$200 for a Fake Security System | Hacker News Reader

$200 for a Fake Security System

schneier.com

29 pointsadulau32 comments

My father-in-law once got a call from a security system rep.

They had a long conversation about his current system, which seemed to have ALL the features (would go off if any window moved, any person came near the house, always on, very little maintenance, could programmatically learn which people were welcome / not welcome, etc).

Try as he might, the salesman couldn't find a single way in which this current system was deficient, and finally he exasperatedly asked how much the system cost (thinking it must be very $$$, top-of-the-line).

"About $50/month in food + occasional vet fees. And he's one of my best friends too."

That's funny and I remember my dad having similar conversations with security system salespeople whenever they'd come around the house. While transitioning from real estate sales to iOS development I took on a few jobs to cover the bills. One of which was for ADT. I met with a lot of people who had dogs and were still burglarized. My girlfriend's dog also did nothing when she was burglarized. Moral of the story, dogs are not generally good for security. They can get scared, be hurt, drugged or poisoned. If thieves are serious enough they'll get around the dog. Now on the value of ADT and others, I think it could and should be disrupted. I always felt the equipment and service were overpriced.

If you find somebody sufficiently serious who specifically wants your stuff no off the shelf security system is going to do any good. The primary value for most people is in convincing would-be thieves that your residence isn't worth the trouble. A dog with a nasty bark is one of the most effective ways of convincing them. Any other security-related services (actually attacking intruders, waking you up, etc) are really bonus.

See, I live in Brampton, which is a suburb of Toronto, and we have a fairly large South Asian population. A bunch of us figured out that you don't have to get an alarm system, or actually HAVE a dog. Just put a Beware of Dog sign in your window.

Problem solved!

Video explaining it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=UUsE-wVkjd50mutl5O1GDyCw&#...

Watch the video. The seller already had a good system installed, but break-ins kept happening. So he added this laser light show and they stopped. What I get from that is that you should use this system in addition to a normal security system. Schneider seemed to have missed that part.

I was going to say that since this system very visibly shines red lights on your storefront windows it might actually serve as a beacon for savvy criminals.

Knew someone years ago who had a health food store. He had problems with people stealing product. CCTV was just starting to become common place, but was still expensive.

He found somewhere that would sell you a plastic camera body shell, with a red LED sticking out of the body that would flash periodically. It cost maybe $50, where a real one would have cost $1000+.

His losses from theft dropped to close to 0.

Enjoyed the review of the product on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Globallink-Security-171-25-Laserscan-D...

This is free-riding on the hard work put in by the creators of real security systems, akin to people who don't vaccinate themselves.

Eventually, security system warnings will lose their deterrent effect, and people with security systems will be attacked more frequently than they are now.

That's a false equivalency. People who don't vaccinate themselves (or their children) put everyone at risk.

People who use low cost tricks to protect their property only put themselves at risk.

The vaccine analogy isn't that far off. The reason that people who don't vaccinate themselves put everyone at risk is because of the herd immunity. The vaccine isn't 100% effective, but a 99% effective vaccine will prevent the disease from spreading around enough that the 1% where it didn't take are still safe. The unvaccinated, however, still create an infection risk for the 1% who weren't vaccinated successfully.

In the same way, the fake security systems will cause increases in the relevancy of the failure rate of real security systems. Let's say that we have 100 criminals, 100 homes with 98% effective security systems, and 100 homes without. Currently, the 100 criminals will rob the 100 unsecured homes, because they don't want to take the 98% failure risk. Now, let's say that the people in the unsecured homes put in fake systems. The 100 criminals now attack 50 secured homes and 50 pretend secured homes. The security system stops 98% of the attacks on the secured homes, leaving one of those attacks as successful. The fifty criminals who attacked the unsecured homes still get away with everything. Thus, one person who bought a security system is attacked who wouldn't have been attacked if the fake systems weren't in play, so the people with the fake systems have added to the risk of people who own real systems. However, we have also decreased the number of successful attacks, so I'm not sure that there's reasonable claim of moral wrong-doing in this scenario.

Now, my numbers are obviously fictional, but the fake systems will increase the number of successful attacks on real systems. Whether that's a bad thing is an entirely different issue.

Also practiced by moths of low morals. See Batesian Mimicry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batesian_mimicry

It's highly recognizable. Eventually, thieves will just ignore this particular device.

For some time when I lived with my family houses in my block where getting robbed. The first time mine got hit I ran after the kid (probably not even 18) with a knife. Houses all around where getting entered and things where stolen... not mine ever again. Then one day there was a shooting involving a neighbor and he got one of the thieves. Years later the neighborhood could not be any safer.

