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Home Defense, Geek Style?
Yo Maing writes "So my mom got lives alone, and got her car broken into last night. We have a motion sensor light in the driveway, and the car has an alarm but apparently both of these deterrents were ineffective. Crime has been rising around her neighborhood, and only action the police can take is to file a report. So I ask you, Geeks of Slashdot, what tricks do you guys have to defend yours and your loved ones homes against crimes like this? Not looking for anything that would get someone injured, but more in the area of detection and repulsion. Anyone have a holographic Yeti generator to scare away intruders? :)"
My cousin in Texas has outdoor motion sensors around his house, hooked up to a PA system than when activated, play a recording of a pump shotgun being cocked. It sounds real as hell, and you can't really tell where the sound is coming from.
It sounds like you're concerned primarily with property crime, yes? That's actually pretty darn easy to prevent if you think about it logically. Don't leave anything in your car if you park it outside. Keep your garage door closed even during the day so people can't see in. Plant thorney bushes under the windows. Put up a couple of flood lights to take out the shadows in your yard. Keep your yard neat so it's obvious somebody lives there.
In terms of detection, nothing beats a well-trained dog. Train 'em to give a couple of barks whenever someone enters the yard (although just a couple so it doesn't get irritating).
This isn't a complicated problem, but as with a lot of things the best solutions are the obvious solutions.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Kinda low tech, but post a target like this in your window.
While living in downtown Miami, my passenger-side window was bashed out one night at a time when I lacked the funds to replace it.
Nearly every night thereafter for several months, there were intruders into my vehicle. Bums slept in it, random shady passersby stuck their heads in for a look just in case anything good might have been forgotten there; the crappy broken CD player was ripped out of it (I should have thought to stick a little post-it on the thing that said 'only the radio works on this one, please ignore') which sucked because it left me to drive in silence (aside, of course, for the blaring wind and driving rain which couldn't be helped.)
I was living, at this time, in an apartment directly above the busy street (Biscayne & 24th, for those familiar) on which I left the car parked, and became obsessed with running to the window to see if anyone was rooting through my poor little car, and dialing 911 and giving them descriptions of the people in the car right then.
Anyway, I finally solved the problem (until I was able to replace the window, anyway) with a home-made, zero-cost, silly-as-fucking-shit system of my own device: I ran a piece of twine down from my window and around the opposite side of the car, such that it was tied to the inside door-handle of the passenger side. That way, if the passenger door were to be opened, the bag of loud things I tied the other end of the string to would jingle! Ingenious, I know! I did this every single night.
Sure, the system could have been circumvented easily enough, but it wasn't! My car was never entered by another single foreign body. Which leads me to the MORAL OF THE STORY:
Don't shy away from doing silly shit like this, because it doesn't even matter whether it would work or not: it's the psychology of the thing that's important. If you make people feel like they're being watched--especially if you're able to make them feel like they're being watched by a crazy, potentially violent person (as I no doubt did and possibly was)--then they will leave your shit alone.
Insightful as all get-out, I know.
Art Schools Dietzilla
We had an attempted break-in this summer, and man did it freak me out. They didn't get in, but I could see the handprints on the windows they had tried to open. I called the police.
When the cop arrived, he pointed out a few things that he said could make the house more inaccessible, but he said that in all his years of investigating break-ins that he's never seen anything taken from a house with a dog. Not a fuzzy laprat -- a dog of 40 pounds or more. In fact, he mentioned that the people across the street from me were broken into that night and had some cash and jewelry stolen. They don't have a dog.
Then, a week later, I received a packet from the local police department, about 50 pages or so on how to protect your home. It included some very useful information. It showed the differences between cheap and useful locks on doors and windows. It showed how thieves try to circumvent most common types of doors, windows, and locks. It covered security lighting, alarms, realistic opinions of subscription security services (i.e. waste of money), landscaping considerations and patio furniture considerations.
So, rather than ask a bunch of tech nuts, just call your local police department and see if they have such a packet. As much as we hate cops when we get speeding tickets or raided for warez ops, when it comes to protecting your family they're generally willing to help.
Yeah, and if the thief got nuked, your friend would have been liable.
:P Told them I'd make any statement they wanted once I was allowed to talk with my lawyer -- why do you need an attorney, they asked, unless you are guilty...well if I'm not being charged, let me go...if I'm being charged, I think I need to talk with someone. And thats how the entire conversation went...for 5 fucking hours.
I say this after being interrogated for 5 hours because I booby trapped my lil' Triumph Spitfire several years back when I was in college.
