shirts on a full-blown jag. I swear we were the only ones not in $5000 suits. It was very exclusive for some reason. The AMD party was packed. This place not so much. But they put on quite a show.
They had these five girls in gold catsuits and black wigs marching around. Like five identical people. I can't remember if the Intel bunny suit guys were out then (I think this was 97, but I'm not sure), although I was reminded of them after thinking about it later. Anyway, the sales weenies would sic these women on the hardcases who were waffling on some high-pressure sales thing. The girls would grab these oddball Arab dudes (or whomever was on the hook) and parade them about for a couple minutes and them rub them around the room and back to their chair. I'm not sure what it was supposed to do, but it didn't work on me and my brother, since we would probably have only bought what wasn't exactly for sale. It was like being on a different planet. You talk them up enough and there's almost no limit to the free shit you'll get.
My brother demanding that a Director of Sales something or other get him a "prime rib and a bottle of Chivas" or he would "start talking to Compaq and Intel" was particularly amusing. Especially since Digital was sold to Compaq not long after.
And all I have to show for it now is an Alpha t-shirt which says "Feed the Need" on the front and has some probably long-dead proc on the back. Feed it indeed. Those were the days...
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
Now it's time for all those who wrote "Jedi knight" in their census forms to practice their "This are not the bags you're looking for".
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu