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Ask Slashdot: Anti-Theft Products For the Over-Equipped Household?
First time accepted submitter Dufflepod (3656815) writes "After yet another hardware purchase last week, I realized with some alarm just how drastically an enterprising burglar could increase the crapulence quotient of my life if they ever made off with my hardware. The house is alarmed, but much to my annoyance it isn't always set when people go out for any length of time. Ideally I want to 'alarm' the expensive items among my various PCs, UPS, NAS box, test equipment, and some of the sundry other gadgets & gizmos I require to stroke my inner geek. Over the past few days I have spent hours Googling for every combination of "anti-theft perimeter alarm radius motion detector vibration wireless" etc etc.. I have found various possible solutions, though the cost of some of them does make my eyes water (eg SonicShock @ €150/box). Has anyone out there decided to bite-the-bullet and protect their kit with decent alarms, and do you have any suggested 'do's & don'ts'?" So how would you secure valuable items, as opposed to securing the entire place?
Yeah, don't.
You can install FindMyWhatever on some items, but for the most part, you're wasting your time.
Thieves look for targets of opportunity. Make your home less friendly. Place a camera in plain view and out of reach. Put up a beware of Doug sign and get a Glock window decal.
If someone comes for your electronics specifically, it's an inside job. You can avoid that by screening your friends better.
In the meantime, just do regular backups offsite.
Security through obscurity - I'll never tell
I thought with the 3D printing revolution we are in the post-scarcity cloud model? Just download and print!
Unless all the wildly overenthusiastic hype on Slashdot was just ... not true?
the cost of some of them does make my eyes water
I hear you buddy. I'm still grieving over the cost of my last motherboard. Woe is me...
We're not talking about irreplaceable items: just ensure your data is safe and get a good insurance.
Backup your data. Everything else can easily be bought for the price of a few years security.
sounds like most of it is computer equipment, so maybe going lowtech and using some kensington locks on them? seems like a simple alternative to trying to turn your home into the data room from Mission: Impossible
1) Very consistent off site backups for data
2) Full inventory of items you own
3) If theft occurs, use home owners insurance to get your money back. You'll probably end up with a free hardware upgrade in the process.
What is better?
a) 100% chance of giving up your time and money now securing your items.
vs.
b) (very low)% chance of having to give up time if a theft does occur
The cost of securing your items may balance out any deductibles you have to pay to have home owners insurance cover the lost items.
A dog would be a fine choice. Not only will the dog provide companionship, but assuming you acquire a canine of some size, most burglars will try to find other places to rob. Any of the bulldog breeds are generally friendly and sociable dogs, and intimidate the heck out of would be intruders. As a bonus, there are lots in the shelters and they can often be adopted at a discount. Just know that this alarm system requires a significant amount of daily maintenance: you have to play with your dog if you want a good dog.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
What about some kind of DIY thing? Get a Raspberry Pi, use the GPIO pins to run some wires from the cases of each device (something thing like telco cross-connect), drive it and if the circuit breaks then send out an email or something. Bonus points for integrating a camera and snapping photos at the same time the wires break. Similarly, if the device is an always on kind of thing, just use some kind of network monitoring.
----- obSig
With a Smith & Wesson and a German dog.
Captcha: honest
A loud noise sounds! Your neighbours all ignore it - probably a false alarm - and the burgler goes about his business. Even if someone does call the police, plenty of time to grab the obvious valuables and load up his car to escape before the police could arrive. It can't hurt, but don't depend on it.
Some sort of camera system recording to a remote server (encrypted, of course) might help. It wouldn't deter any thieves, because they wouldn't know about it, but it would give you some tiny sliver of hope getting things back. Maybe you'll get lucky and the police will recognise someone with priors. Don't expect them to send out the forensics team and run prints against the database unless you are rich and/or famous, but it'd be better than nothing.
Also, offsite records of all serial numbers, and apply indelible security marks in visible places. Good for patrolling eBay to see if your stuff turns up, proving ownership and such. Plus you can report it to the manufacturers, who usually have a list of stolen serials - that way if the sucker who buys the stolen goods ever tries to get a warranty claim it'll be flagged.
But I guarantee you that any security system that actually prevents theft should cost you more money than reasonable insurance would cost. It should also cost more money than the thing you are protecting. You know those Storage Wars shows? When they find a safe, it it usually worth more than what is inside it.
If insurance costs more than the stuff is worth, than that means you live in a high crime area and should move someplace safer.
But in the USA or other stable country, under no circumstance should it ever be a cost effective to secure your home possessions. Insurance should always make more sense.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
does not mean what you think it means. If you don't know what it means, don't use it.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Adequate insurance and a mean looking dog....
First of all, you balk at the cost of some of these solutions - yes, they are expensive and yes, they'll be mostly for added assurance that IF someone breaks in and IF the alarm wasn't set and IF the thief is even interested in it and IF the thief then decides to take it (lot's of if's). If your setup is mobile (eg. you're a DJ or mobile contractor) then those solutions are useful. But for the rest, they are merely added insurance and typically useless.
I'd say, use an alarm system that you can connect to (some of the DIY systems do run Linux) and use some type of motion sensing timeout to set the alarm or use BT to check if someone is still in the house etc. etc.. There are a lot of cheap and creative solutions to this problem.
Most thieves won't break in if you have an alarm (sticker), there are other, lower hanging fruit. A thief won't break in when you have a dog (again with the fruit thing). A thief will only take what's small and valuable (what's easily sold, what's easily carried). Most thieves aren't smart nor tech savvy and doesn't know that little black box costs $5000 but they'll sure destroy it regardless of whether there is an alarm attached to it (especially if there is an alarm attached to it).
