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Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

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Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#21

Post by mindslight »

redtexture wrote: post #10

On a community-basis, reporting widely and promptly about unfortunate events via your typical channels is important and a strong community-safety-measure, as well as an opportunity for safety-awareness and for participants and others to make-whole and contribute toward the losses that one or more community- or event-participants have had. It is not so great that the possibility of the difficulty described by the orig…

... or you could focus your effort on productive things instead of dedicating an ever-growing amount of resources coming up with copy to appease feel-good busybodies. The map is not the territory, and overemphasizing the map's importance is a great way to kill any organization's spirit. As organizations scale, it's inevitable that they will eventually fall victim to red-tape-promoting leeches, but that doesn't mean you should seek to actively court them.

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#22

Post by gugol »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #20
ddebernardy wrote: post #3

Cameras...

I agree, Storage isn't that much of an issue these days and six web cams around the place feeding into portable USB drives is pretty simple to set up with a RasPi these days. Then you have the chance of adding a face to the police report as well.

WTF? There are systems for doing that task specifically, why would you want to build one from scratch?

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#23

Post by georgemcbay »

Unless I was specifically informed that it would be safe to leave my belongings in any area, I would assume that it is not safe to do so, and if I left my laptop unattended and it were stolen under these circumstances I'd be pissed off, but I wouldn't expect the event organizers to take any responsibility for it at all.

The idea being kicked around to take a collection from attendees is okay in theory but I'm not convinced having to file a police report is a sufficient barrier to future attendees claiming lost laptops in the hopes of getting $1000 from random strangers. Also you'd have to be really careful to make sure it was well understood the collection is totally optional, and not set it up in such a way that people who didn't want to participate for whatever reason weren't made to look like asses in public. Put in that situation I'd have no problem dropping $1 or $20 into a collection hat, but expecting everyone (especially students) to have such disposable income isn't fair.

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#24

Post by tylerlh »

gugol wrote: post #22
ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, Storage isn't that much of an issue these days and six web cams around the place feeding into portable USB drives is pretty simple to set up with a RasPi these days. Then you have the chance of adding a face to the police report as well.

WTF? There are systems for doing that task specifically, why would you want to build one from scratch?

FWIW, building this out with a Pi is a trivial task and would probably end up much cheaper/more flexible in the long run.

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#25

Post by mindslight »

radley wrote: post #18
mindslight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution would be to tell the teams not to leave the equipment unattended Please no. Don't contribute to this cover-your-ass culture of information clutter by disclaiming the obvious with braindead notices that nobody is expected to read. It's common sense to maintain responsibility for your stuff to the extent you'd like to avoid having it mucked with through malice or ignorance.

Most hackakthons are at the pro level, so it's industry peers and security for this is never a concern. When you have 1000 students in a hackathon, then yeah it's a good idea to point out the difference.

Security is always an individual's concern, and to the extent one does not think about it just means they are unconcerned. Are bad neighborhoods supposed to have warning signs? Or maybe city-wide address systems should be used to warn people of increased crime every time it gets dark?

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#26

Post by larrys »

"Someone left a laptop unattended, and it was stolen."

Never been to one of these so could you elaborate as to how a laptop was left (and for how long) so that it was stolen? (I'm curious about the details).

As an example is this like being at an airport terminal with your laptop, turning around for a second, and turning back to see your laptop missing?

Or more like leaving the laptop and going to the bathroom?

Or leaving the laptop for a minute while you go two tables over to chat with someone?

Do you know the exact circumstances?

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#27

Post by larrys »

tonywebster wrote: post #8
Pro_bity wrote: post #7

Two choices IMO, 1) if you can afford it, replace the laptop. 2) If you can't afford it, then take up a collection from the attendees. As for adverse incentives, you should always presume that people are honest and good. However, to cover yourself (and it is a good idea anyways), make them fill out a police report. Keep a copy on file for yourself. This would give any would be profiteer pause, as there are real conse…

Taking up a collection is a good idea, gets everyone on their toes about watching each other's backs, and puts the responsibility on the entire community. If each participant threw in a buck or two, that's a new MacBook Pro.

My personal feeling is that a collection is more appropriate with an emergent problem "has no ride home and is stranded".

Once your laptop is stolen it's more of an issue of all your stuff being stolen as well (that is on the laptop) as opposed to just a piece of hardware. How are you supposed to do your thing if your laptop which is setup just for you has been stolen and you are at a hackathon?

(As a side note when I travel I travel with a cloned hard drive (encrypted) that can be used to boot another laptop.) Hard drive is always on carry on luggage as well. Cloning tool that I use is "super duper" (that's the name)).

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#28

Post by heldtogether »

radley wrote: post #18
mindslight wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution would be to tell the teams not to leave the equipment unattended Please no. Don't contribute to this cover-your-ass culture of information clutter by disclaiming the obvious with braindead notices that nobody is expected to read. It's common sense to maintain responsibility for your stuff to the extent you'd like to avoid having it mucked with through malice or ignorance.

Most hackakthons are at the pro level, so it's industry peers and security for this is never a concern. When you have 1000 students in a hackathon, then yeah it's a good idea to point out the difference.

Having something rammed down your neck like you're a 10 year old never really helps. Being a victim helps people remember the basic things. Have a couple of people walking around placing stickers on laptops that are unattended. When the owner returns they'll see a sticker saying something along the lines of "your laptop has been stolen", and they'll quickly feel foolish for dropping their guard.

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#29

Post by mindslight »

gugol wrote: post #22
ChuckMcM wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, Storage isn't that much of an issue these days and six web cams around the place feeding into portable USB drives is pretty simple to set up with a RasPi these days. Then you have the chance of adding a face to the police report as well.

WTF? There are systems for doing that task specifically, why would you want to build one from scratch?

So that you can incorporate plausible deniability, selective disclosure, and secret-sharing based quorum. Do you really want to have created a system that gets subpoenaed for automated guilt-by-association when it turns out that one of the participants is being investigated for thoughtcrimes?

Re: Ask HN: Running a hackathon and someone's laptop got stolen, what should we do?

#30

Post by kolinko »

larrys wrote: post #26

"Someone left a laptop unattended, and it was stolen." Never been to one of these so could you elaborate as to how a laptop was left (and for how long) so that it was stolen? (I'm curious about the details). As an example is this like being at an airport terminal with your laptop, turning around for a second, and turning back to see your laptop missing? Or more like leaving the laptop and going to the bathroom? Or le…

On hackathons it's quite common. You leave a laptop on your workplace, go for lunch, or for a walk, or whatever. Usually there are only other hackers there, few bystanders, so the environment is quite secure.

That's why it's so sad when situations like those happen - it undermines the trust within the community. On Airport, or at the coffee place I wouldn't expect my laptop to be there if I left for an hour. On a hackathons I left my laptop for hours at a time. The only problem was that with the amount of MB Airs laying around, unless you had some stickers, it might take more than a moment to find yours :)

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