I had gotten a removable cd player from a friend that owed me money -- he pulled it out of his car and said it was collateral. Turns out, he took off the week after that and never came back. So I had to figure out how to put the thing in my car and with the help of a friend that was an EE major...I don't think they were intended to work without the cage, but we got it working and build a new nonremovable enclosure for it and popped it in where the radio should have gone.
Spitfires are convertibles and the locks never worked, so with the help of the same friend, we worked on a trap. Got two frames and embedded razor blades at a 45 degree angle inward on both sides. Very easy to put your hand in, but pulling it out is a little difficult. For added effect, we tinsnipped the blades to be a bit more jagged.
For the final portion, Mike hooked in a charged capacitor to a bar in the middle...slap your hand up against it without discharging it and you are going to have a nasty shock. Most likely try to yank your hand out...hmmm...see where I'm going with this?
Not less than two weeks later I come out to my Triumph to see the leather pulled off the front of the radio (I did try to conceal it by pimping out the console in leather -- looked really nice). and my radio was half pulled out...and a pool of congealing blood on the passenger side seat and floor.
Turns out some neighborhood kid tried stealing it and ended up at the hospital (which was only 2 blocks from my dorm). There was still some skin on the blades...when I removed them (I started freaking out because I knew the possibility that this would come into use, but didn't think about what would happen if it was used).
A few minutes after trashing the razor'd frames I get a knock on my dormroom door from the police asking me some questions.
For the next 5 hours I was interrogated about trapping my vehicle and if I knew it was illegal. I claimed ignorance. One cop tried being the good guy while the other was the asshole. The good guy confided to me that in his day he too set some 'nigger traps'. His words not mine. I found it pretty appalling as most of my friends at the dorm were black including the EE that helped me set the trap. C'mon, he said, I'm a good ol' boy -- you can tell what you did. I simply told him I was going to file a complaint about his use of racial bigotry and that he shouldn't be a cop and that the fact that the video camera in the back of the room with the taped over record light was visible recording as you could still see the light and I thought his captain should know about this. A thief is a thief and I've had far more white people fuck with me than blacks ever have...so he really pissed me off with this line.
His mood changed and the asshole cop came back with the boys mother. The 'boy' was 17 and it was said he almost lost his hand (doubtful) and that he had to get his arm required 60+ stitches and some vascular surgery on his vein. Poor baby...fucker tries stealing from me, and he is being coddled while I am being interrogated. Fuck him and fuck his mother...I told her point blank I hoped he did loose his fucking hand and maybe he could see what it really is like to go without for a while.
5 hours of this alternating between police officers. it was bullshit. And it was 8 years ago, so I'm well past the statutes of limitations on this as charges were never files and I never made a statement
The fuck
I talked about my rescued German Shepherd earlier in this thread (up in the shotgun discussion) and what you say is very true. Our GSD was abandoned and possibly abused. Yet within 24 hours she was definitely my dog - she bonded with both me and my wife, and almost immediately started protecting the house.
She was approximately 4-5 years old when we got her, and had seen some hard times (worn teeth, heartworms, etc.) but she's been a fantastic dog and everyone in my family keeps trying to steal her from me.
Not too bad for a dog that we were just taking in to prevent having her put down while we looked for someone to adopt her.
Slashdot comments... splitting hairs since 1997.
Asnwer this then: 1/5th the gun deaths in Canada compared to the US. We watch your shows, we listen to your music, we buy the same cars, food, etc. Except we have very strict handgun laws, and you don't. We even have the same % of rifle ownership as the US per capita, its just the limited access to handguns and assualt-style semi-automatics that makes up the difference.
As for criminals being afraid of armed citizens, I am too -- and I'm not a criminal. That statistic has no relevance.
John Maynard Keynes: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?"
Its the Japanese student incident. Pity this home owner didnt have a hologram wookie...
.44 Magnum-carrying Rodney Peairs. Yoshihiro, thinking he had
found the party after all, stepped towards Mr. Peairs and said, "
'We're here for the party' ". Webb Haymaker then found himself
standing over his dying friend, Yoshihiro Hattore, a victim of
unintentional homicide."
Baton Rouge, Lousiana--October 17, 1992--8:30 P.M
"A Japanese exchange student, Yoshihiro Hattori, was searching for a party he had been invited to. Thinking he had found the house in which the social would take place, Yoshihiro knocked on the door. Not knowing that they had the wrong house Yoshihiro and his companion startled the proprietor. After having the front door shut in their face the two boys began walking back to Yoshihiro's car. Yoshihiro Hattori and his friend, Webb Haymaker, then turned back towards the house upon hearing the carport door open behind them. Instead of seeing the party's host, these two boys were greeted by a " 'Freeze' " and a
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
And canada hasn't the death penalty. All EU members havn't also. I think this is even more important issue.