I'd say, stop worrying, take backups of your data off-site, get homeowners or renters insurance. The laptops/tablets/phones will disappear in any case, the UPS/PC/NAS most likely won't unless there is a group and they are actively clearing out the entire house (posing as movers to the neighbors). Thieves are also very destructive so regardless of what they take, they may destroy whatever you're trying to protect and a destroyed NAS is just as good as a stolen NAS. Theft recovery systems don't work because the police won't put in the legwork (see the recurring stories on MacBooks and iOS devices being located by the customer). The insurance will pay you back for the 'stuff', they can't recovery your data however and that is the case for fire, flood and other damage as well.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Dude... tell me where you live and I'll come over and advise you on how to secure your expensive equipment...
Not too sure about this. I do not know the statistics, but all competent thieves know how to handle dogs, even packs of big dogs are no trouble for the determined thief. Sometimes in fact is is better to go with the tiny loud ones.
But I hear people really interested in protecting their shit are getting Emus, Emus are very territorial, and no one comes prepared to fight off a hyper aggressive 200 pound turkey (which can outrun them 3 times over). They also survive very well after getting shot, apparently, for some reason.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Try to get the other occupants to set the alarm when you are away. Get an alarm that has the ability to set it via a cell phone. Keep your bushes and shrubs cut back and don't give would be thieves a place to hide. Also choose prickly bushes up close to the house. Good out door lighting. Motion detector activated lights are good as it won't piss off the neighbors as much and save electricity. Also make sure the lights are high enough that someone can't just unplug or disable them.
Don't put stickers on your house advertising you have guns, or what brand alarm you are using. Guns are a popular theft item. More so than your computers I would guess. Having an ADT sticker (or what ever brand alarm) simply tells a good thief what they need to do to circumvent your alarm. Most ADT alarms can be defeated by simply cutting the phone line. Almost none have a cellular card in them.
I don't know if you or your family are dog people, but dobermans are fantastic family dogs. I have one who is very well trained. He's very friendly to people when I tell him it's OK. But Allah, God, Buda, Eris, Xenu help you if you come in the house uninvited. I also have two other dobermans who are not as well trained as he is, but they follow his lead. When he doesn't like something, they don't either.
the house is alarmed, but much to my annoyance it isn't always set when people go out for any length of time.
Shock therapy ought to solve this.
You just have to remember to shock them right after they fail to set the alarm, or they won't make the connection between the unwanted behavior and the punishment.
Have an idea of what you want to protect, and what lengths you're willing to go to protect it.
Don't have too much portable stuff lying around the house, that can be easily nicked.
And make sure that data (especially on the hardware that is portable) is encrypted and backed up. For me, I don't care that much about the hardware because I buy the minimum I need to do the job and it's mostly obsolete anyway; it's the stuff on the machines I care about.
If somebody stole my laptop tomorrow; I'd merely be very annoyed; but if they take my only copy of my wedding photos with it, I'd be nigh-homocidal.
All the data that I care about and can't easily replace is backed up to the cloud. Anything sensitive or financial is encrypted. Easily-replaceable things like DVD/music rips and MAME roms, I don't bother with.
If you live in a Castle Doctrine state[1], it's perfectly legal to shoot intruders.
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_doctrine#States_with_a_castle_law
think as a thief: if you can see all your equipment from outside across a window then you are attracting thiefs- try to hide your geekness from outsiders, don't put your expensive hardware in plain view. if you have monitored alarm put some "thief candy" in key places (thief candy is old equipment that looks expensive and you won't cry if stolen) while your more valuable equipment is safe in other places of the house, like a basement or a room in your house without windows or easy access, or in the attic (i placed my NAS inside a hole in a wall, behind a mirror, no one would find it unleast he knows where to look). wneh the thief knows your house is monitored he doesn't have time to search it... he'll grab whatever he can in the small timeframe he has before the security personal comes to look.
Security systems might be worthwhile for your own safety, but not for protecting against burglary. Unless you're very lucky, response times pretty much guarantee anyone will be in and out before the police have even dispatched a unit.
What you need isn't security; it's insurance. It's cheaper than monitored security systems, more dependable, and doesn't suffer from the risks of technical failures or circumvention (though ignoring it is more likely than circumvention). In the event of a burglary, your things will be replaced. (Make sure your policy covers replacement cost, not depreciated market value). And keep your important data backed up!.
(Disclaimer: YMMV, and selecting a policy requires due diligence.)
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
I know it is not what you are asking, but the much more simple solution is to just get a decent renters / home owners insurance policy with a premium that you can afford and a level of coverage that will allow you to replace everything. The added benefit is that if you need to replace it, the odds are the old gear will no longer be available and you will get to purchase newer, better gear. FWIW, my renter's insurance policy with State Farm costs me something like $150 every six months, and has up $20,000 in coverage. That's more than enough to replace a couple of computers and some television sets.
If your concern is data loss, you are approaching this the wrong way. You protect against data loss with offsite replication.
I think it's important to keep in mind that there's a point at which "more security" stops making sense and "more insurance" becomes a better option. I've had clients get overly-obsessed with security, trying to buy software that can locate/control your lost/stolen items remotely, locking everything down for physical security, etc. Then when they look at the project to secure everything, I point out that it'd be easier to insure everything instead. Along with everything else, there's no perfect security. You could go through all the effort and expense of securing things, and it could still get stolen.
Aside from that, consider whether you can just reinforce security around a closet and lock everything in there. And then train people to arm the house alarm before leaving. Even the most secure door isn't going to keep your house secure if people keep propping it open.
Alarms simply tell you you've been robbed.
A far more effective strategy is to ensure that anyone entering your house uninvited will find it impossible to stay long enough to steal your stuff.
To do this, you want lots of *internal* sirens that run at 120dB+.
If the intruders ears start bleeding as soon as they enter the building, they will retreat at a very hasty pace.
