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Since the festival shooting Vegas hotels have a policy of entering every room every 24 hours. If you skip housekeeping, they get suspicious and then they send
by jedberg 2y ago
Since the festival shooting Vegas hotels have a policy of entering every room every 24 hours. If you skip housekeeping, they get suspicious and then they send security to check on you.
Some clever hackers figured out how to use the phone system to make them think housekeeping had been there[0], so now they do inspections when BlackHat/DefCon is in town because they don't trust their own tracking systems.
[0] One of the hotels had housekeeping dial *5 on the room phone when they entered the room to clean, and then *5 again when they left. So some hackers would put out their "do not clean" sign and then just dial *5 twice 10 minutes apart so no one would get suspicious.
- Shank 2y agoI think your post contradicts itself. It sounds like they "do inspections" every day of the year. > Since the festival shooting Vegas hotels have a policy of entering every room every 24 hours > so now they do inspections when BlackHat/DefCon is in town because they don't trust their own tracking systems What's the difference between these two statements? It sounds to me like the only point is that they have a manual ledger to track inspections, which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
- pathartl 2y agoI think they mean that cleaning services will passively do inspections, but past cons have marked their rooms as being already cleaned in their system. They do manual inspections during Defcon because they can't rely that cleaning services have gotten to their room.
- krisoft 2y ago> What's the difference between these two statements? One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour. The other describes that they don't trust their usual implementation during BlackHat/DefCon. > which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too. The whole thing provides probabilistic protection anyway. (Also known as a security theatre, if you want to be uncharitable.) A determined attacker will appear as a model hotel guest up until the point they want to attack. Then they wait until housekeeping is done with their room and move their weapons in the room only after. Hotels are full of people moving luggage around at all hours so this won't be suspicious to anyone. The policy will probably catch some would be attackers (the dumb ones). It will also probably uncover a lot more drug overdoses/suicides/murders/sudden heart attack victims, several days earlier than they would be uncovered otherwise. I bet that for every Stephen Paddock found there is at least a hundred "oops this room has a dead person in it for some reason".
- holgerschurig 2y ago> One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour. I find it puzzling how you (and all the other commenters here) accept this rule like sheeps. Normally, you US citizens cannot stop boasting how the USA is supposedly "the land of the free". So don't take this personally, I'm replying to this as to all the others that appear like they find it totally normal that some security guy or hotel cleaning can enter a rented room. Every 24 hours, or at all. It's not normal. And IMHO not even needed / helpful. No 24h check will ever hinder a mass-shooter. The criminal would just wait until room cleaning made their job, then go to his car and get the big suitcase with all the guns and ammunition one can buy entirely too easy in the US. And then he can shot from his room, minutes after this compulsory do-nothing 24h "security" check. Here, were I am (Germany), things are completely different. First, it's not so easy to get weapons. Not even at gun exhibitions. That in itself helps tremendously getting a less violent society. Second, here we have the right, upheld by courts, that a hotel tenant can make the hotel not enter his room. A "do not disturb" sign is everything that is needed. If you want, you can look it up under "Frankfurter Landgerichts aus dem Jahr 2009 (AZ 2-19 O 153/08)". Sure, there are other rulings that landlords (including hoteliers) have under some circumstances the right to enter a property they rented out. Like fire, or water pipe broken. Actual, imminent danger. Not hypothetical danger! But they even cannot get a general "you can always enter" term signed, that would be null and void over here.
- khafra 2y ago> the USA is supposedly "the land of the free". The more free private entities are from government oversight, the more carefully they have to read contracts. For example, even the US is not quite so free as to allow people to sell their organs. If it were, citizens would have to carefully read room rental contracts at hotels, to make sure there were no conditions which included forfeiture of a kidney. (FWIW, I'm now living in Germany, and it's significantly more relaxing with a bit less freedom. There's definitely different tradeoffs which make more sense for different people).
- 2y ago
- mlyle 2y agohttps://x.com/d0rkph0enix/status/1822814018643374260 https://x.com/d0rkph0enix/status/1822814018643374260 The protocol for non-DefCon rooms: * Housekeeping services the room. * If housekeeping was unable to service the room, security will come take a look. The protocol for DefCon rooms: * Security comes and takes a look no matter what, and is, from reports, particularly invasive.
