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Comment by jez | Hacker News Reader

As others have mentioned, it comes down to the threat model, but sometimes the threat model itself is uncomfortable to talk about.

It’s sad to think about, but in my recollection a lot of intra-building badge readers went up in response to the 2018 active shooter situation at the YouTube HQ[1]. In cases like this, the threat model is “confine a hostile person to a specific part of the building once they’ve gotten in while law enforcement arrives,” less than preventing someone from coat tailing their way into the building at all.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16748529

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No, the model there is something bad happened, we must do something. This is something, so we will do it.

I’m not saying that to diminish the value of the actual solution, but what the people want is literally something to make them feel better about a situation that is mostly out of their control.

Someone showed up to their workplace with a fucking gun. And now they have to go there every day, and hope it doesn’t happen again. They want and need the theater.

This is exactly it - most "security" isn't really built around actual threat models, nor is it ever verified. IT security is perhaps the weirdest in the world in that the security of your web server will be constantly probed, whilst your front door could go your entire lifetime and never be probed once.

Where people actually care about physical security, they develop things that do actually work; and often are so unobtrusive you never realize they're there.

Security theater necessitates that it be showy and in your face.

Except a decent part of security is literally just deterrence.

Will my front door stop someone robbing my house if they want to? No: I have sidelight windows you could just smash them and come through.

But the one time a house I was in got robbed, it was because we left the front door open and went out.

Which is odd if you think about it right? Statistically an open front door rather implies someone is home, not away so it's a terrible targeting priority - but our house was targeted and not say, our neighbors who also wouldn't have been home that day.

People are quick to claim security theater, talk about threat models, but equally ignore them anyway.

The "I don't have to run faster than the bear; just faster than you".

PSA: If your buddy starts running from a brown bear, stand very, very still. They like to chase things and they're way faster than you are.

Also carry bear spray. Use it on your buddy.

I doubt these card readers would prevent someone leaving the part of their building they’re in, as that’s a lesson written in charred corpses and was a foundational aspect of health and safety becoming a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

In theory it might prevent access to other buildings, but equally often the card readers are around doors of mostly standard glass or near internal windows of the same.

So if that’s the motivation, it doesn’t seem like a particularly effective mitigation

Or the Victoria Hall disaster (183 dead), or Cocoanut Grove (492 dead), or The Station Nightclub (100 dead), or The Beverly Hills Supper Club (165 dead), or.....

Also in what world is a badge reader going to contain an armed gunman unless the walls, floors, doors, and windows are also bulletproof??

(Triangle shirtwaist fire resulted in 146 dead)

Theres footage online of a basic security door stopping an armed robber from escaping despite him trying to shoot the lock.

Bullets aren't universal door openers, and shooting your way through one lock doesn't magically unlock the next one.

And the bullets and time spent getting through the door are bullets and time that aren’t used harming the people behind that door.

I've volunteered at events hosted in older buildings before and it's always such a top of mind thing to enforce a limit on the number of people in the building at any moment. Since these places have the capacity to hold a lot more people than can escape through the exits in the event of a fire.

If an active shooter is the anticipated threat, how does a turnstile effectively stop that? Many of these turnstiles are specifically meant to allow people through in emergencies, and aren't strong enough to withstand bullets or even a sturdy kick. The elevator restrictions would be a better chokepoint, but as the article noted they didn't turn those back on.

Many turnstiles can be jumped over. In this case it’s more about preventing theft and espionage.

I knew someone years and years ago who worked as an assistant to lawyers. The firm had a second office in the state capital, turns out someone was walking in and stealing laptops. I think they had done it three times the last I had heard.

Lawyer laptops going missing is a problem. I don’t know how they ended up fixing that.

> Lawyer laptops going missing is a problem.

It shouldn't be. If there was a particular profession that I would expect to properly secure their devices lawyers would be near the top of the list.

It doesn't effectively stop it, but it forces them to give up some element of surprise. They have to either start the attack or start a trespassing action that will initiate contact with police.

If forced partition of a building were the primary goal, that goal could be achieved without badges. Or, at least, without having to badge into every door. Just have locks on every door that are normally disengaged, but which can be locked remotely and promptly.

(While at it, I once worked on an access control system. It was aeons ago; the system ran under OS/2. We installed it on a factory. It worked well, until we ran it in demo mode under production load, that is, the stream of morning shift turnstile registration events. The DB melted. I solved the problem trivially: I noticed that the DB was installed on a FAT volume for unknown reasons, so I moved it to an HPFS volume, and increased the RAM cache for the disk to maximum. Everything worked without a hitch then.)

This actually exposes how this type of system is just security theater usually.

A shooter can get a badge. Most partitions aren't bulletproof (and probably don't have security film), and a shooter doesn't fear getting a cut on some tempered glass.

The thing that would be effective is 24/7 security monitoring with a building lockdown and reinforced entrances/partitions. Of course, the victims whose badges were disabled during lockdown will sue.

So instead, just install badge readers and say that "something was done".

Shooters tend to be mentally ill people who have been pushed too far by a system, trying to burn that system down.

Killing a boss with a keycard that opens everything might not just be possible but also preferable. Fuck you Tom, you made me work through memaw’s funeral

One uncomfortable, but wise truth is: Actual security is bound to the number of minutes until people with big guns arrive. A lot of other measures just exist to bridge time and limit damages until that happens.

We learned this during a funny situation when a customer sent us the wrong question set for vendors. We were asked to clarify our plans for example for an armed intrusion by an armed, hostile force to seize protected assets from us. After some discussion, we answered the equivalent of "Uh Sir. This is a software company. We would surrender and try to call the cops".

During some laughter from the customer they told us, the only part missing from that answer was the durability rating of our safes and secure storages for assets, of which we had none, because they just had to last until cops or reinforcements arrived. That was a silly day.

> Actual security is bound to the number of minutes until people with big guns arrive

Ask the people of Uvalde, TX about that security model.

Hand out weapons to the workers?

Places that really do care about security do exactly that. Military bases routinely prohibit on-duty soldiers from carrying arms - except the guards at the gate and the military police.

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