That's how my alarms are configured. They ring me over the cellular network and generate an internal sould level that is intollerably loud (as I have discovered on the two occasions I forgot to disarm the system myself) :-)
If he's going to get your iPad he might as well take some life-long hearing damage with him :-)
Build a moat. Oh yeah, get some boiling oil, too.
I'd skip the fancy alarms. If a home alarm doesn't scare a burglar way, no silly little gadgets will, either. However, don't just give up either. Sometimes if something is just a bit too difficult to steal or pawn, a thief will pass on it. Just try to deter a thief as much as possible.
I'd do any combination of the following:
1. Make an inventory (with serial numbers) of all of the expensive stuff. Keep it somewhere in the clouds.
2. Most smaller devices will have some type of Kensington lock slot - use them to tie them down to something bulky and heavy to prevent smash and grabs.
3. For any PCs, Servers, etc, lock the bios with a password and add ownership information. Yes it's easy to reset, but maybe you'll get lucky and they'll just pawn it at the pawn shop, who will then see the ownership ID and call the cops. Who knows?
4. For really small items - flash drives, ipods, etc - just keep them out of sight. Most burglars don't take the time to go through every single item in every single drawer. They usually just want in and out as quickly as possible.
Weld together a stout metal rack mount enclosure with a big combination lock, either press bolts into the basement floor to anchor it or fill the bottom with a few hundred pounds of lead bars or sand. Odds are if your equipment requires more than 20 minutes with an angle grinder to steal they're probably going to just leave it.
Kind of like dogs. Most bark and do little to protect your house. Large dogs have been proven to be easily bribed. The only thing a dog does is make it inconvenient for a burglar. That's exactly what an alarm does.
Anchor your equipment to studs, desks, and other furniture. It's the reason iMac's have laptop-style locking available on them. Most random thieves won't break in with the equipment to break through those things. Drive something into a stud you can anchor to (an eye-hole or something) and then do so, so if they try to run off they can't get very far.
So, once a burglary has got in to your house most of the problem has already occurred. Even if your insurance pays there is a major inconvenience in making the claim, fighting the assessment and getting the repairs performed to your satisfaction. Best to prevent the whole possibility of that happening.
How do you keep bad people out of your house? Alarms, cameras (oh joy! you can watch the video of your home being wrecked), trackers - all irrelevant and with little deterrent value. If you want to stop people even trying to get in to your home, get a dog. A big, noisy dog.
If you can't get a dog (here comes the geek bit), get a recording of a dog. Hook it up to a PIR and an Arduino and have it play when anyone approaches the property. If you can arrange a stereo playback, process the soundtrack to make it appear as if the dog is moving around the house. If you want to go for extra "realism", rig up a weight attached to a motor that thumps the front door - the higher up the door, the bigger the dog appears to be - as if the dog had its paws on the door. You need LOUD and you need LONG. A recording that stops after a few seconds won't convince anyone. Especially if it replays exactly the same track each time.
Finally, keep the pitch of the barking low. Nobody's scared of a squeaky little mutt. But if you slow it down, the animal sounds a lot larger and scarier.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Have steel-hardened doors, etc. If it looks like difficult access, they will go to neighbor. Just don't leave door open, garage-door open, etc. Build a safe room. Work from home, don't go on vacation, and only have food delivered. Screen all food with a paid food tester. I just make sure I have crappier stuff than neighbors.
They don't even have to be on, just visible. I've also heard, "These premises under video surveillance" signs work well, even without cameras.
"I'm worried about somebody taking my stuff while I'm gone."
"SHOOT THEM."
Good job.
The first and best way to avoid being robbed.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Posting AC to protect the innocent:
A person I used to work with spends time overseas in Europe for good chunks of the year. Because he has had break-in issues in the past, he went with a fairly thorough security system for his place (located in a semi-rural area.) Since the house was being built to his specs, it was designed with decent security in mind.
First, he got hurricane shutters for the windows. Those are intended for storms, but double as good defense against vandalism.
Second, he reinforced the door jambs (both internally and externally) and bought doors from Israel with multi-point locking that could stand real punishment.
Third, he had removable bollards sunk in so a pickup truck couldn't be driven into the house, but with a key, the bollard can be folded flush and the driveway used as normal.
Fourth, all rooms of the house had solid, multipoint locking doors and deadbolt locks. When he left for Europe, every room in his place was locked.
Fifth, his furniture was designed to be lockable. His computer desk was made out of heavy gauge steel and locked up tightly. He had the usual furniture, but in his bedroom, he had a walk-in vault in every bedroom (reinforced with cinderblock walls and an emergency exit tunnel) that was meant for everything he had in that room to be tossed in and locked before he left. His laptop went into a safe, and everything, even clothing and bedding went in as well. Anything not going to Europe got tossed in the vault room.
Sixth, he had an array of water faucet valves in a utility room, as well as switches for outdoor lighting and receptacles. That way, someone couldn't break a window and shove a hose inside, or camp in his driveway or front yard during a festival weekend.
Seventh, he imported a burglar alarm from England that has multiple fog machines and strobe lights. That way, a living room would obscured in a matter of 8-10 seconds. Each room was separate, so if the alarm was on, if an intruder kicked another room's door down, it would subsequently fill up with fog.
Add to this the usual security monitoring and a private guard doing occasional checks of the property.
The reason why every door in his place locked is that if there was a burglary or a home invasion [1], the bad guys would have to break down every door, one by one to get to anyone sleeping in there. To steal anything worth having would take breaking down multiple doors, while trying to stumble around with a 0 feet visibility and strobes going off.
Yes, for some, this is expensive overkill, but with him gone most of the year, it does keep peace of mind and just the fact that a truck or van can't park in the driveway, combined with metal doors that mean business, it does get the meth-heads to go elsewhere for their fix.
