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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.
Backup your data. Everything else can easily be bought for the price of a few years security.
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
Though that does give me some ideas. What about installing a bunch of bright red lasers all over your house. They don't have to do anything, probably scare the thief away just with their presence.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
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
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
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.
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.
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.
Schnauzers are incredibly good guard (alarm) dogs. no one will be able to get within a 100 foot radius of your house without it barking furiously to notify you of your impending doom.
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.
"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
They stole his printer!
John
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"I'm worried about somebody taking my stuff while I'm gone."
"SHOOT THEM."
Good job.
Don't be intentionally dense... you shoot them *before* you leave.
Motion detector triggering MP3 playback
(Loud cheery voice) "Intruder detected. Self-destruct sequence initiated ..."
[Insert pithy quote here]
big ass noisy dog does wonders.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"I'm worried about somebody taking my stuff while I'm gone."
"SHOOT THEM."
Good job.
Hmm, that brings up a salient point - we know that booby-traps like automated turrets are illegal (in addition to being a really bad idea), but what about a firearm-based intrusion-mitigation system that's not automated, but remotely triggered?
I.e., the alarm sends an alert to your phone, you look at the video feed, determine the person in your house is an intruder, and deploy the system manually.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
There is a Canadian company called Flashfog that does exactly this, and they couple it with strobe lights to further disorient intruders.
Only downside to this is that people walking by might think a rave is going on, then get mad that they can't find the DJ.
Actually, I see a plan forming here.
If you have a gun sticker in your window, the crooks won't bother with your electronics, but will head directly for the gun safe (it IS in a safe, right?)
Put a sign on the safe saying intruders will be shot (might as well warn them) and then rig it so that anyone opening the safe (which helpfully has the key taped to the top) will trigger the firearm aimed out the door.
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 could add a few things to this, like a microwave emitter in the area where your stuff is, that's tied to a motion sensor and can be enabled/disabled by bluetooth proximity -- so it's off when your phone is around, but on otherwhise when it detects motion.
The thing won't be enough to seriously harm anyone, but the closer you get to your stuff, the more metal objects will spark and skin will get hot and itchy. Should be enough of a subconscious warning to keep people away.
Between the lasers and the microwaves, I think most would-be thieves would stay away -- unless they were someone you knew and stole your phone first, of course.
The current alarm I use has different zones that do different things when the sensors are tripped. For example, one zone requires to be armed/disarmed separately from everything else. This would be useful for a safe.
I like having no remotes for an alarm system. That way, I can use a duress code if need be. Plus, it is less for someone to hack.
As for remote monitoring, when the alarm goes off, the security company will call you, and if they can't reach you, then call the police. This can take 5-15 minutes, and in that time, a thief can grab a lot of pickings. However, in combination with Kensington locks on all computers, it will cause the thief to leave anything that is tethered, rather than take the time to cut the cables.
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+
Pepper spray works as well.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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.
I like having no remotes for an alarm system. That way, I can use a duress code if need be.
"Remotes" ? Since when did real alarms have remotes?
Maybe you just have the remote turn off one zone, say the zone covering the garage with an alarm keypad. So you can then step in and turn off the entire system by entering the code.
On second thought..... require a button push on a remote to enable 'entry delay'; if no remote press, then instant alarm.
It seems that most alarm companies are trying to hawk their app and remotes now. However, a house isn't a car. Just as you stated -- it would be nice for a remote to change the instant alarm zone to a delayed alarm... or perhaps a silent/holdup alarm.
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
You can get a movie-prop style scanning laser here: http://www.homesecuritystore.c...
It looks like something they would have to defeat in a heist movie. Of course it doesn't actually do anything other than wave red lights around like an autistic kid at a rave, but your average burglar won't know that.
John
You had me at "sharks".
John
He's trying to protect "electronics". Y'know, those things that are destroyed by induced high voltage electric sparks?
Unless he wants to protect them by rendering them inert, and thus valueless to the thief, this probably isn't the best solution.
John
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.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
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"
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.
does pepper spray also kill bugs?
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.
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
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.
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.
No, but its much safer than organo-phosates aka nerve gas which is in bug spray.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
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.
Open-air microwave emissions aren't going to do much to electronics, or all your electronics would already be fried. Only mild induction, and not of his electronics, as the emitters would be pointing out, not in.
Of course, if they DID move any of his electronics, they might go on the fritz due to mild induction. But that would likely cause power failure due to a short, and if most electronics are unplugged, there would be no short. It might be a problem if you brought your phone within bluetooth range to disable it and the microwave frequency messed with the bluetooth frequency though -- that's a point.h
But then again, the entire idea was tongue in cheek in the first place :)
dog - also happy to see you come home
Someone willing to take a life when their own life or another's life is not in danger is not the type of person who should own guns. Gun owners need to know when using lethal force is just. Saving your possessions is not a good reason to take a life.
Simply stating [Citation Needed] does not automatically make you insightful or brilliant.
Can't say I disagree; were I, personally, to implement a similar system, I'd much prefer one that incapacitates rather than kills. Partially because, broken as it is, I prefer to let the "justice" system do it's job, and partially because I really don't envy the idea of having to clean up remains after a long day at work.
Meh, I'll stick to guard dogs.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
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.
My laser shark is at http://igg.me/at/minilaser/
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.