Even if you take all the other (very important!) arguments aside and only consider the "detterence efficiency":
Criminals get really nihilistic if they know their goverment is also.
now, be do have our fair share of murders and stuff (Approx. 60 murders in a population of 4,5 million) but remarably few of them are done with guns. On the other hand, we hav A LOT of MP3s (sub machine gun, full auto), AG3s (Assault rifle, full auto) and Glocks in private homes due to the national guard. But I have never, ever heard of a case where someone has picked up thir rifle to scare the thief away. There are several reasons: If the thief is armed, there's a chance he'll assult you and not run awa since he thinks attack is the best defense. You might end up killing an unarmed person, that is murder unless you were defending yourseld. (note to texans: shooting a garden gnome thief in the back is not self defence). If you detect the thief, the odds of hum bolting away is a lot greater than him attacking you, since it will make him face potentially more problems.
Not those little Canadian geese, the ones with the three foot long necks (I can't remember what they're called. Damnit. Someone help me out here). I have a friend who lives in a... bad area, and trust me, NOONE messes with their three geese. Those suckers will A) Wake up the entire neighborhood B) Rip off a finger C) Crap on your shoe and D) Go for the gonads, all within ten seconds. They're kind of messy, but trust me, nobody is messing with them.
- His car, a Holden HZ sedan, with the door open; and
- His steering column partially disassembled; and
- Traces of blood and hair on assorted knobs and corners under the dash and on the door; and
- No car thief.
You see, 105dB at 3m in free space equals 117dB at about 40cm, which was the approximate distance between the screamers and the thief's ears as he lay in the footwell jiggering the ignition switch on the steering column.This is in a mostly-enclosed hard-walled space, which has to be worth at least another 12dB. And there were two of them, so add another 3dB as icing on the cake, draw a line, 132dB.
The threshold of pain, for reference, is 120dB.
If you're going to bother building a car alarm, get it right. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I live in Houston. 3 years ago, I had gotten up at around 3am to pee. I heard something in the garage, thought it was raccoons from the bayou that would come in through the cat door now and then. I looked through the porch window, and saw someone working the hinges off of the back door into the garage. My wife and young son were inside. I grabbed a pump shotgun, loaded with 00 shells, stepped out of the kitchen door to the backyard, aimed the weapon at this guy, told him to step away from the door and get down on the ground. He stopped with the crowbar in his hand, turned towards me and started walking. I -told- him if he didnt' stop, "I swear to God I'll kill you". He didn't, and I did. Later, one of the cops looked me in the eye and asked me slowly and pointedly "were you in fear for your life". I said that I was, he kept writing. Later I was no-billed by a grand jury. I found out that this guy had been in prison, (Huntsville) and was out on probation for felony assault...and had a record of all sorts of charming behavior. On one hand, I wish the entire thing had never happened. On the other, I'd shoot him in the chest again without a second thought. If someone had leveled a shotgun at -me- as I was tearing off the door that leads into the garage of his house (the interior door then leading into the house from the garage is a flimsy panel door secured by a hook) -I- sure as hell would stop. I will never, never rid myself of weapons that kill at a distance as long as there exist destructive, dangerous people like the guy whose life I ended.
I'll go out of my way to help people when I can, I try to avoid confict when I can. I'm not a member of the NRA. All someone has to do to avoid my shooting them is not break into my home when my family is inside...and -then- refuse to back off when confronted with a weapon. It's that simple; It doesn't have to be over-analyzed or debated endlessly.
You're cherry picking. I live in Zurich, Switzerland, and when I mention that firearm proponents in the U.S. use Switzerland to promote gun usage, they always laugh. Those assault weapons are under lock and key, as well as the ammo. You might say they could still be used in defence, but since they're property of the army that would have serious consequences for the gun owner. The result is that the guns are NEVER used for defense. Further, the rest of continental Europe also has low crime rates and very strong gun-control laws. Why does Europe have such a low crime rate compared to America? It's an enormous question, but I think it has more to do with the distriution of wealth. Europe is much more socialistic than the states. There's almost no homelessness in Europe, and the poorest people here still have dignity and a chance to succeed. Universities are free, as is health care. Look deeper into the issues. You're smart enough, and the issues are complex enough to deserve it.