[1]: Home invasions are not uncommon where I live. Easier to tie up a homeowner and take one's time in grabbing valuables than to smash, grab and try to beat the clock. Less time in prison as well, the way the charges are set up, so even the dumb crooks realize it is easier to just break in when someone is at home with a Saturday Night Special to deal with the "armed" homeowners.
Assuming you are willing to care for the mutt, get a dog. They are good at deterring burglars. Plus they are a lot more fun to hang around with than alarm systems.
http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1991-07-14/news/9101250909_1_burglars-palm-beach-county-pickings
I'm going to second the dog idea. Sure, someone determined to steal your stuff might bring a steak, but most crimes are opportunistic. If a dog starts barking before they even enter the place, why bother. In Atlanta I remember reading thieves were chopping through the sides of homes rather than using the windows in order to avoid the sensors and motion alarms. Good luck combating that. And a dog will probably bring some perspective into your life, make you care a little less about all that stuff.
I only really worry about a few things: jewelry, my late father in-law's air force watch, some paperwork, a small amount of cash, things that have data that is hard to replace. Those things go into the safe whenever the house will be unoccupied. I have a very high quality difficult to open safe that weighs over 500 pounds and is further bolted to the floor. It's also fireproof. Laptops and tablets go in there as well as my video and camera gear and my wife's jewelry.
But to first have the opportunity to try to crack my safe, a thief would have to first enter my house, which has hurricane windows and doors. The glass in my windows can withstand a 2x4 propelled at 120 mph or even a small caliber bullet. A thief who successfully penetrates my perimeter will have to destroy a window or door valued at over $1000. My homeowner's deductible is $1000. Anything they find lying around to steal at this point will be covered by insurance.
I've locked the really choice stuff in the safe, so there won't be that much interesting stuff for them just laying around. Thieves mostly want stuff that is small, light, valuable and easy to fence. They generally don't want to hang out in your house for hours sifting through everything--the vast majority are smash and grabs.
Two cases in point:
5 years ago someone tried to break in while my wife and I were both at work (she's a housewife now, so that's less of a problem now). They tried throwing a bowling ball sized rock through my french doors. They tried prying the doors open. They tried smashing the lock off with a sledgehammer. They left empty-handed.
A week ago, we heard noises outside and looked through the blinds to see the cops with a guy at gunpoint in our driveway. Long story short, he was a transient who they chased onto our property. He had just committed a couple of smash and grabs on my neighbors. They searched him and found his pockets full of jewelry.
My places was robbed. Cleaned out. In my case all the BIG or HEAVY tech was left behind. All the small and light stuff was taken. Talk to your insurance agent. You have payout limits on item categories. Bump up the limits so all your stuff is covered. Then add bricks to everything.
Since you've already heard about getting alarms, insurance, making backups and inventorying your electronics, computers or priceless antique cans, you might want to think about upgrading your door locks - assuming you're not renting, of course. Did you get them re-keyed when you moved in? If you're like most people, you didn't get around to it. Why not have the locksmith come out and do that and install new locks at the same time. Maybe reinforce the door jam if necessary around the deadbolt, and see if he's got other advice.
Do your windows all lock? Go outside and pretend you lost your key. Try to figure out how to get back inside.
If you make your house a little harder to break into than your neighbors', it probably won't be you that gets robbed.
I am not a crackpot.
Best I seen to protect electronics is a fog machine hooked up to the alarm system.
They did an over kill of fag machine for the area and they would kick in as soon as the alarm went off. Took about 30 seconds to fill the whole building to a point where you could not see your hand in front of your face.
The robbers would not be able to see a thing, plus if they rushed inside to nab something they would most likely not be able to find their way out before the police showed up.
Worked great as the smoke also alerted other people too thinking it was a fire or something. Although it was white smoke.
Cover the items you want to protect in duct tape. The shitty looking silver kind. Or a bunch of stupid stickers from a dollar store.
Obviously doesn't work for TVs but awesome for boxes where you only need to see a small portion of its face.
People are visual creatures and thieves operate fast. They're trying for low hanging fruit and aren't going to appraise every piece carefully.
A friend had a safe that he wanted secured within his house. He purchased an separate alarm just for this safe. (So his house was alarmed by ADT, IIRC, and a second alarm system was placed on the safe.) He could have easily secured a room or more items. ADT, Comcast sell more sophisticated systems now (video cams accessed over the web, etc. so that you can constantly monitor your "stuff").
This isn't an elegant, nerdy-geeky solution but it works well. There is an associated cost but the Security Company will call the cops for you. The Security Companies generally have contracts with the LEOs to ensure that a cop is sent when an actual alarm even occurs.
The reason isn't really security, it is mostly to hide the wire monster from my wife's delicate sensibilities and to further drown out the fan noise. One of my closets had an AC duct, which I basically enclosed in a little room to have a "consumer" grade server room (I close the duct in the winter, my temps are fine). The little room has a "crawlspace" panel in the plain old drywall wall, which is pretty low-key and not at all hard to crawl through for the rare times I need physical access. It cost me about 100 bucks at home depot to buy a handful of studs, a sheet of drywall, and a crawlspace panel. I added smoke alarms on either side, because I am completely aware that this isn't the most fireproof of solutions.
Honestly it all started with me putting a 16 port switch in the attic, then realizing it needed to be in the A/C, then moving it to the closet, then my very patient wife (bless her) casually suggesting that closet was becoming a cesspool of discarded hardware, wires that went to nowhere, and loud weird equipment..
A side-effect of this is that the average burglar would barely even be able to tell that I spend a small fortune in very geeky and completely unnecessary server hardware.
I have a friend who is a locksmith. He can get into my house faster than I can pull out my keys to unlock the door. He's fond of saying: "locks keep honest people honest".
Many suggestions on here are excellent:
in accessible cameras
leave something for them to find
do not make it obvious you have shit worth stealing
and most importantly: slow them down.!!!!
