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How Do I Prevent Lan Party Theft?
DragonTHC writes "I'm thinking about hosting a lan party open to the public. I'm aiming for approximately 60 people to attend. I can handle all the logistics of operation. The only thing I can't wrap my head around is: how do I prevent theft at the lan party? Do I hire security guards? Do I need security cameras? I don't know the people who will attend, and I don't know if they're trustworthy enough to not steal other people's equipment. What do I do?"
Hire a security guard, but if you want to intimidate lanparty geeks you need to have him dressed up as Arthas or something. Make sure the "steel is real" when selecting a weapon to go with the costume, geeks can tell 440stainless vs polished aluminum a mile away.
Stick one of those on the network, and people will be too busy downloading that to bother about stealing stuff.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Everyone knows that DRM is really the only answer for preventing theft in today's high-tech society.
You can't expect to prevent theft at all in any kind of party.
Hell, if it's a really good party you should wake up 2 weeks later naked in an alley in Tijuana.
But GPL-porn would probably be made by the same people that release software under the GPL......
Must...burn...imagination....
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Invite Hells Angels they have a long track record of providing security http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altamont_Free_Concert
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
> How can you steal from them without them finding out?
1. Make everyone sign "The host can keep any stuff that is left behind" contract before entering.
2. Yell "oh my god, are those girls naked out there"
3. When everyone is out, close the door
4. Profit
That is actually not stealing, because you made them sign. If you want to steal, skip #1.
I've been to dozens of LAN parties, and I've never lost any equipment. In fact, I usually end up leaving with more equipment than I came with.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
Handcuff them to the table, and when they want to leave, you can escort them out.
I used to work for you, didn't I?
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I don't think you ought to underestimate the dangers of *E*X*T*R*E*M*E* *F*R*A*G*G*I*N*G*!!!!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Make sure the cable is looped around something that is relatively solid and unmovable.
Such as the gamers themselves. Oh, wait...
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The reality here is this is a LAN party, not a frat-boy keg party. The risks are low.
LEMME SHOW YA SOMETHIN!!!!
All of the equipment blows one of the fuses in the OP's antiquated household wiring. Anxious to get back to playing Counter-Strike, one of the guests uses a penny in place of a fuse.
Do not panic, I am a fire marshal!
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Solution: Assuming all guests are adults, consider having a "clothes off at the door" policy.
That'll really make things difficult for thieves, and will weed out those wearing explosives too!
what were the dinosaurs REALLY like?
rewriting history since 2109
Oh please. If you're constantly worried about being sued you might as well just never get out of bed in the morning.
precisely why i don't get out of bed until well into the afternoon.
No, no, no.... He wants LOWER risk...! Have you been to a LAN party lately? Between that many PSU's and the lack of a shirt to hold in the BO, explosives are less of a risk than biowarfare.
And no one wants a real-world Zerg rush on the nose.
Be careful of your thoughts; they could become words at any minute...
This is slashdot - it IS his parent's basement.
disk? hmmm... I know I saw it somewhere...
It's not really accurate either. My Slashdot UID has been passed on for generations, and will continue to be passed on. I'm actually only 3 years old. Some families pass on the family name, we pass on the family Slashdot UID.
what were the dinosaurs REALLY like?
"Barney" was frighteningly accurate.
How do people even hurt themselves in lan parties?
Have you *seen* some of the cooling systems on these custom rigs? You could easily get sucked into a CPU fan.
do you graybeards have a script that scrapes slashdot for the string 'uid' in user comments? i honestly can't think of how else there's such a high correlation for all the 'uid' posts to garner so many old-timers.
Well, see, most of the younger crowd doesn't know this - but back in 1999, in response to the impending Y2K crisis, most slashdot users got neural jacks wired in to help with patching critical date-field-overflow issues. So most of the old-timers on Slashdot don't actually "read" things here, rather the postings are integrated into our overall consciousness as a background process.
Bow-ties are cool.
I don't think the girls need to be naked
Its all fun and games till someone goes "I put on my robe and wizard's hat...."