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Unattended Equipment Loan System?
captnitro asks: "I run a small media lab for a department at a large public university. We have about 120 faculty and and equal number of graduate students who from time to time need things like digital cameras, video equipment, projectors, EyeOne units, and so on. (While there is a central location on campus for students, faculty and staff to get some of this equipment, we stock a few specialized pieces that our faculty need.) Since I'm out of the office a lot, I'm looking for a clever way of loaning out equipment that doesn't involve me being there and is secure enough that our administrators deem it "theft resistant" enough to implement. I've looked into small safes with PINs, or card readers (all faculty have IDs with magstripes), blah blah blah, but most of these are prohibitively expensive, so I'm thinking of hacking something together myself.. though I have no idea how I'd do that. Any thoughts?" Solutions could range from the clever and mixed tech (cheap locked boxes with combinations sent through encrypted e-mail), through high tech (use of the existing ID cards system) to unlock delivery boxes. If you were going to set up a system like this, how would you do it?
Did you read what he was asking at all?
He wants to have the equipment available to people who have authenticated themselves.
If the people abuse it after that, it's a seperate problem.
By your theory, we should secure our boxes by delting all the accounts, since if you have an account a bad person might log in and do something bad to our box!
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Seems to me that the easiest solution would be to higher someone, say a student, to work checking stuff out. Any sort of authentication system that's based on the id cards is suseptible to theft if someone steals someone else's id card. Having a system where someone can email a request for equipment might be workable, but I suspect that it would end up costing quite a bit of money just for that many safes, plus the hassle of resetting the combination every time someone checks something out. One thing you might consider is just putting a card reader on the door that's tied to the lock, and then putting a security camera in the room. Even if you don't have the time to actually go through all the tapes, being on camera can be somewhat of a deturrent.
Also remember that any system you implement to check out equipment also has to make it easy to return equipment. This means that automated solutions need to not rest combinations or whatever until the equipment is returned.
Also, if you choose to go with a technology solution, remember that even if it seems expensive, think of the cost of the equipment that could be stolen, or the cost of paying someone to man the desk.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
You guy remember those? I have seen many ways people have used them to do inventory.
g =3
http://cuecatastrophe.com/mirrors/Default.asp?p
I would do a 3 step process here. I will assume you have mag strip access to rooms on these cards. Should not be to much of a strech to have one set up on a storage door for access. Here you have a access control list for that door and limit your pool of people with access.
Then barcode all the equipment, set up a little web site that allows people to "request" to check out a piece of equipment online. Use the qcat, after getting past the access list for room access at the door, they scan the piece they are checking out. This time stamps the equipment for you as a check out and return. When they return the equipement they scan it again, and this removes it from the webpage as a "checked out" iteam. Thus giving a running list on the website of things that are "in".
Finally, set up a cheap webcam (thinkgeek has for 200 that is ip based with webserver) to write to disk on a computer in anouther room. This is your safty net for "nothing was scanned, but we have billy bob on tape slinking out with the digital camera. Here are the door scan logs from 12:03 am, and here are the logs where he did not scan it out. Also, he did not request this iteam via the web page. Get a ROPE!"
I think this pretty much covers your ass, gives them access to the equipment, and allows for an automated check in, check out, and what is "in stock".
Best of luck.
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
Get an assistant (some first-year student), and pay him a few bucks for doing your job.
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
Yes, find the problems with what he's asking and completely ignore the question.
N IC_DOOR_STRIKE.asp -- When validated by the pc current is sent to the door strike to unlock the room
Parts
1) Magstrip reader (no link) -- used to read the id of someone at the door
2) Computer (no link) -- used to tell who is at the door.
3) Electronic door strike (http://www.audioimpact.net/EDS300_EDS300_ELECTRO
4) Webcam (no link) -- takes pictures of whoever is entering using motion sensing software
Issues -- power outage -- room remains locked. Entrance can be aqquired by using a key.
Issues -- Damanged equipment -- look at who has checked it out last by checking the mag stripe log and the webcam.
Issues -- Damaged equipment -- "Someone before me broke it", make it well aware that they should test it BEFORE they leave the room with it.
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
The books have a magnetic security strip and a barcode. You have a swipe-card (I think with a barcode too). You swipe your card, scan the book and the machine then demagnitizes the book. If you don't check it out, the alarm goes off at the door.