Your gear does not have to be out in the open. I have a server room in the basement in an old root cellar room. It locks from the outside. It's got all the important stuff in there. And the door/frame/wall is reinforced with steal bar. With a good axe or sledge, it'd take you 30 min to smash through. It's just not worth the risk to them. Down the stairs, through two rooms, locked into a location with only one way out.
http://books.google.com/books?...
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
Ask any cop. The best home security is a Dog. Especially one of the crazy breeds like a Border Collie (I have one) or German Shepard. They're so wired they'll bark when someone is on the sidewalk across the street. Burglars avoid houses with dogs. It's just too much of a pain to deal with. They're trying to be quiet and dogs are anything but.
does your Doug bite?
Motion detector triggering MP3 playback
(Loud cheery voice) "Intruder detected. Self-destruct sequence initiated ..."
[Insert pithy quote here]
I find that two large German Shepherds (named Sam and Max) work very well.
One look at the fence, and double-size dog house in my yard (and all the dog crap) and thieves go find another house.
Seriously the best answer I have ever seen is a computer case made out of concrete (actually set around the outside so you can still do maintenance). No one will lug +50kg for a second hand computer.
So what happens if you're home and someone breaks in? I'm not a fan of guns. Been around them my entire life and I've seen them be the part of more accidents than they've help people. I live in a not so good neighborhood. I figure some day someone will try to come in. And if they do while we're home... we have a can of flying insect killer at every door, near the bed and a couple in random places.
Why you may ask?
1. it's legal to own
2. it has a 30 - 40ft range (yes I've tested them)
3. it's silent
4. a hit to the eyes will (at least) temporarily blind them and render them useless
5. a hit into an open mouth/lungs could very well kill them, it'll certainly stop them from doing anything else
6. no licensing to own/use
7. did I mention it's legal? No one can convict you of murder or manslaughter or anything for defending your home opportunistically with some bug spray.
big ass noisy dog does wonders.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Burglars mostly look for easy to sell, small, valuable items : cash, jewelry, etc... They usually won't stay longer than a few minutes.
Do you really think a burglar will bother with a UPS or any of these big, heavy, boxes that only a few people want ?
They may however damage some of your stuff as they mess around your house searching for hiding places but anti-theft products won't help you with this.
As for the remaining cases : insiders and real professional burglars who know exactly what to take, unless you become completely paranoid, you won't stop them.
So : backup your data offsite, get a good insurance, do the minimum so that you are not the low hanging fruit (basically what is mandated by most insurance contract), keep calm and carry on.
Data. Use an offsite backup service or do like me and set up an offsite backup with rsync over ssh to a remote location under your control. All my drives or home folders are encrypted so even if the boxes do get stolen I won't have to worry as much. As long as my data is safe who cares about hardware that insurance will pay to replace?
This strategy also protects you from floods, fires, etc. Not just theft.
Not too long ago, someone I know had his house burglarized. Here are a few observations from the account that was told to me.
First, only easily pawned things were stolen. There were very fancy servers and other electronics there. They were untouched. What was taken were flat-screen TVs and the cash lying about. Your PCs, UPSs, NASs, and routers etc are worthless to them because they cannot exchange them for as much cash, if any at all, as the TVs.
Second, the home alarm system they had did not prevent it. I'll not go into the details here, but the home was mere blocks away from the police station. Had they lived next door to the station, it still would not have helped. The TVs and cash would still be gone. It happened very quickly.
Advice on securing valuables:
- Bank Safe Deposit Box - if it is something you need to keep safe but not use often then keep it here. It's safer than you are!
- Home Safe - if you need to access it with regularity, get a modest sized one and have it bolted to the floor or hard-mounted into a wall or something. Thieves can still pop them open, but need to be prepared to do it right then if they cannot drag it with them. The robbers mentioned above never got their safe open and likely only checked to see if it was already unlocked as many people leave them open. The small fire safes can be popped open very quickly, so only use those for storing non-valuable documentation.
- Security Cable - if you are still nervous about your PCs and such most have a hard-point mount for a security cable where you can attach it to the wall or floor to discourage the thieves that don't have bolt cutters or power tools.
- Do not secure your TVs. Thieves are likely there for them specifically and will do what they have to do in the time they have to get them even if that means trashing a few walls and some furniture. They are easily replaceable and not worth the cost of drywall contractors or having to go furniture shopping again.
Advice on Deterrence
- Keep the outside well lit. Statistics seem to show that more light outside equals less crime. You may even want to get the motion sensing flood lights.
- Leave a TV on while gone. Some shifting light and noise may indicate someone is home. Thieves generally want no one home. They might pass on by.
- Get Deadbolts. While thieves can smash a window, they don't because broken glass is noisy and draws lots of unwanted attention. A single knob lock can be picked almost as fast as you can open it with a key, but they are exposed while doing this. The sight of a deadbolt on a door may cause the thieves to move on to another house without one to minimize their time exposed.
Advice on Security
- Get the large door-jamb kits at Lowes and install them. Thieves can kick in a door by breaking the wood around 2 screws in your door frame. The large plates have more screws and require more force. A lot more. Possibly more force than thieves are willing or able to use.
- Replace door chains with the solid metal fittings like you see in hotels. Bolt cutter resistant.
Maybe you live in a place where people steal a lot more stuff than I live? instead of spending $$$ to buy locks, get a better place to live
As for securing your stuff -- why bother? The most expensive thing will be your alarm system after a few years. All the other stuff can be replaced cheaper and better after a year or two. Also, get homeowners or renters insurance -- for your alarm system.
Average burglar will be very excited to find your grow room and then very disappointed that it contains only electronics that they don't know the value of or how to fence.
Everyone else in the thread has plenty of good advice on helping secure your possesions.
I think you need to take a step back and not be so dependent on material things. If your electronics are stolen you'll still be alive and healthy (presumably). Get insurance if you need it.