My conclusion? The best security system is a bunch of crazy ass homeowners thieves are afraid of. I guess there's a correlation somewhere with fake security systems.

My Ford truck came with a forward-facing red LED on the dash that blinks when the truck is off. As far as I can tell, it has no purpose other than to serve as a fake car alarm.

My parents' Ford minivan has the same thing. The flashing light, part of the same panel containing the low-fuel and check-engine lights, reads simply: "THEFT"

The idea seems reasonable but putting the hokey sticker on your window is probably the last thing you would want to do.

A simple google search brings up the product. Not that the thief is going to whip out his smartphone on the spot but they very well might do that after deciding not to break in or even before while casing the joint. (For that matter I would imagine they might see the device while casing the joint.)

I spent a brief time selling burglar alarms door to door. I can tell you that on any given street, even in a high crime area, several of the houses won't have alarms. They won't have fake alarms, siren boxes, stickers, nothing except the neighbourhood watch sticker. Why would a thief spend even five seconds looking up your alarm model? They don't "case the joint", they hit every house on the street that has no-one in at the time they're there, and they move on.

One trick I've heard of that would defeat a fake alarm (or a bad alarm, which is 90% of them) is to throw a brick through the window, cheese it, and see if anyone turns up 10 minutes later. If not you're good to go, regardless of whether or not the alarm is going off.

"Why would a thief spend even five seconds looking up your alarm model?"

The product (by way of the video) seems to be for commercial businesses that have a problem with break-ins because they have things that people repeatedly find profitable to steal. So I don't think it's the same situation as residential burglar alarms.

But what happens if the alarm does go off? Once you've done this a 4 or 5 times you may find a house without an alarm, but there are 3 or 4 nearby houses with suspicious people and probably policemen checking things out.

> But what happens if the alarm does go off?

I wake up, curse, and go back to sleep, and so does every other person on the street.

This attack isn't about finding if a house has an alarm, it's about finding out if anyone cares if the alarm goes off. In most cases, no-one does.

If you ring the police in this country (UK) and tell them an alarm is going off, they won't go to the call. There are just too many false alarms!

They will however go if you actually spot someone on the property (and in my experience are pretty prompt about that), and they will go if your alarm is a suitable certified one (in which case, it's much less likely to go off {it requires both an entrance alarm trigger AND a motion alarm trigger to activate} and would have a direct phoneline to the police and/or private security company).

For years and years, my parents' only security system was a few ADT signs and stickers planted around the house. Never robbed once.

Living in a good neighborhood also works.

I really like the fake security system. I'm not sure it's worth $200 since you can probably get something that actually has a motion-sensor and an audible alarm to actually add some real security to the mix.

But what matters is results.

I think dogs are the best security / deterrent systems. However, I also understand that having a dog on premises in a strip mall is probably not feasible.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eewou/iama_retired_cat...

Search for "dog" on that page. The guy seems to think that dogs are generally not great security.

A few years back there was a theft ring in Boston that stole HID headlights from Audis. I put a sticker on mine...

WARNING: DEFENSIVE SPRAY MAY BE HARMFUL OR FATAL

Nobody touched them.

Security through obscurity.

If this ever becomes a common use security measure, thieves will not think twice.

Good gimmick though. Very novel.

But how many thieves are up-to-date on the latest in home intrusion prevention, including popular decoy systems?

Presumably most home break-is are not performed by career criminals who do research and use the latest technology to break into homes, but rather by opportunists and desperates looking for a quick grab.

Or at least, that is the premise behind the sale of "fake" security systems like this, or those generic "security system on premises" stickers. I'm sure they reduce the risk of casual crimes by some percent, but I'm not sure if that's worth $200 for most people.

This 'system' only has one node and thus can only cover one room and so would only be practical for retail, not homes. As the great statistician patrick has thought us, businesses will pay if you can demonstrate a ROI. This system only has to prevent half a robbery to pay for itself.

The ironic part is the businesses already have real security systems which do everything the laser system could do. The real security system will already phone the police and ring an alarm.

But that's the question. how can the thief know for sure if it is real or fake ? will they take a chance even if there is a 95% probability that it could be fake?

Exactly. I'm using only the sticker "protected by well known security company" on my front door. Other suckers pay them for security systems.

Here's a REAL laser system, for less money:

http://www.amazon.com/LaserShield-BSK-0013101-Home-Security-...

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