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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

#191

Post by NoNameHaveI »

fxtentacle wrote: post #73
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…

I once lived in Singapore for a while and we were all sure that nobody would steal anything anyway, so we just never bothered to lock the doors. (That was also very helpful if you wanted to stop for a quick coffee with a date in the middle of the night.) You could see the MacBooks from the street, but nothing ever went missing. I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free.

I'm going to wager the risk of corporal punishment is a significant deterrant. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_in_Singapore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Michael_Fay Not coincidentally, Singapore has one of the lowest recidivism rates globally. https://www.sps.gov.sg/files/annual%20reports/Press_Release_...

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#192

Post by NoNameHaveI »

ralferoo wrote: post #179
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…

I once worked at a place where the receptionist held the door open for a thief who made off with about 10 PCs, taken from random work desks near the entrance. She thought that because he was wearing a suit and a badge from his "company" that he must have been supposed to be there, and assumed he was probably taking the computers away to be fixed. There was surprisingly little repercussion for violating the "one card…

When I began work at my last company, we all had to badge in to get in the parking lot, where there was 6 lanes 6-10a and just 2 other times. We also had to pass through 1 of 4 turnstyles, and we were subject to bag inspection going both in and out. We were trained to NEVER leave my badge in an unguarded location (ie my locked car at home, at lunch, etc). We were also trained to NOT display our badges off campus, especially when travelling. This made me make DAMN SURE I knew where my badge was at at times. Same hook in the closet. When walking OUT through the turnstyle, I usually either put it in my bag if I had one, tucked into my shirt pocket, or just tucked under my shirt.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#193

Post by dormento »

jiggawatts wrote: post #108
fxtentacle wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once lived in Singapore for a while and we were all sure that nobody would steal anything anyway, so we just never bothered to lock the doors. (That was also very helpful if you wanted to stop for a quick coffee with a date in the middle of the night.) You could see the MacBooks from the street, but nothing ever went missing. I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free.

I used to accumulate a pile of change on my desk from buying coffees. Never got touched across about a hundred different offices around Australia (I’m a consultant). Except once: the pile was replaced by a $50 note and a hand written apology saying the guilty party needed change for the parking lot machine. I had less than $30 there in coins so… profit!

I had mine stolen from my desk, way back when i had a job at a state company. I used to keep it inside a small metal can (i guess i just enjoyed the rattling sound it made). Thing is, I also kept a desk drawer key inside the can, so the thief also got my key.

There was video.

I had to have the desk drawer changed (which made for quite a spectacle in an open plan office).

None were punished.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#194

Post by zdc1 »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #89
fxtentacle wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once lived in Singapore for a while and we were all sure that nobody would steal anything anyway, so we just never bothered to lock the doors. (That was also very helpful if you wanted to stop for a quick coffee with a date in the middle of the night.) You could see the MacBooks from the street, but nothing ever went missing. I don’t know what exactly it was, but Singapore felt incredibly safe and crime-free.

>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.

As someone who's lived there, it's definitely more about the consistency. Generally speaking, if you make a police report, it will be investigated. This includes for smaller issues like lost items too. From what I understand, their courts also give fairly consistent sentences.

Combine this with the fact that Singapore is small and full of security cameras, and it create a situation where breaking the law carries a decent risk of getting caught as police will have the willingness and resources to investigate.

On top of this, a massive proportion of the population are there on work visas. For these people, any sort of crime or bad behaviour would mean deportation and loss of their job.

As an aside, here's an interesting CNA documentary on their prisons: https://youtu.be/tJqRPycWUDg

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#195

Post by wredcoll »

broken-kebab wrote: post #120
wredcoll wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The extreme punishments for breaking the law might have something to do with it. Historically speaking, this is almost never true. People constantly think the solution is crueler punishments and we have hundreds of years of records of what happens.

