Theft prevention? SmartWater forensic marking

[MikeGE]

Snip...They found the alarm wires that were housed in armored steel conduit and cut them. It was a metal Butler corrugated building so then they simply removed some of the fasteners and pulled back the metal siding to gain access.

I don't know what kind of alarm was installed in the Butler building 30 years ago, but any alarm system that doesn't monitor itself (the cabling, sensors, and control unit) as well as the facility is not a very good system.  A proper intrusion detection system will have tamper alarms for all components of the system that will trigger on attempts to defeat the sensor or system, such as cutting the cables.

I recently retired from the DoD, but have 45 years of experience designing, specifying, installing, and maintaining intrusion detection systems for military facilities.  All of the sensors and most of the monitoring equipment used are commercial off-the-shelf systems, and available for purchase by anyone.  However, the cost of the system must be balanced by the value of the assets protected.

The sad truth is it is difficult, if not impossible, to prevent forced entry, and the best we hope for is to deter and detect.  We spend a lot of money on primary entrance doors to prevent covert or surreptitious entry, but the doors normally won't survive for more than 30 seconds under a dedicated forced entry attack.  At that point, it is up to the response team to arrive and secure the facility before the bad guys make off with our stuff.

 

[ChuckM]

Where there is a will, there is a way:https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/electronic-car-theft-rising-1.5138877

Given an enhanced version of this scanning technology, it might be possible that when you dine out, you could lose your car if it is parked outside the restaurant!

There is only so much we can do to prevent thefts as consumers. Leave the rest of our worries to the insurers.

 

[Cheese]

I don't know what kind of alarm was installed in the Butler building 30 years ago, but any alarm system that doesn't monitor itself (the cabling, sensors, and control unit) as well as the facility is not a very good system.  A proper intrusion detection system will have tamper alarms for all components of the system that will trigger on attempts to defeat the sensor or system, such as cutting the cables.

The funny thing is we put Medeco locks on every entry door. And on all the entry doors except for the front one, which had 2 Medeco locks and was under a mercury vapor security light, we welded U brackets to the door skins and inserted 2 x 4's between the door and the metal jambs to prevent the doors from being pulled open.
The garage door was a 16' x 14' tall chain drive, steel door and was impossible to open without a remote control or from the inside wall control.

Yet admittance was gained by simply removing a dozen 5/16" head sheet metal screws and peeling back the corrugated metal. Who'd have thunk?  [doh]  [doh]  [doh]

 

[demographic]

Seems that in a lot of large US buildings theres a small locked box with the master key to the building for the firemen to use.
All firemen in that area have the same key and you can get em off ebay.

Also the postmen have a similar setup to get them into the lobby to put post into the little postbox things.

Many elevator keys are the same as well as many other keys you wouldn't think should be, digger keys are often the same. As are police cars, which often get sold on to be taxis.

So potentialy a taxidriver can have a key that will fit a police car trunk and nobody stores anything dangerous in police car trunks do they... thats without getting into doors that unlock for people inside who want out and have IR sensors that can be fooled by something put between the double doors.

 

[jeh]

Garage doors can be opened by any fire department electronically. Have seen brand new openers and 10 year old models cracked without any effort. Since they can do it you can assume there is a device that is sold somewhere that can do it as well.

 

[big K]

Garage door openers and vehicle remotes all share a very narrow bandwidth radio frequency, however I am surprised that FD seems to have some type of electronic "master key" that is able to override the security codes that garage door remotes use. That would suggest that it is only a short time until the thieves also figure this loophole out and sell it to all others who might also have a use for such a device.

Besides these electronic pass keys, there is also the threat of stray radio signals that can trip overhead door operators. My shop, which is located in an industrial area pretty close to one of the railroad maintenance facility, had developed a problem like this at one point. Nothing like working away on a cabinet and all of a sudden one of the overhead doors suddenly pops open. Had it happen twice, fortunately while I was there, but of course that gets me to worrying what if this happens while I am gone?

The best way that I am aware of to prevent this problem from happening, or from some idiots who might be driving up and down the alleys clicking a handful of door remotes (I have seen this being done) is to rewire the outlet that the door opener is plugged into and then run the hot wire to a switch box near the alarm panel or entrance door, with a common light switch. I personally use a pilot light switch; the the switch has an LED indicator that glows bright red when the power is on. And that switch is only on when I need to open one of the overhead doors.

Also you should remove the pull cord release from the door carrier truck on the track. I have seen that some theives are pushing the top panel of the overhead door away from the door jamb and fishing a bent coat hangar to snag the door release and pull it out. Then wallah, pay day for the idiot. My door truck now has a small key ring and a large key ring hanging from the release. I keep a 4' dowel with a bent hook for snagging the larger ring/door release hanging near the overhead door.

I have found that obtaining an insurance rider for tools used professionally are difficult to find. One time that I had a tool loss, from my work van, and I did try to file a claim, it turned out that somehow that rider was not written. However even if it had been written and I was able to file the claim, it turns out that right after the claim would have been paid that the insurer would have immediately dropped my contractor's liability policy. That could have an immediate and negative impact on some jobs that I have been on. And that would mean any future policy would automatically have a 30-40% bump in premiums because of the dropped policy on my record. That incident has made me very skeptical about insurance carriers/companies/salesman.