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We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

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Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#121

Post by Dylan16807 »

margalabargala wrote: post #94
latexr wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on the comments I see here, I think the focus is going on the turnstiles just as it did when I worked there. You titled the piece after the turnstiles and spent the overwhelming majority of the post talking about them (and surrounding physical features). The Jira ticket felt secondary, and when it was introduced in the middle of the post I was genuinely confused, thinking why the heck the card system was cont…

The part about Jira is important because it highlights that while the company claims to take security seriously, they in fact do not take it seriously. The incompetence of the turnstiles makes it a good focus for the story while the juxtaposition of the turnstiles with Jira exposes the company's hypocrisy.

What's the threat model for cookie theft? That if someone gets access to your company hard drive, but not enough access to install a keylogger, then instead of invalidating a session you also have to invalidate the password too?

It's an issue but I wouldn't call it a particularly big issue. I don't think it's very damning for how much the company cares about security.

And it sounds like the turnstiles did work for actual security? Sure, they gave up on per-floor security, but that's a lot less important.

Edit: And if employees are reusing passwords then we should be getting them password managers (or SSO) as the top priority, much more than we worry about logins in cookies inside the building. I mean, there's a point where a single purpose password and a login token become the same thing.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#122

Post by Gigachad »

some_random wrote: post #116
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free. The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it.

It's not actually the extreme punishments, it's the consistent small punishments. It's that you'll actually, seriously get a ticket for littering, even if it's a relatively small ticket. The "Fine City" enforces it's vision in a ubiquitous way, so people just don't break the rules.

This seems like the most effective solution. Imagine if you knew that if you littered, there is a 100% chance you would get a $10 fine immediately. Almost no one would litter ever again, even though the fine is much smaller than the fine is in most countries.

Problem is it just takes a lot of resources to police, more than the fine revenue. But with CCTV and computer vision it's getting increasingly cheap.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#123

Post by Gigachad »

dheera wrote: post #65
chihuahua wrote: post #20

Amazon is pretty serious about physical access security. Even back in 2002, you had to scan your badge while a security guard watches, to check if you are the same person as the badge picture. The same guard also checked if your dog was registered (I think my dog got a badge with his picture, although I think that was just for fun, and not functional) And no easy ability to enter through side doors - you couldn't ope…

I won't miss the days I had to take a full day of meetings from my car in the Amazon parking lot because there weren't enough meeting rooms onsite, but the badge swipes at the main entrance in-between meetings were needed to not be labeled as an "inconsistent badger". It was laughable how much effort and money Amazon invested into badge tracking and enforcement instead of directing funds at making the office a nice p…

All stick and no carrot. These companies would have to spend so much less effort dragging people in to the office if they just made the office a good place to work.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#124

Post by Gigachad »

mikey_p wrote: post #84
Macha wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 intern…

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)

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.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#125

Post by russdill »

3rodents wrote: post #93
hamdingers wrote: post #9

I worked at a company that had effectively no physical security during work hours until the second time someone came in during lunch and stole an armload of laptops. Then we got card readers and a staffed front desk, and discovered our snack budget was too high because people from other companies on other floors were coming to ours for snacks too. I never felt the office was insecure, except in retrospect once it was…

Twitch had badged entry and still managed to have a couple of incidents in which people walked in off the street to steal laptops. No snack theft though, thankfully some things are sacred.

Happened to me in downtown San Francisco. We had keycards, but my manager helpfully held the door for someone.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#126

Post by russdill »

chihuahua wrote: post #20

Amazon is pretty serious about physical access security. Even back in 2002, you had to scan your badge while a security guard watches, to check if you are the same person as the badge picture. The same guard also checked if your dog was registered (I think my dog got a badge with his picture, although I think that was just for fun, and not functional) And no easy ability to enter through side doors - you couldn't ope…

Unmonitored entraces/exits at Texas Instruments had turnstyles or airlock style doors.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#127

Post by lelandfe »

hamdingers wrote: post #9

I worked at a company that had effectively no physical security during work hours until the second time someone came in during lunch and stole an armload of laptops. Then we got card readers and a staffed front desk, and discovered our snack budget was too high because people from other companies on other floors were coming to ours for snacks too. I never felt the office was insecure, except in retrospect once it was…

It's been really, really top of mind here in NYC after a guy walked into a Midtown building last year and gunned down people.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#128

Post by brirec »

some_random wrote: post #116
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free. The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it.

It's not actually the extreme punishments, it's the consistent small punishments. It's that you'll actually, seriously get a ticket for littering, even if it's a relatively small ticket. The "Fine City" enforces it's vision in a ubiquitous way, so people just don't break the rules.

The failings of the broken windows theory[1] would strongly disagree.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory?wprov=sf...

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#129

Post by decremental »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #119
cortesoft wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of crimes are also committed by people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting. It doesn't matter how bad or how certain the consequence is, because they aren't thinking about it at all.

But apparently there are far fewer such people in Singapore. How would you explain this? I think the explanation is that growing up in an environment where even small infringements are consistently punished makes people think about the consequences more.

[dead]

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#130

Post by okanat »

nine_k wrote: post #16

This text is another reminder about the fact that as organizations grow, they become more and more dysfunctional. They function despite that, because the economies of scale are apparently still larger than the loss of functionality due to the increased size. Humans' most important achievement is the ability to create structures larger than the Dunbar number. But this is not achieved for free. (And this is another rea…

It is not the economies of scale but entry cost increase per each new player entering the same market. The real world markets are guarded, price fixing oligopolies.

The most important thing a startup is expected to do is not to get profitable quick but suffocate all possibilities of competition. Dysfunctionality is not a bug, it is a feature of our economic system.

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