Security by obscurity: The No Lock People | Hacker News Reader

Security by obscurity: The No Lock People

nytimes.com

22 pointsjcdreads51 comments

It's not so much the crime of theft that bother's me. If I'm not in the house and my apartment is ransacked, whilst not ideal, is not really a problem.

My main concern is for the safety of my girlfriend and myself.

[EDIT] I just wanted to point out some of the security measures that I have in my home (In South Africa).

1) I live in a walled off (3m walls) estate with permanent patrolling guards. 2) The walls have an alarmed and electrified fence on top of them, (about 1m in addition to the 3m wall). 3) Entrance to the estate is controlled via a single guarded entrance. 4) The entrance has camera's. 5) I live in a 3rd floor apartment with a balcony, the only way to the access the balcony is to climb two stories.) 6) The door to my apartment has a security gate.

That been said; my neighbor on the 3rd floor was robbed. A ninja, I presume, climbed to the third floor and stole his wallet and mobile phone.

His girlfriend woke up with the criminal standing in his bedroom, she screamed, he chased and the criminal jumped the 3 stories to the bottom floor and GOT AWAY!

After that incident I installed a security gate on my balcony.

That does not seem to be a fun place to live. It almost sounds like a voluntary prison sentence.

Yup. Everyone lives in tiny cages and the result is that we've lost, or are loosing, our sense of community.

I want to outline part of the reasons why we choose to live in "voluntary prisons." I, thankfully, at age 26 have never been a victim of crime - But I do know several people that have not been as lucky:

* My friend's cousin was stabbed in a shopping mall in the gaming arcade! He unfortunately didn't make it.

* The same friend's grandmother was strangled to death in her bed - The criminal stole her car.

* My previous boss had a "home invasion," this is one of those terms that tries to soften the reality of such a situation. 4 armed criminals entered her house. They hit her husband over the head with a bottle and tied him and her up in the living room. After awhile they untied her and made her walk into each room. (She wasn't raped, but apparently the gauged her reactions to each room to figure out if she had hidden anything of value in said room.) Before they left the house that defecated and urinated on the living room carpet.

* A friend's parent's owns a hotel - He went to the bank to draw wages for his workers (Most are paid in cash, because they don't have bank accounts.) He was followed from the bank and 2 guys criminals entered his property with 9mm hand guns - He gave them his entire staff's wages.

To get a first hand account of some of the things that go on here I would recommend watching a documentary about the South African Special Task Force. I believe it's from 1999.

It's 3 x 60 minute episodes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQSndb1DcqY

I know I'm painting a fairly bleak picture of South Africa - It's a remarkable and truly beautiful place with amazing people (Minus the criminals.) It's just this fucking crime that's making it a horrible place to live.

I'm sorry to hear it is that bad. Is the trend worsening or improving ?

I think it's improving. :)

Around here, number one thing insurance checks is whether there's evidence of a break-in. If thieves walk in through an unlocked door, you're not covered. I don't lock my door to keep thieves out, I lock my door to make sure insurance gives me a new laptop if someone happens to break in.

And you use an unpickable Modeco door lock? You changed the lock yourself to make sure that no previous tenants or a janitor have a key?

It's a 6-pin Ruko series 600 (probably local to Denmark). The cylinder was reset (pins changed) as part of the apartment take over, but theoretically the janitor could have fixed a copy for himself.

I'm probably not perfectly secured against a motivated thief, but he's not interested in me. He'll find a three year old MacBook (if I'm home, which I'm probably not), a lowend 37" LCD TV bolted to the wall and a few bottles of good scotch in the cabinet. If I had a collection of fine arts or other valuables, I'd be better secured.

You're missing the point about the insurance company.

The point is that the insurance company can claim this but it wouldn't stand up in court. They would have to demonstrate that it an unbroken door proves negligence on your part - which would mean demonstrating that it is impossible for a thief to get past the lock otherwise.

No, they can simply deny your claim and then the burden of proof is on you to prove that you locked your door and the thief gained entry by picking the lock. Remember, in any dispute the person who wants the money is the one who has to prove their claims.

Are you sure your lock can't be opened without trace (bumped)?

Yeah, I've seen a lock-smith open it, they drill, which obviously is destructive (although a thief might just replace the thing around the lock, like the lock-smith did.

Anyway, the thief probably doesn't care about whether or not I can tell he was there. He want my laptop, because it translates to a fix. As a matter of fact, I've heard "they're insured anyway" as part of the self-justification among the petty thieves.

I lived in Amsterdam and drove an old car (Citroen DS). It was pretty beaten up but still a classic and parts were pretty expensive.

The locks were pretty bad, you could lock the doors but a screwdriver would be enough to open them so they didn't provide much security.

One day the glass on the passenger side front window was smashed in, but there was nothing in the car so that was an expensive fix.

After that I left the doors unlocked, worked for years.

Every now and then I'd find a door open in the morning but no more smashed windows. The car was very tricky to start (with the gearshift lever) so they never managed to steal it.

