Securing Pricelessness

DeliBoy writes "In light of public discussions over security after The Scream was stolen, CSO Online offers an interesting look at museum security. The article details a system designed without budget restrictions intended to secure a painting in a public gallery. Interesting how the consultant balances public access with the need for security, comprised of redundant vibration sensors, overlapping microwave and infrared motion sensors, and an old-fashioned guard. "

Comments

Theft will continue

[Timesprout]

Most art objects are stolen to order, they are not crimes of opportunity. When a 'collector' is prepared to chough up enough cash professional thieves will invest the time and effort to defeat the security.

RFID Chips?

[e9th]

Why not embed them in each artwork? I bet there's a way to do it in most pieces without damaging them.

Sensors at the exits, guards in the parking lot, etc.

But the problem was

[dzym]

But I thought the problem was that the museum did NOT have an unlimited budget for security?

Not to mention that when you get guns pulled on you you generally try not to get shot. Even if it ends up costing you something priceless (which still ends up as being less precious than human life, no matter how fine the art).

Re:But the problem was

[Cecil]

really? you really think your more important to the world than say, the mona lisa or something like that?

Who isn't? Maybe that homeless guy on the street who calls me names. Other than that though, all people will over the course of their lives perform some action that will further the human race in some miniscule way. That is more than can be said about the Mona Lisa. It may inspire someone, perhaps, but there is little evidence that it would do so more than any other painting or piece of artwork.

There are some things worth dying for. A single piece of art isn't one of them. What if Picasso had died young while trying to save someone else's prized painting? It makes absolutely no sense to value a thing above a person. A person is what creates things.

Indeed

[Colin Smith]

It's not like 99.9% of the population are going to be able to tell the difference between a decent copy and an original. Rather than being funny, it sounds like one of the better ideas.

Re:Install a embedded GPS device and let them stea

[rawket.scientist]

Yeah, but thieves often cut paintings free of their frames to make them easier to move, hide, etc. It's kind of a lost cause to bug a painting, unless you put the locator in an indispensable part of the canvas itself, and I don't think many curators would do that to a pricless masterpiece.

Plus, to bring it back to someone else's point, most major art thefts are going to involve ginormous insurance liabilities. Those insurance companies don't want to encourage wary thieves to go poking through the Mona Lisa with a pair of tweezers.

Anti-integration

[Phreakiture]

This is the part that impressed me: 9 Closed-circuit TV cameras . . . Anti-integration makes things difficult for the bad guys; it means they will have to break two systems instead of one.

Redundancy is a Good Thing. Heterogeneous redundancy is a Better Thing. Here endeth the lesson.