- solardev 2y agoI don't know what's worse in that thread: * They have to visually inspect upwards of 1000 rooms every day looking for vaguely electronic looking things * They have to use Microsoft Teams Poor Hilton employees...
- The_SamminAter 2y agoAnd to think that they never included any of this in Hilton Garden Inn: Ultimate Team Play...
- solardev 2y agoLOL, I can't believe that was a real thing... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Garden_Inn:_Ultimate_Team_Play https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Garden_Inn:_Ultimate_Te...
- FickleRaptor 2y agoThis is has nothing to do with the behavior in question.
- jedberg 2y agoSure it does. The reason they do security sweeps is because they don't trust the attendees. Normally they mostly leave it up to the housekeepers. They only do sweeps when big conferences with known "tech nerds" are in town.
- FickleRaptor 2y agoThat’s not the behavior that’s in question.
- jedberg 2y agoWhat then is the behavior in question?
- pas 2y agoOne theory is some kind of attempt at getting rid of people as fast as possible, because they sold the rooms for "too cheap"? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41229769 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41229769
- DiggyJohnson 2y ago(Not GP) That’s the explanation for the behavior not the behavior itself.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- wannacboatmovie 2y agoHoly shit, there are hotels that still do housekeeping every day post COVID? Please name names, I want to stay there! Even better if there are ones that still do real room service where someone wheels a cart into your room, not leaving a bag at the foot of your door. Last time I traveled the concierge looked at me as if I was some horrible person because I requested daily housekeeping, not this "on demand" nonsense which has sadly become pervasive.
- canada_dry 2y ago> still do housekeeping every day They don't change sheets or towels ("for the environment")... just inspect the room, then leave.
- wkat4242 2y agoThey don't have the thing anymore that you can leave the towels on the floor if you want them changed?
- wannacboatmovie 2y agoNo, that has been replaced with the thing where you leave the towels on the floor if you don't want to have usable towels the next morning.
- imwillofficial 2y agoI hate the new thing
- ionwake 2y agoSorry I’m from the UK. Do you mean if you leave the sign for cleaning they don’t clean the room? Or if you leave no sign they don’t clean the room? Or they just never clean the room if you stay for more than one day? Thanks for clarification
- Aeolun 2y ago
- noddingham 2y agoThat's simply not true. I've stayed at PH, TI, and the Venetian over the last 3 years for conferences and personal travel, I pass on housekeeping the whole week, and there have been no security checks like you describe.
- beacon294 2y agoI also stayed at Planet Hollywood with no housekeeping, although I wasn't around during the day to determine if there was an inspection.
- jedberg 2y agoHow would you know, unless you were in the room the whole time?
- kfrzcode 2y agoThey might have stayed in the room the whole time. Or implemented one of many surveillance tools. Use your imaginator.
- krisoft 2y ago> Use your imaginator. I use my imagination. The most likely answer is that there was a check and they haven't noticed because they were out and about.
- eitland 2y agoNever heard about the crispy snack under the rug or any of the other hacks people to detect of people have been there?
- krisoft 2y agoI heard of many things. There is an infinite repertoire of possible techniques how they could have verified that nobody entered their room. Ranging from the low tech (dust, crisps, hair stuck to the door frame, filling the room with angry bobcats), through the social engineering (befriended the head of security who told them), to ultra high tech (lidar triggered camera array reporting to a satellite ). On a balance of probabilities without hearing more on how they specifically verified it I will still assume the alternate hypothesis. Which is that someone on the internet is very sure about something and they are wrong. It is not due to a lack of imagination. Or because I haven't heard some cool spy trick you have heard about. It's because I find it (in the absence of other information) the most likely explanation given a lifetime of observations about human nature.
- lasereyes136 2y agoThey had that rule, every 24-hour room checks, for a few years after the Mandalay Bay mass shooting in 2017. Since Covid they removed that rule and don't do the room checks every 24 hours, unless, I guess, they really want to do it. Room service counted as a room check so security only did it if you refused room service.