"Hundreds of years of records" sounds like a big exaggeration. I don't think we can reliable talk about more than 150 years, and even that would be sparse, covering only some lucky countries. And this data is hard to evaluate as adjusting it to culture shifts, economy changes, and even to what constitutes "cruel" in different periods isn't easy. I think, it's reasonable to suspect that demonstrative cruelty in crime…

> but there are just a few cases in recent history where at least short-term outcomes seem to support the claim that it may reduce crime levels

Those studies would be interesting to read, can you link them?

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#196

Post by wredcoll »

rmunn wrote: post #135
akoboldfrying wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is exactly right. People who get away with some rule-breaking, whether it's large or small, once will start to think maybe they can get away with it a second time. Get away with it a dozen times and you start to think you can get away with it every time, leading to the "people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting" that cortesoft mentioned. That sort of behavior isn't just a facet…

This is just... wildly vague. People break rules for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, desperation, mental impairment, sometimes just plain maliciousness or greed.

It's one thing to discuss something like a school campus with a small cohort of relatively similar wants and needs and a relatively small set of rules, it becomes much more complicated when dealing with the entire society's interaction with laws.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#197

Post by akoboldfrying »

wredcoll wrote: post #196
rmunn wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly right. People who get away with some rule-breaking, whether it's large or small, once will start to think maybe they can get away with it a second time. Get away with it a dozen times and you start to think you can get away with it every time, leading to the "people who genuinely don't think about the consequences when they are acting" that cortesoft mentioned. That sort of behavior isn't just a facet…

This is just... wildly vague. People break rules for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, desperation, mental impairment, sometimes just plain maliciousness or greed. It's one thing to discuss something like a school campus with a small cohort of relatively similar wants and needs and a relatively small set of rules, it becomes much more complicated when dealing with the entire society's interaction with laws.

How would you explain the observed difference in behaviour then?

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#198

Post by jiggawatts »

dormento wrote: post #193
jiggawatts wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to accumulate a pile of change on my desk from buying coffees. Never got touched across about a hundred different offices around Australia (I’m a consultant). Except once: the pile was replaced by a $50 note and a hand written apology saying the guilty party needed change for the parking lot machine. I had less than $30 there in coins so… profit!

I had mine stolen from my desk, way back when i had a job at a state company. I used to keep it inside a small metal can (i guess i just enjoyed the rattling sound it made). Thing is, I also kept a desk drawer key inside the can, so the thief also got my key. There was video. I had to have the desk drawer changed (which made for quite a spectacle in an open plan office). None were punished.

> None were punished

So, did the video identify the perpetrator?

If so, I feel like there must be more to this story…

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#199

Post by wredcoll »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #197
wredcoll wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just... wildly vague. People break rules for all sorts of reasons, ignorance, desperation, mental impairment, sometimes just plain maliciousness or greed. It's one thing to discuss something like a school campus with a small cohort of relatively similar wants and needs and a relatively small set of rules, it becomes much more complicated when dealing with the entire society's interaction with laws.

How would you explain the observed difference in behaviour then?

Skull shape. They obviously are predisposed to having the right set of skull bumps.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#200

Post by angry_octet »

handoflixue wrote: post #131
angry_octet wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the turnstiles and swipe cards do almost nothing against an active shooter situation. But missing in this discussion is a risk and consequence analysis. If the risk is armed attackers, do something that targets that. For physical theft, target that. Likewise IT risks. The core problem is that risks were not being identified (systematically or in response to expert feedback) and prioritised. Incidentally, the s…

> The core problem is that risks were not being identified (systematically or in response to expert feedback) and prioritised. Or the person who wrote the article just wasn't involved in that loop, or otherwise disagreed on what threat models mattered.

It seems much more a compliance and auditing goal. To meet some objective of knowing who is in the office at what time, which informs office space leasing decisions, return to office mandates, decisions of charging for staff parking, etc. Personnel protection seems almost an afterthought.

Protecting JIRA auth tokens is quite likely low down the list for IT security. Making sure your workers are not remote North Koreans is indeed a security benefit of secured physical offices with regular on-site work.

But the author did have a deeper point -- visible security theatre gets lots of money and management attention, while meaningful expert driven changes are mired in bureaucracy.

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