If they don't know you, they'll probably leave you alone, and generally ignore whatever happens are your house. But if you know them, then they'll think of you as a person. If something suspicious is happening at your house, they'll call your cell phone to let you know. (And hopefully, you'd do the same for them.) If you get an alarm, tell them, and ask them to call you (or the police) if it's ever going off.
Do like schools and get a steel case to bolt the equipment to the furniture. Steal the computer? Only if you're able to walk out with the entire desk.
Cranky educator.
you live, and when are you not at home? I am planning on stopping by and want to make sure I don't disturb you :)
Or some geese. Backup critical information, e.g. router configurations, off site and increase your home owners insurance. Problem solved.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
It owns you.
(I hope I never own so much valuable stuff that it brings me more worry than pleasure, and I say this as a person who has earned six figures for a long time...)
My setup:
"Gear Head" USB webcam $15 - $20, and includes LED lights to make sure people notice it.
"motion" for Linux
http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/...
This grabs from a v4l device and does everything you'd need... periodic frame capture, capture when it detects motion past certain thresholds, swf video generation, upload to a remote server. Set it up to push your camera data to an AWS instance (you pay for data out, not data in), and it'll be there when you need it.
Lots of expensive, easily stolen electronics, eh? I have the perfect solution I can mail to you. What is your address?
I, too, spend years living in a pretty rough neighborhood. (Two houses down from me, someone ran an old Chevy through the middle of a guy's living room on purpose, because he wasn't happy with the drugs they sold him. A few houses down the street, the other direction, I heard a single gunshot -- and found out the next day the guy had an argument with his wife and decided to make sure he had the last word, using his shotgun.)
In 6 years there, though? I never had anyone break in once. (Some teenagers did steal my lawnmower that was sitting on the back porch, but I heard later that was going on all over town as a group of kids figured out they could make some quick money reselling the engines to repair shops.) I solved that by chaining up its replacement with a bike chain to the railing going up my back porch steps.
The whole time, I was known as the "computer guy" in the neighborhood and had expensive systems set up at home. So why wasn't I ever targeted?
I didn't waste time or money on an alarm system. (Heck, my next-door neighbor had ADT and he was still burglarized twice.) The biggest thing that helped in my case was making good friends with my neighbors on both sides of my place and letting them know if I was going to be gone for any length of time. Most burglaries really are "inside jobs", at least in the sense that the burglar knows something about the situation. If they get the idea that someone's usually home at your place, they'll choose a different target. (Most thieves aren't thrilled about the idea of having to commit armed robberies instead. They'd rather not up the ante quite that high.....) Additionally, if they get the idea your neighbors actually watch out for you -- they'll go elsewhere. Ideally, they want a place where they can park a vehicle and load it up with your stuff, and nobody will notice or care.
I agree that some cameras can't hurt though. If you're into computers anyway, surely you can rig up a few wi-fi webcams with night vision to watch over your vehicle in your driveway and so forth, and automate it so it only records when it sees motion. Cheap insurance. Probably also helps if you have a loud, barking dog -- but I didn't even do that.
....your intruder is a deaf guy!
The house is alarmed, but much to my annoyance it isn't always set when people go out for any length of time.
You aren't using the security you got efficiently.
Before you think about using more technology -- solve the problem with your existing security tech being underutilized. Make it a strong habit to arm the system 100% of the time, when there are not people about.
The next step is to install highly visible surveillance and bolt down/physically secure fixed valuable items.
For items that are highly mobile.... put them in a safe or security trunk, and get that bolted down. Also; conceal the locations of your high-tech item vaults, and leave unappealing older tech visible.
Next... get some dogs that are large and bark very loudly. Put a high fence to completely enclose a buffer zone around your building; the zone should be covered with cameras, and there should be cameras visible from outside the fence. Keep secondary gates locked at all times, using a boltcutter-resistant / crowbar-resistant locking mechanism.
Install an automatic driveway gate to manage vehicle ingress/egress.
Store a copy of surveillance footage offsite -- make sure you have backup communication links and backup power that automatically engages.
The real answer is have reasonable physical security for the whole house, back up the important data off site, and talk with your insurance agent about getting everything covered.
Security cameras are easily thwarted when you make them plainly visible. The burglar just holds a hand in front of their face, uses a mask, disables the camera.... The best security camera is one that notifies your cellfone with clear pictures of what is happening and captures clear pictures and video of the perps faces before they know there is a camera. This allows you to phone the police, have them picked up while they are still in the house, and gives you excellent evidence to provide the police afterward. Not that that should even be necessary when the cops catch them in the house. And while there may be a mess, you don't lose anything. Worked for me.
Burglars aren't interested in bulky hardware boxes with a bunch of cables hooked to them. They want things with high resale value, that can be sold or traded quickly, and that can be grabbed and transported easily. Cash, drugs, guns, jewelery, cellphones, personal documents, passports, credit cards, etc. All of these can be reasonably protected by keeping quiet about having them in your possession and by a storing them in a properly bolted, quality safe.
Get a dog.
Easy deterrent as any. At least SOMEONE will be happy to see you when you get home from work.
That is pretty awesome and I'll take eight!
check url, cheap gear, works, alarm whatever you want with the door sensor.
In Texas, you can get an AR15 for $600 at you local pawn shop.
But you'd have to be home 24/7
1. Use whole disk encryption. If someone does manage to steal the hardware the date is encrypted and you don't have to worry about who may be accessing the data or where it ends up. Additional plus is if a tornado or other sever storm destroys your home and all of your belongs are tossed across the countryside you don't have to worry about who will see what is on your hardware.
2. Record serial numbers. Serial numbers help prove ownership to the police, insurance company, and manufacture. An offsite backup of this is a good idea.
3. Engrave your name and address into the equipment. Much like serial numbers this can help prove ownership and also deters thieves because permanently marked items are hard to sell and is a good sign of stolen merchandise.
