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Comment by dpeck | Hacker News Reader

Katie Moussouris (https://twitter.com/k8em0) is, unsurprisingly, spot on with the problems from her experience. Being able to verify that people trying to get into your room are indeed hotel security is a perfectly valid request. Trusting an ID badge is always laughable, but even more so in an environment like Defcon. While the privacy concerns aren't invalid, the safety issue posed by this policy are much more concerning.

If a woman is worried about being put into a situation where they feel they are at more risk of assault/rape they should be listened to. Its a shame that is being drown out in favor of the invasion of privacy narrative.

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At a hotel I stayed at in Hinton, Alberta (pop. 15,000, which had a bad drug epidemic at the time), the laminated hotel security card on the bed specifically said that, at nighttime, if someone knocks on the door claiming to be from the hotel, first call the front desk to verify that a houseman had actually been sent. This is a solved problem.

The problem with what happened at Defcon is some of the security were refusing to be verified or show IDs.

Surely if you think your room is being invaded, you call the actual police. Security guards are there to protect property.

If you feel the need to call the cops because of interactions with hotel security, the hotel has fucked up in a major way. The hotel should be taking reasonable steps to make their guests feel safe, and having security guards provide verification of their identity when requested is something that they absolutely need to be doing.

It's not the you necesarily think you're facing an invasion, but if someone knocks on my door claiming to be hotel security, I'd much prefer to be able to verify them before opening the door. There are lots of options between "open the door to someone unknown" and "call the police".

Which wouldn't be a problem if the hotel made an official policy of "guests may call the front desk to verify the security guard, both of whom will co-operate in verification" (and enforced it).

The problem, as I read it, is that the hotels started more intrusive checking by security guards without considering or providing for the needs of some guests to be less than fully co-operative (for good reasons).

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