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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

#21

Post by xvedejas »

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…

> they locked all the side doors

And this didn't get them in trouble with the fire marshal?

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#23

Post by leephillips »

mcbits wrote: post #12
CoffeeOnWrite wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, not security theater. Signs of general dysfunction yes. Embarrassing. Fun to tease about for sure. Aside: the more times I re-read the article the more annoyed I am with the self-righteous tone. It feels like the author is mimicking the style of legendary Usenet posts, but the story just isn’t that interesting and the writing not that witty, it falls flat.

The writing is clearly AI-generated or at least AI-assisted, so I think it's safe to assume it's also a work of fiction.

I’ll take your word for that. I don’t know how to tell. But I did notice that the writing was conspicuously terrible throughout. Entire sentences make no sense, such as “I'd slip in suspiciously while they contemplated the email that clearly said not to let anyone in with your own card.”

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#24

Post by malfist »

xvedejas wrote: post #21
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…

> they locked all the side doors And this didn't get them in trouble with the fire marshal?

Amazon employees can just use all the ...water... bottles they keep around their workstation to put out the fires.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#25

Post by wildzzz »

robomartin wrote: post #14

Interesting. I have worked in ITAR environments with serious security and have never experienced 30 minute lines at the door. In fact, I can't remember lines at all. Hard to understand what happened here. Was it really a single turnstile for a building with over 10 floors? That's kind of silly, isn't it? Mass transit operations have this figured out. Most recently for me, taking the monorail in Las Vegas for the CES…

I don't see how any of this wasn't already a problem. In the story, everyone shows up to the office at the same time, how did they use to work out the elevator issue? This story has a bunch of AI telltales so I doubt it's real anyway.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#26

Post by jacquesm »

Funny. We had a security guard that had memorized all the faces of the employees. If he knew you he'd buzz you through. If he didn't know you you'd have to be vouched for by someone that he did know or by showing your credentials. By day #3 he'd know you, and he also somehow knew when you were no longer with the company.

There never was a line and there were 1400 people in those buildings.

I never realized how incredibly that guy's contribution was but this story made it perfectly clear.

Also, I don't actually buy the story as related here. It would seem to me that within minutes of that queue building up the turnstiles + card system would be disabled because something clearly was not working.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#27

Post by CydeWeys »

I'm not really sure what the point of this article is. Yes, obviously, you need to implement systems that are secure and performant so that you don't get a backed-up line of people waiting an hour just to get into the office in the morning. But that's a notably flawed rollout; millions of employees go into badge-in-required offices every day without issue. And it's kind of hard to imagine running a large office while lacking such basic physical security as "keep unauthorized people out of the building". Having electronic badges and readers is table stakes.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#28

Post by SiempreViernes »

CydeWeys wrote: post #27

I'm not really sure what the point of this article is. Yes, obviously, you need to implement systems that are secure and performant so that you don't get a backed-up line of people waiting an hour just to get into the office in the morning. But that's a notably flawed rollout; millions of employees go into badge-in-required offices every day without issue. And it's kind of hard to imagine running a large office while…

Yeah, it got very strong "hello, I'm from the internet and this meatspace thing you are doing is wrong" vibes.

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#29

Post by nine_k »

jez wrote: post #15

As others have mentioned, it comes down to the threat model, but sometimes the threat model itself is uncomfortable to talk about. It’s sad to think about, but in my recollection a lot of intra-building badge readers went up in response to the 2018 active shooter situation at the YouTube HQ[1]. In cases like this, the threat model is “confine a hostile person to a specific part of the building once they’ve gotten in…

If forced partition of a building were the primary goal, that goal could be achieved without badges. Or, at least, without having to badge into every door. Just have locks on every door that are normally disengaged, but which can be locked remotely and promptly.

(While at it, I once worked on an access control system. It was aeons ago; the system ran under OS/2. We installed it on a factory. It worked well, until we ran it in demo mode under production load, that is, the stream of morning shift turnstile registration events. The DB melted. I solved the problem trivially: I noticed that the DB was installed on a FAT volume for unknown reasons, so I moved it to an HPFS volume, and increased the RAM cache for the disk to maximum. Everything worked without a hitch then.)

Re: We installed a single turnstile to feel secure

#30

Post by dryarzeg »

leephillips wrote: post #23
mcbits wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The writing is clearly AI-generated or at least AI-assisted, so I think it's safe to assume it's also a work of fiction.

I’ll take your word for that. I don’t know how to tell. But I did notice that the writing was conspicuously terrible throughout. Entire sentences make no sense, such as “I'd slip in suspiciously while they contemplated the email that clearly said not to let anyone in with your own card.”

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