4. Time for the longest part. My guess is you have this equipment on some type of workbench or table. If not you should for this to work. Go to your local hardware store and pick up the following items:
a.One small box of dry wall screws or equivalent.
b. Pick up one roll of metal straps. Like the ones used to hang air ducts in attics.
c. One pair of tin snips or other tool to cut the roll of metal straps to length.
d. Use the above material to strap down each device you are worried about being stolen to the table or workbench. You could even use the floor.
5. If you want to spend a few bucks more instead of screws use small bolts with locking nuts. Locking nuts require the use of a wrench to put them on and take them off. They don't back off and can't be removed with just your fingers. I would recommend buying those from an auto parts store over the hardware store because they will be less expensive there.
6. Remember the longer a thief is in your home the greater the chance they will be caught. They want the quick easy score and don't want work hard for it. That is why they are stealing in the first place.
7. A simple Brinks sign (other alarm company sign) in your yard or window will deter most thieves in the first place.
If you like the coolest gadgets, get a security system which can't be beat.
http://www.xandem.com/
Or just get an actual dog. Preferably two. Best damn burglar deterrent in the known universe and they'll make their presence known very quickly. All this high tech finagling has nothing on man's best friend. /thread
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Don't advertise that you have "various PCs, UPS, NAS box, test equipment, and some of the sundry other gadgets & gizmos" on places like slashdot.
But since it's a little late for that... One or more large dogs tend to be as good of a deterent as anything else.
Where do you get that?
Having worked in the past in law enforcement and in security systems I would sometimes tell people this joke:
Two guys are camping when they hear a bear outside the tent. As one guy starts putting on and lacing up his shoes, the other says, "don't be silly, you can't outrun a bear."
The other guy responds, "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you."
Each little bit of security makes you just a tad "faster" then your tentmate. Lock your doors. Lock your windows. Get a dog. Get an alarm.
But realize the time delay with an alarm. Someone kicks for a while at your door and finally breaks it in at which point the alarm activates. They dash in and ransack the place and split - usually in a minute or two - sometimes less. Meanwhile the alarm system calls the alarm company who calls the police dispatch and gives them the info. You have probably passed 60 seconds already. Then the call goes out to the officers - assuming they are available and there aren't higher priority calls on the board. Car accidents, robberies, and many other events take precedence over alarm calls which are typically 95+% false. Unless the officer just happens to be right around the corner, it is another couple minutes till they arrive. And these are best-case numbers. The burglar is usually long-gone when the officers arrive.
Don't forget that the bad-guys don't respect life or property. They rip earrings out of ears. They smash windows and wreck dashboards to get a $150 stereo they can fence for $10 (if that). Or, in the case of a good friend who had upgraded his alarm, added security locks on the windows, installed lights and more, they simply backed their pickup across his front lawn and through the french-doors and proceeded to throw whatever they could get in 30-seconds (hundreds of CDs, stereo, TV and other easy to move stuff) into the truck and sped away.
In that vein, a safe may protect your goods but put you at risk for a home invasion (http://xkcd.com/538/).
As others have said, insure, encrypt and archive (off-site).
BTW, good neighbors are great. I ended up following two of the four burglars that hit my neighbor's house. Cops surrounded the block they ran into and eventually let the dog bring one out when he refused to come out on his own. Recovered all the property as well. When our friend's car down the block was damaged in a hit-and-run it was a neighbor who provided the plate and description. We are organizing a neighborhood watch and working to catalog the available security cameras on the block at which point we will probably get the city to put up a "video monitoring in force" sign at the ends of the block.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Forget the DOG.
I want that CAT that chased the dog off that kid on the bike!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6FvHif8l0w
Big Fucking Rottweiler or a Big Fucking Doberman. They work cheap and love chewing up the occasional squirrel that happens to come into the yard.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
A Magentic/reed window switch or a PIR sensor (if the server is a closet or server rack) if you dont have a rack just a magnetic reed switch that is attached to the equipment. If the server is moved the reed switch should trip and trip your alarm. You might need to install a secondary alarm system that is kept armed at all times, except when you need to work on the hardware.
Provide a fellow geek free room, board, wifi and mentorship for X-months to develop their great idea in exchange for a share of the result. The house is never empty and it may even pay off. Rinse-repeat.
I'm sure the vast majority of buglers will appreciate it if you too are a bugler..
I have to say that my first instinct is to ask where you see your quality of life. If you have so much expensive stuff that you spend significant time and energy protecting it, then maybe having that stuff is the problem.
I haven't locked my house for at least a couple of month, and when I look around to see what might be stolen, the computer — and, more specifically, the hard drive in my desktop — is the only thing that I would really miss, that would be hard to replace. The laptops, TV, Playstation and other gadgets can easily be replaced. You know what? It's liberating not to have to be afraid of losing things.
Aside from the cheapest alarm systems, there is usually an option to have partitions and zones such that you can set the server rack or closet to always be armed except when you are actually working there, so you don't have to rely on your housemates setting the whole-house alarm.
A good alarm system won't
burglary, but will ensure that the intruder spends the minimum amount of time looking for valuables.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Everyone should have one you need a forklift to move if you know what I mean.
Most home theft is not going to spend a lot of time to open a safe.
And most are your neighbor on foot x room mate knows your hours of work what have you.
Own family taking stuff lock it all up.
Listen good here and understand what I am about to lay on you.
You can only be clipped until you are weened.
it's part of the Second Noble Truth. Problem solved.
Get up!
Put those bad puppies in every desktop and server you own. You'll have mad case-mod cred with your friends when they see you lock your screen then "whoop wheep" turn on the alarm with your key ring fob. Bonus points for a remote start or spinners. Hydraulics seem like a great idea, but only if you're totally solid state. Even then, your heat sink needs to be on the smallish side.