In the winter a homeless person would sometimes sleep in it, we sort of had an understanding that if he didn't mess it up I was ok with him using my car as his base.

Interesting town, Amsterdam :)

I don't lock my car or my garage for this reason. None of the security on my car does anything to stop a cinderblock, and that's the likely attack vector. I live on the border of the west side of Chicago --- a very high-crime area --- and garages and cars are busted into all the time.

A couple times it's been clear that someone had been in the car. But I've never had my garage door and car windows destroyed.

> None of the security on my car does anything to stop a cinderblock, and that's the likely attack vector.

I think your profession is shining through there ;)

So… Joyce Weisshappel, where was it that you say you live? Hope the people in your building don't read the Times.

I lived in Brooklyn for 5 years on the border between some sketchy neighborhoods and some very nice areas. On my last day before moving to Tokyo, my car was broken into. I had always been careful not to leave anything of value inside the car, but on the last day I was tired from moving and had parked in the nice neighborhood, so I wasn't as vigilant.

I think this article says more about New Yorkers living relatively disposable lives. Many New Yorkers move every few years, and sell off their valuables (rent money!) and lead minimal lives.

The other half live in secure buildings and pay piles of money for maintenance fees and doorman tips. I don't know if I can count that as not locking the door.

Oh man. I've been noticing this divide for a long time now. Im a sorta-lock person. Im not opposed to locking stuff, but I don't go out of my way for it. I used to lock much less, when I had roomates -- convenience really. I don't lock up my bike either, when I'm at the coffee shop or bakery or whatever anyway. My garage is never locked. I live in a "bad" neighborhood and have yet to be robbed. Some say it is only a matter of time, but statistically this is unlikely.

This area seems to contain the best anecdotal evidence for something like karma too. Seems those who are most fearful, and super lock everything also get robbed a lot. Those who don't worry about it don't get robbed as often.

Anyway I think its funny that the people who are afraid of robberies and "double lock" and "tripple lock" talk about how its "inevitable" they will get robbed, and that it makes "common sense" that the extra locking is required. Of course if that was so true, the number of "no-locks" reporting 0 robberies would be way fewer. Seems that there is a huge amount of fear manipulation happening in the lock industry.

I've seen houses covered in locks, and all the locks do is make me think that the owner must have lots of valuables inside if they have locks like that. I guess thieves must think the same thing.

Another intersting "it doesn't work that way" thing I have noticed: when the drug dealers moved in about a block away, shady activities and late night noise decreased. Seems that they don't want attention drawn to themselves, so they are good neighbors. Their clients all seem to know better than to linger in the area too.

This of course goes against conventional wisdom of "there goes the neighborhood".

Edit: That should be: "other shady actvities..."

Depends on what kind of dealers and where, maybe. Around here, you definitely do not want to be anywhere near dealers. They generally squat in vacant houses, and are usually gang connected, violent, etc.

When I went to grad school my wife and I rented a run down shack of a house next to the projects. People were always amazed we lived there and didn't believe us when we explained that nothing ever happened. We had 2k worth of computer parts delivered in marked boxes while we were out of town for about a week and it was just sitting on the porch when we got home.

I asked my dad about this, he grew up in a bad neighborhood when he was a kid... and he said, "These people all know lesson one, you don't shit where you eat".

A few years ago here in London I saw stickers put up by the Socialist Workers Party saying "Thieves! This is a working-class area. Don't steal from your own people!". Obv there's a whole lot wrong with that as a statement, it's interesting to see the same principle involved.

I think the parent's statement is different. It has less to do with "your own" class warfare, than it does with simple cost benefit analysis. In your own neighborhood: everyone can know you are a theif, but since you don't steal from them or their friends, they don't really care as much, and so, don't report you. In your own neighborhood chances of a witness recognizing you goes way up. Even thieves have friends, and they don't want to rob from them. There are a few more I'm forgetting probably.

When I was in college, I never locked my POS car because I figured there was nothing worth taking in it. One night some kids got in it and took everything that wasn't nailed down - absolutely nothing worth anything to anyone else, but stuff that cost me a lot of time and irritation.

I always lock my car now, and I wouldn't ever fail to lock my house either. Not putting up that minimum barrier is just foolhardy.

The only difference is that now you have to pay for a busted side window for somebody to find out that there is no meter change in the ashtray

Some people are going to be bent on stealing enough that not much is going to stop them. A locked door will stop some people; an unlocked door will stop no one.

Car lock can be easily destroyed. Locking your car when you have nothing valuable inside may cost you the lock. That was in the case of my friend. Also possibly window if interested party has just a stone on him.

Maybe. In my case, it would have definitely made the miscreants move on to the next car. At least if the offender breaks something, insurance will pay for it (if you have insurance), and you have something concrete to file a police report on.

Insurance will pay and raise your insurance premium because you become higher risk person.

I rent, so I'm mainly concerned that if someone were to ransack the place, and it came out that I hadn't locked the door, then I'd get the blame for the damage and the landlord would try to get me to pay for repairs.

