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Comment by ezfe | Hacker News Reader

It's video surveillance, it makes it more likely they'll go elsewhere. That's literally the whole point of Ring.

Physical stuff (window bars and a security door) is much, much more effective for that logic.

Burglars know they’ll probably be on CCTV somewhere anyway but nobody in their right mind is trying to smash through a security door or saw through some window bars when there’s a house up the street that doesn’t have them.

Obviously there are downsides (cost, aesthetics) but those solutions actually work, I’m skeptical that a fancy subscription doorbell makes much difference

> Physical stuff (window bars and a security door) is much, much more effective

I've lived in a couple of countries where everyone has bars on all their windows due to perceived (in some case correctly, in other cases not) crime levels. It's... not great? I'd much rather live somewhere where I don't need to live in a prison compound.

When I’m looking to move to a new area, I check out how much security the local banks have. The more there is between the customer and the bank teller, the worse the area. Comcast offices can also be a good litmus test for this. When McDonalds has bullet proof glass… you probably don’t even want to stop to eat there, let alone live there.

I don't find surveillance cameras better in that regard. I think physical security can look decent too, like wrought iron window security bars can actually look quite nice imo.

> I don't find surveillance cameras better in that regard

Yeah, that's fair. I do prefer living somewhere that requires neither.

People always say this, but is there any evidence it is true? Home burglars aren't exactly the cream of the criminal crop.

Take a walk around the neighbourhood, plenty of houses still don't have any video surveillance.

There's no shortage of footage of people casing a place spotting the camera then wondering away. The smart ones look like they're any other lost delivery driver complete with package in hand. Thanks to the rise of gig work nobody has uniforms anymore. No that it really matters, plenty of stolen uniforms in play too.

Anecdata is not helpful. Actually statistically significant numbers that are not presented by a home security firm. Everything else is just somebody trying to sell you stuff.

From everything I've seen (which was a lot for a couple years due to my job) there were two types of burglars:

One type didn't care about any security system, even alarms. They would smash and grab as fast as they could and get out. They didn't have a plan other than to grab the first things that looked valuable. It might cost more to fix the building than to replace what they found.

The other type was trying to play it smart. As soon as they noticed the cameras or indications of a security system they'd leave. Lots of videos where a person was detected, looks up at the cameras, and then slips away to go find another house.

A lot of people start turning off alerts or never set them up properly, so they don't notice the second type of video unless they go looking.

I once worked at a school where someone tried stealing our security cameras.

Unfortunately for them, they had both of their kids' names tattooed to their neck, which helped reduce the number of possible suspects.

Wild watching back that footage the next morning.

I recently exchanged with a police agent in Belgium who specializes in the topic. Their heuristics is opportunity of action, namely how easy it is to get in and out without being caught on the spot. They said they do not really care about being recognized, only being noticed and stopped in action. Consequently the advice is to strengthen physical security first, i.e. have a big door with proper locks and close your windows. Everything else, including cameras, only comes after. Imagine you have 7min to get in and out, everything that slows you down means higher chance of getting stopped and thus considering another target instead.

You can get more information, including a free home audit, at https://polbru.be/prevention-contre-le-vol/?lang=fr in French and https://polbru.be/diefstalpreventie/ in Dutch, sorry no English links.

> Their heuristics is opportunity of action

My favorite burglar fact is robberies go way down when it’s raining. Thieves just don’t want the hassle of getting wet.

Business idea: start your sprinklers on burglar detection, not your alarms.

I remember reading somewhere that the one thing burglars are terrified of is finding someone home. They will spend a lot of effort to avoid that.

Yes they mentioned that too, advising in fact to act on it. Obviously this is something home automation can very conveniently help with, e.g. if you are away, turn on a very visible from the outside light few minutes after sunset, turn it off few hours later. It's just another automation and you can switch it off when you are back from holidays.

Burglars also know that they can pretty much pose and smile for the camera before covering it with tape and then breaking into the house, and the probability of consequences is very near zero. Unless they happen to break into the house of a well-connected politician or such.

Seem silly, but just try going to the police with crisp hi-res video of a burglarly and try to get them interested. I know people who have done it and all have failed. "We don't have time for this", "Value is not high enough to pursue", "Just call your insurance, not us".

> they happen to break into the house of a well-connected politician or such

The other way round: If the son the mayor commits armed burglary, nothing happens. Happened in Amsterdam. According to her, her son was just messing around with friends.

https://nltimes.nl/2019/08/14/amsterdam-mayor-explains-15-yo...

You don't need to be extremely bright to realize that it's easier to burglar a home with no alarm system and cameras than one with. And if your neighbor doesn't have cameras, but you do, many home burglars are going to be smart enough to know that it's better to not be seen on camera. I'm sure there are some who have too low IQ/too high to realize that getting caught on camera is a bad idea, but at least it's gonna work on some.

> You don't need to be extremely bright to realize that it's easier to burglar a home with no alarm system and cameras than one with

You also don't have to be extremely bright to realise that a home with a fancy security system may be a higher-value target than the one without.

Then go for a CCTV system with local storage for the whole apartment complex instead of a cloud based personal surveillance system.

Then you don’t need 5 cloud services and people can go back to knocking.

When I break into peoples houses, I tend to take the NVR with me.

NVR?

Network Video Recorder, a name for devices where IP cameras stream their video to to be stored on, usually, a hard disk drive.

Same thing as DVR for analog surveillance cameras, just with eth (usually PoE) ports.

People who break into houses are going for a few obvious high-dollar items. They're not searching for a server closet they don't know exists. They're looking for laptops, pharmaceuticals, jewelry. High dollar, portable items. not a strange-looking device hidden in a closet. And obviously you can put it in a rack that requires a key to open. They won't bother.

AI has driven so many highly paid software professionals into the Your Friends and Neighbors lifestyle

Then hide the NVR in a locked utility room of the apartment complex.

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