You can make a room or closet a vault or just build a wall with a door to make an enclosed space in a room. You then alarm that with it's own zone. It's trivial to do. If you're very paranoid you can lace the walls. It does not have to be reinforced but you want to make it difficult which is fairly inexpensive.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Had a friend some years back who was living in a "bad" neighborhood. First day there, some local gang members stopped by to talk with her. In the course of the conversation, they asked what she would do if someone broke into her home. Without blinking an eye she said she'd shoot them. They asked what stops someone from stealing her guns. She showed them her gun safe, an actual safe weighing over a ton, in her garage. She invited them to try to move it. They couldn't.
Over the next few years the neighbors on her left got robbed, the neighbors on her right got robbed, and her neighbors across the street got robbed. All multiple times.
Nobody ever robbed her.
We think the gang's slogan was "Friends don't let friends victimize NRA gun nuts."
I have a time delayed thermite charge in my systems. I'd like to see the looks on the thieves faces when it goes off!
You know how they sometimes say burglars took everything that wasn't nailed down? Well, nail stuff down. Make it harder for the thief. For example, use laptop security cables on computers and monitors. Most TVs can be mounted to their stand for child safety ( anti-tip), so screw them to the stand. Got a pricey DSLR? Keep it out of sight, maybe put it in a locked drawer. But don't only lock one drawer...
There are devices like make soup cans you hide jewelry in.. Don't use them. Every thief knows you don't keep your soup on the bedroom.
The reality is there is only a finite number of hours per day to allocate your attention. On top of that gadgets all require some non-zero amount of attention. Today most people have more gadgets than they really have time to dedicate to them. This pushes most people into the "Paradox of Choice" regime (and a symptom is paranoia about theft). Better to reduce how much crap is in your life instead and economize on your own time so you'll actually have enough to dedicate value to the fewer things that actually matter.
Try a dog. Not one of those little ankle biters that make yippy noises; but a real DOG with a serious bark and some impressive teeth.
The hardware can be replaced. Insurance will make it less of a hassle. Replacing the data is the real headache, so off site backup is the key. This is true whether the loss is due to theft or some other disaster, like fire, flood, tornado, or earthquake.
Nothing as we know is guarenteed to be fool or bullet proof but every little bit if armor helps. So here's some thoughs about upgrading your geekdom...
If houshold members are leaving without setting the alarm then you can opt for auto arming via RFID proximity wearables (Keychain tags) that sense and log when someone enters and exits the home --or-- keeping with the same principle with much less expense; It seems as though everyone today is carrying some sort of smart phone and many auto-connect to their WiFi LAN when home to achieve faster speeds and cut down on data rates because 'Unlimited' is not really unlimited data.
So... Since most people do not leave home without their phones you could set up your network to monitor all registered mac addresses and when the last one disconnects from being out of range it could trigger an event to set the alarm. Also when one of the macs arrives it will only allow disarming via the keypad as usual thus training your cohabs to use the damn thing.
CONS: Of course the phone route would require that participating phones do not turn off the WiFi radio in a energy saving mode and they must be kept charged.
How to implement any of this will be another mind numbing journey through the internet of things. My keyword tips are: Open Source, Linux, & eBay (Crestron & Security Systems)
Because you are in the grips of fear spiral. In the end, that becomes a phobia.
It brings to mind people who live in gated neighborhoods, have an alarm system in their house, cameras and perimeter control, and a "safe room".
And they still don't feel safe, because the problem is not with the world, it is with them. I've seen plenty of it, and the security companies are only too happy to make you more fearful, just like fast food places love you more, the fatter you are.
And fear that intense is no way to go through life.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
A burglar could cause you to suddenly be overly full-bellied & very drunk??
Buy a dog.
I had issues with people not using the alarm system, I just tied my security system into my home automation system (Control4). Anytime the door is opened and the security system not armed the home automation system automatically arms the system and locks the door if not locked, being tied together also lets the systems send me status messages if anything happens that I may need to look into.
With Control4, you could just start with one of their inexpensive small controllers and check with a dealer to see if your security panel is directly supported, most major brands are.
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I protect my home gear the same way I protect my clients gear. Physically secure the expensive stuff with window bars and decent locks. Device locks for what can't be in a secure area, good backups stored off site, and insurance on anything of real value.
If someone can get past the locks, and cut the lock cables, and get out, then the building security is the real problem. Dont worry about impossible to steal, go with too time consuming to risk stealing.
1. if you are burgled, the burglars like to come back a month or a few weeks later and steal the new TV you bought to replace the old one they stole. This happened at a place I worked--they got several brand new typewriters the second round (this was in the 1980's), and some friends, the second time they a nice expensive wide screen TV. The police were very helpful. After my friends were robbed the second time the reporting officer muttered, yeah, they do that sometimes (come back for a second bite).
2. Another friend in the last 6 months has bought several properties for rentals. Both for insurance purposes and to prevent vandalism he installed a brand name do-it-yourself system in one place. As opposed to companies you pay a monthly subscription to. He bailed on it. He said: the local police are hostile to these because of the high rate of false alarms, local governments love to add on fees, fines, etc. for having one or if the police come out (although to him any hint of a tax or government fee starts him on Tea Party rant). He said either the do-it-yourself system, that will call the company, or the BIG companies, have hiddens fees that jack up the price. He also said, and he's tech savvy, that setting up his own system was confusing and difficult and a PIA.
So, can a hobby electronics person put some DIY alarm on a door or window, yes. Finding parts, hard. Dealing with the police when they come out for an alarm--your call.
A screeching alarm that goes off when anyone touches a window frame or door frame is effective. The alarm should only go off for as long as the metal is touched.
dog - also happy to see you come home
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2) Place it in a window in view of the door, or where you suspect people may want to break in and enter.
3) Add a high voltage sign near it, possibly on the door itself.
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.