As for bikes, I have a fairly nice one ($900 new). I lock it all the time but only to stop crimes of opportunity -- some teenager seeing it undefended and riding off with it. I know (from experience) that bike locks don't stop determined thieves, so I try not to leave it unattended for long periods of time.

Theft and burglary are, in the vast majority of cases, crimes of opportunity. That's the only point I can think of that favours locking one's door. Otherwise, if you have something someone really, really wants to steal, they'll find a way. Bit like IT security ;)

Should have probably left the original title alone since the article has just about nothing to do with 'Security through obscurity'. The whole thing is a bit over the place to begin with as it throws some very different kinds people - people who are well-off enough to have security staff instead of locks, people who just don't believe they're in significant danger of being burglarized, etc - under one facile heading.

I think that there is an intersting divide here, that meshes nicely to "lock/no-lock", which is mostly attitude/fear based. The no-lock is: "meh, its not worth worrying that much about" and the lock is: "i must lock my doors, im afraid of being robbed".

Personally I feel locking is partly a totemic ritual, involving more magical thinking than people are willing to admit about it. Seriously ask people why they lock the doors when they have a giant window right next to it, and they say "its safer" and "it keeps out the burglars". Point out the window, and they say "it just works ok".

The purpose of locking doors where I live, at least (San Francisco) is to prevent street people from coming in and sleeping in your hallway, and protect your stuff against petty theft by fairly desperate people who will try doorknobs looking for stuff they can quickly grab. Locks are quite practical solutions for both problems.

Fair enough. In the places I have lived (a fairly affluent suburb of Chiacago, and a college town in the middle of nowhere), the hysterical response is very common, probably because there is no practical side to it -- people who want in will break in anyway and mostly everyone else keeps out. Sure there is the occasional drunk college kid who is somehow lost and crashes on the wrong couch, but they are mostly harmless, and very appreciative when you don't call the cops.

Location, location, location!

Never underestimate the power of laziness. It is much easier to open an unlocked door as opposed to having to either quitely cut open a window or just smashing the window and having to avoid shards of glass and keeping the noise down. That is unless the person didn't bother to lock their windows.

I guarantee none of these "No Lock" people have bothered to read the fine print of their insurance policies and they don't own firearms.

I'm not sure I understand the point of the article. Security through obscurity does work in the sense that it decreases crimes of opportunity (I'm sure this is true even in the world of IT). Obviously it doesn't prevent someone who is motivated from getting in, but I don't think any reasonable person would suggest that it does. Does having a lock on something decrease your chance of having it stolen? I think the answer is: Absolutely, yes.

If you don't believe that security through obscurity is effective the following experiment should easily be able to confirm this: Place a couple of expensive bikes propped up on the street in random locations around town. A day later repeat the experiment, this time putting a lock on the bikes. Now I'm pretty sure no one is actually going to perform this test, precisely because the outcome is so obvious.

In computer security circles (AFAIK) security by obscurity is not security. You always assume that the attacker has your source code, the layout of your computers etc. If you translate that over to this, you assume that thieves know that your door is unlocked and you have valuables. It would be a no-no.

I lock everything. Is it that inconvenient to do? I know a lot of people that don't lock their stuff and I really don't understand why. But I guess my stuff is safer with other people leaving their property unlocked. Given a burglary it will be much easier to steal other peoples stuff than mine. It's like the joke, Q: How do you escape a wild animal? A: Be faster than the slowest person in the group.

Im not so sure: a crappy easily broken lock suggests more value than unlocked. Further question: are your people who don't lock stuff constantly being ripped off?

I'm somewhat in the middle.

We always lock the doors at night, not because I think it will stop someone who really wants to get in the house, but because it will act as enough of a delay and noisemaker for me to grab a weapon and stash the wife and dogs in the closet. Actually, probably just the dogs, the wife is pretty handy with a gun.

A dog of a breed with a strong protective instinct will probably do more to keep people from breaking in than any locks, anyway. The locks made for residential use are trivial for an experienced burglar to bypass, and a thug will just kick the door in or break a window.

This is exactly why I lock my doors and use a door chain. If they wanted to get in, they'd make enough noise to wake me and everyone else in the house up. Hopefully it would give me enough time to wake up and get to my gun.

If I didn't live in an apartment, I'd install an alarm system for the same reason.

My dad is the only one in his block who does not have a security system and is also the only one whose house has not been broken into.

Edit: Ooops, forgot to add that I think it's simply because he doesn't call attention to his house. If he doesn't need protection, then maybe he doesn't have anything of value, right?

Why do you think that is?

hmmm...

On my block, the only two houses without alarms were the ones hit. (They both got alarms and no one has been hit since.)

As someone else said, this type of crime is one of opportunity, usually. It's easier to burgle a place without an alarm, so often that's what happens.

There is a middle ground. My condo has a coded lock and takes four digits to get in. Lots of my friends and colleagues have the code, as does the doorman, cleaning service, etc. Never had a problem.

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