3 ms·

> Your home security system won't actually keep anyone who knows what they are doing from robbing your house if they decide to rob your house. What it could do

> Your home security system won't actually keep anyone who knows what they are doing from robbing your house if they decide to rob your house. What it could do is make them decide to rob your neighbor's house instead. What happens when everyone in my street buys the same security system? Seems like we all just spent a lot of money buying something that now offers us no benefit. Short of purchasing a honeypot property with (seemingly) no security system and going full Home Alone on the inside of it, it seems like you're going to need actual security at some point.

pitaj 6y ago
They target a poorer neighborhood
bobthepanda 6y ago
There's an old tale about this where everyone switched from brooms to vacuum cleaners to save work, which then caused a coal plant to be opened for the increased power demand, which proceeded to dirty everyone's homes so everyone was working just as hard for a slightly dirtier home than when they were using brooms. At least for the home example, you're usually better off reducing the factors that would make a break-in happen in the first place rather than trying to win an arms race against a determined attacker; there are high trust societies where people don't bother locking their doors and people don't get burgled. But obviously the threat model is different than a utility.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
> Short of purchasing a honeypot property with (seemingly) no security system and going full Home Alone on the inside of it, it seems like you're going to need actual security at some point. You mean men with guns stationed 24/7? There is no "actual security" against determined burglars available on the market for regular people. There's delaying action (e.g. laminated glass), noise making and deterrence (cameras). Each can be worked around. This is also a general point on security: there's no perfect security, there's only adequate security - where "adequate" means it costs the attacker more to breach it than they can expect to profit. From this view, appearance of security is almost as good as actual security measures - you make security look expensive to breach, which achieves the same effect, as long as nobody is willing to call your bluff.

pitaj 6y ago

They target a poorer neighborhood

bobthepanda 6y ago

There's an old tale about this where everyone switched from brooms to vacuum cleaners to save work, which then caused a coal plant to be opened for the increased power demand, which proceeded to dirty everyone's homes so everyone was working just as hard for a slightly dirtier home than when they were using brooms. At least for the home example, you're usually better off reducing the factors that would make a break-in happen in the first place rather than trying to win an arms race against a determined attacker; there are high trust societies where people don't bother locking their doors and people don't get burgled. But obviously the threat model is different than a utility.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

> Short of purchasing a honeypot property with (seemingly) no security system and going full Home Alone on the inside of it, it seems like you're going to need actual security at some point. You mean men with guns stationed 24/7? There is no "actual security" against determined burglars available on the market for regular people. There's delaying action (e.g. laminated glass), noise making and deterrence (cameras). Each can be worked around. This is also a general point on security: there's no perfect security, there's only adequate security - where "adequate" means it costs the attacker more to breach it than they can expect to profit. From this view, appearance of security is almost as good as actual security measures - you make security look expensive to breach, which achieves the same effect, as long as nobody is willing to call your bluff.