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Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

securitymagazine.com

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Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m usually in developed countries with pickpocketing as a problem, so I’m confident in showing my drivers license if I get controlled by police, but if I lose my passport, I’m in trouble. But what if you have 2 passports? Carrying both is a SPoF. Where do you hide the additional?

> Where do you hide the additional? Definitely not in the room safe, that's the first thing they'll look through. Maybe the hotel has their own safe? But that involves trusting the staff. I think all bets are off if someone with intent breaks into your room and does a full upheaval, but hiding it in your suitcase or e.g. sticking it with some tape under a cabinet or drawer might be adequate.

The other thing with putting things in a hotel safe is forgetting them when you leave. I basically hardly ever put clothes in a closet or a drawer in a hotel because over the course of hundreds of stays, I will forget at some point.

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#112
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The orientation section doesn't seem incredibly inconvenient nor costly. It's basically just establishing situational awareness in an unfamiliar place. What are you getting kept from by doing it? A dozen extra minutes of terrible hotel TV? On the topic of flash floods esp. when traveling; I make a conscious effort to not park/stay anywhere liable to flash-flood, and that requires some situational awareness in the sen…

>What are you getting kept from by doing it? A dozen extra minutes of terrible hotel TV? I don't go to a hotel to be in my room. If I am traveling there is a reason to do so. All in all I think this paranoid fear of hotels and travel is something specific to US. I've never had issues with security in a hotel or even given it a a thought. In normal world you don't need to worry about this kind of stuff. My biggest wor…

No post body was provided.

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought you shouldn't leave your passport in the hotel room. Shouldn't we be carrying our passports at all times while traveling abroad, as it is the only valid identification on us? I never worried about where to leave the passport because it's always with me in a money belt inside my pants.

yes you are required to have it on you at all times, it's not just for border crossings. It's the only valid id outside of your own country.

This was definitely true when I stayed at the Castle Wolfenstein Airbnb.

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#114
post #7

Rather than a doorstop, I usually prefer a super grip lock [0] -- an extremely corny as-seen-on-TV product that you can lash around a door knob that uses simple physics to make the door impossible to open with the key on the other side. Naomi Wu mentioned this and Deviant Ollam has too. The basic premise is that it's less destructive than most "security door stops" and hotels tend to get angry if you destroy their ca…

I don't remember when I've been to a hotel without an RFID card door.

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2010 I was working at a large hotel / convention center in Nashville, at about 8pm we were preparing for a massive event where a company had bought out one of the venues, the entire hotel was booked solid. In the days prior to this, we had torrential downpours and heavy rain but this was normal, until it wasnt. Out of nowhere we get reports that the underground tunnels in the hotel used for employees to get around…

How often does this happen? Once in a life time? This is the kind of stuff that makes you go nutty. Of course you _can_ try to prepare for everything and anything, but does it actually make sense to worry about being in a flash flood like that? I doubt it.

Your comment makes me think of this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Rescorla#Corporate_securi...

TL;DR: he got hired as a security officer for Morgan Stanley's WTC offices, and he made the employees regularly practice evacuations.

> Rescorla wanted the company out of the building because he continued to feel, as did Hill, that the World Trade Center was still a target for terrorists and that the next attack could involve a plane crashing into one of the towers.[17] He recommended to his superiors at Morgan Stanley that the company leave Manhattan office space, mentioning that labor costs were lower in New Jersey and that the firm's employees and equipment would be safer in a proposed four-story building. However, this recommendation was not followed because the company's lease at the World Trade Center would not terminate until 2006. At Rescorla's insistence, all employees (including senior executives) then practiced emergency evacuations every three months.[18]

> After Dean Witter merged with Morgan Stanley in 1997, the company eventually occupied 22 floors in the South Tower and several floors in a building nearby. Rescorla's office was on the South Tower’s 44th floor.[4] Feeling that the authorities lost legitimacy after they failed to respond to his 1990 warnings, he concluded that employees of Morgan Stanley, which was the largest tenant in the World Trade Center, could not rely on first responders in an emergency and needed to empower themselves through surprise fire drills, in which he trained employees to meet in the hallway between stairwells and go down the stairs two by two to the 44th floor.[15] Rescorla's strict approach to these drills put him into conflict with some high-powered executives, who resented the interruption to their daily activities, but he nonetheless insisted that these rehearsals were necessary to train the employees in the event of an emergency. He timed employees with a stopwatch when they moved too slowly and lectured them on fire emergency basics.[15][18]

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#116

It is about the same routine I follow. Specifically the "walk the emergency routes" since muscle memory can help you a lot when under stress. Missing one point: take a couple of business cards from the hotel with you. Whenever you need to get back, it most often makes it easier for people (cab drivers) to get you there without too much discussion and misunderstandings. Other points: - To be sure you have some clean w…

Why do not order room service, what's the risk there in your opinion? I like the stuff about personal photo next to the bed as well as using the in-house services and tipping. That's smart man!

Sorry, I don't get the personal photo? Is this some kind of Inception thing, if you wake up due to intoxication, or what?

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#117

The funniest and most obnoxious situation is seeing in perfectly safe country self-obsessed Americans, behaving as if they are some secret agents, extraordinary targets, vulnerable treasure, and as they look at everyone with suspicious disgust. Additional tip - wear black suit and Oakley sunglasses, in every circumstances.

What's a "perfectly safe country"?

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#118
post #47

https://archive.ph/gSBMp for users outside US, since this site illegaly denies access after rejecting cookies

I'm 99% sure that a US website is perfectly within their right to deny EU citizens for whatever reason. If it was EU based however they would be violating the GDPR. There's a lot of US sites that just give a HTTP 451 (unavailable for legal reasons) for people from the EU.

It's illegal, consent must be freely given.

Either the site must be completely inaccessible to EU citizens (no matter whether user will consent to cookies or not) or it must be accessible even after rejecting consent, there is nothing in between.

Accessible site only after giving consent is just plain blackmailing.

https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/websites-must-remain...

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2010 I was working at a large hotel / convention center in Nashville, at about 8pm we were preparing for a massive event where a company had bought out one of the venues, the entire hotel was booked solid. In the days prior to this, we had torrential downpours and heavy rain but this was normal, until it wasnt. Out of nowhere we get reports that the underground tunnels in the hotel used for employees to get around…

How often does this happen? Once in a life time? This is the kind of stuff that makes you go nutty. Of course you _can_ try to prepare for everything and anything, but does it actually make sense to worry about being in a flash flood like that? I doubt it.

The variety of situations in which being confident in my escape plan would be helpful is pretty high. The effort required to review a basic escape plan ("follow the route mapped out on the inside of my door") is pretty low.

I don't really need to know the odds of each specific reason I might need to get outside to determine it's worth a short walk to the end of the hall to confirm I know which door leads to the stairs and where I end up outside once I go down them.

Re: Hotel safety tips from a former intelligence officer

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do not order room service, what's the risk there in your opinion? I like the stuff about personal photo next to the bed as well as using the in-house services and tipping. That's smart man!

I'm not famous or whatever myself, but, the fewer people that are aware I am present, the better.

But in that case, shouldn't you limit as much as possible the interactions with hotel staff? So, no shoe-shine guy, no housekeeper, etc.
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