A .45 and a reputation.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Yes, I know you asked for an "unattended" solution, but I'm sure that your university is already paying lots of money to run a library where people can go to check out other stuff, so make your stuff part of what people can check out at the library, provided, of course, that they can prove to the library staff that they are authorized to check out these items. Transfer a small amount of your department's budget to the library to cover their extra expense and it'll probably be by far the cheapest way to go and you get to take credit for saving them a lot of money.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I'm one of the two staffers for my University's Instructional Technology and Campus Media Office (Whew!) and all I can say is: student workers. We keep 10 or so around for 6-10 hours per week. They take requests, make equipment deliveries, and generally follow our every nefarious whim as far as checking out equipment. The university pays them tax-free $5.25/hour. They love it because %90 of the time they can sit and do homework, surf the web, etc.
It's great for us because we're free to work on more involved projects without worrying that Dr. Smith isn't going to get her LaserDisc player on time. Student workers are also neat to have around.. We maintain a very casual, but very efficient, atmosphere in the office.
While what you're doing MAY be possible without human help, I get the feeling that any automated solution will cause you to spend more time babysitting it than doing your job.
Good luck, and don't forget to change the air filters on those projectors!
What I and a lot of others are missing from the original post. He's not looking for fool-proof. He said 'theft-resistant' for when he's not in his office.
I think you can do a lot here. I posted ealier about the lockers and the software package. After an item is returned, the poster (or to make you happy a work-study student) would go in and inspect the item, make sure it is in working condition, or track down the last user. He could then update it's status so the next person who takes it out knows they are responsible. Now, someone comes in before the item is manually inspected. The display would read something similar to "Item returned but not inspected". If someone so desperately wants to take it out, they ACKNOWLEDGE they are responsible for it, or they put a request in for the item and get an email once it has been inspected.
He wasn't looking to cure cancer here people, just to get some ideas!
I forgot what I wanted to say, but honestly, it was important.
I have to disagree. There are psychological ways of stopping theft that are probably more effective than technical ways (or at least complementary to them). Anyone determined enough can find a way around technical safeguards... your goal should be to make them stand out like a purple cow!
-I think the best is simply putting whatever solution you have in a highly visible area, like in a commons area. It's rare that you see a car broken into right in front of the entrance to a store, where everyone can see it.
-Lock it up at the end of the night, by putting a cage around it.
-Put a sign up, "This automated rental system generously donated by (whomever gave you a few bucks to implement this)".
-Have a loud alarm that sounds if it is broken into.
-Put up a camera inside, and have one in a separate location facing the person so everyone who uses it can be identified. Or at least a sign saying "This machine under electronic surveillance".
The key here is not to making it technically impossible to steal something, but to strongly discourage it. And to make it more likely to identify someone who does manage to break into it. You know those signs around military areas that say "Use of deadly force authorized"? Do you really think they put them up because they intend to shoot to kill everyone who wanders in there? Absolutely not. Psychology is a very powerful tool- use it however you can.
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Sounds like you could use an internal website with a calendar to schedule loan times. In fact, I was looking into such a system for my department. Unfortunately, google is inundated with non-open source (read: non-free) software. But if you find one that suits you (or develop a site yourself) you could advertise the "office hours" when you will be there for equipment pickup and allow people to login and sign up for equipment in available time slots. That way, you have a digital record of who has what AND it's automatically logged and blocked off so others can work their schedule around it without involving you (that's the most important part). Make it a policy that if they haven't logged their loan request in the system, then they can't take the equipment. If you have the site developed well enough, then with this policy you minimize ID fraud since the criminal not only has to have the right personal ID card, but the would have to know the login and password for the appointment system.
I realize that I haven't given a suggestion on how to NOT be there in person when lending the equipment out, but I'm in line with the other suggestions that you should hire an underling to do it if you can't do it--that's most cost effective.
In my university, the IDs are now smartcards. Assuming that you also have this system, you could possibly use a smartcard reader for access to a secure room (ask the facility staff to do this). A smartcard reader on a PC with a barcode reader (to scan a barcode on the equipment, you do use barcodes for inventory management don't you?) could possibly be used to log the actually equipment transaction without you being there, but that's still insecure and takes staff training, yuck.
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