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The lock on your front door is more secure than the lock on your bedroom door. This tradeoff is for convenience, of course. A entrance to a mini-storage place

by dfxm12 2y ago

The lock on your front door is more secure than the lock on your bedroom door. This tradeoff is for convenience, of course. A entrance to a mini-storage place is probably OK to be weak. Presumably, you are required to have a proper lock on your own unit. Likewise, the PIN is generally the 2nd factor (along with "something you have") for important things. I'm OK with the convenience of having only a 4 digit PIN on my ATM card since I can reasonably protect & deactivate the card. If someone forces me to enter my pin under duress, it doesn't really matter how many digits it is.

taeric 2y ago
Probably worth noting that using another PIN like that to enter a storage facility is almost certainly a breach of terms of use. Such that, if you did anything in there that is not ok with everyone, they have easy legal recourse against you.
- bagels 2y ago
  Probably limited to termination of your rental.
  - taeric 2y ago
    Would depend what else you did, I presume? I also just meant this as an "in addition" to the idea that it isn't aiming for fool proof protection.
toast0 2y ago
> A entrance to a mini-storage place is probably OK to be weak. Presumably, you are required to have a proper lock on your own unit. You'd like the entrance to be strong, because access to the entrance grants you secluded access to all the units, and angle grinders beat locks in seconds, proper locks in just a few more seconds. Of course, cars beat entrance gates pretty easily too.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
  Hopefully they have cameras in there.
  - Y_Y 2y ago
    They're hardly worth stealing. Or do you mean they might prevent theft? Or deter it? It is my experience that they are pretty useless at both.
idiotsecant 2y ago
If it's ok to be so weak that it's trivial to enter like this, why have the lock at all? The cynical (and probably accurate) answer is that it's security theater designed to give customers warm fuzzy feelings cheaply and with low risk of lockout calls and maintainance issues. It does basically nothing to keep someone from taking your stuff.
- throawayonthe 2y ago
  dissuading the least motivated perpetrators, ability to add a "breaking and entering" charge perhaps?
- dfxm12 2y ago
  It's weak, but I don't know if trivial is the right word. Like a bedroom lock, it does what it needs to do. First, the lock is probably there to make it easier for one remote security guy to monitor many locations after hours. They can be alerted when a door opens, has been ajar for a while and along with a camera, see what's going on. Other than that, you also want a lock to help keep the door closed to help keep climate control working efficiently, keep animals out, etc. Like I had been alluding to, when you rent a unit, you're told that you are responsible for locking your own unit with a specific, harder, lock, like a front door lock. If an attacker can get by this lock, entrance to the premises would have been possible as well. On that note, I don't think the absence of a super strong lock on the front door of a storage place invites criminals. I live near open air storage facilities where anyone can just walk up to the units, like they're walking by cars on the street or in a parking lot. Thefts from storage units are just not big enough of an issue to require additional measures.

by dfxm12 2y ago

taeric 2y ago

Probably worth noting that using another PIN like that to enter a storage facility is almost certainly a breach of terms of use. Such that, if you did anything in there that is not ok with everyone, they have easy legal recourse against you.

bagels 2y ago
Probably limited to termination of your rental.
- taeric 2y ago
  Would depend what else you did, I presume? I also just meant this as an "in addition" to the idea that it isn't aiming for fool proof protection.

toast0 2y ago

> A entrance to a mini-storage place is probably OK to be weak. Presumably, you are required to have a proper lock on your own unit. You'd like the entrance to be strong, because access to the entrance grants you secluded access to all the units, and angle grinders beat locks in seconds, proper locks in just a few more seconds. Of course, cars beat entrance gates pretty easily too.

amanaplanacanal 2y ago
Hopefully they have cameras in there.
- Y_Y 2y ago
  They're hardly worth stealing. Or do you mean they might prevent theft? Or deter it? It is my experience that they are pretty useless at both.

idiotsecant 2y ago

If it's ok to be so weak that it's trivial to enter like this, why have the lock at all? The cynical (and probably accurate) answer is that it's security theater designed to give customers warm fuzzy feelings cheaply and with low risk of lockout calls and maintainance issues. It does basically nothing to keep someone from taking your stuff.

throawayonthe 2y ago
dissuading the least motivated perpetrators, ability to add a "breaking and entering" charge perhaps?
dfxm12 2y ago
It's weak, but I don't know if trivial is the right word. Like a bedroom lock, it does what it needs to do. First, the lock is probably there to make it easier for one remote security guy to monitor many locations after hours. They can be alerted when a door opens, has been ajar for a while and along with a camera, see what's going on. Other than that, you also want a lock to help keep the door closed to help keep climate control working efficiently, keep animals out, etc. Like I had been alluding to, when you rent a unit, you're told that you are responsible for locking your own unit with a specific, harder, lock, like a front door lock. If an attacker can get by this lock, entrance to the premises would have been possible as well. On that note, I don't think the absence of a super strong lock on the front door of a storage place invites criminals. I live near open air storage facilities where anyone can just walk up to the units, like they're walking by cars on the street or in a parking lot. Thefts from storage units are just not big enough of an issue to require additional measures.