How Do I Prevent Lan Party Theft? 758
DragonTHC writes "I'm thinking about hosting a lan party open to the public. I'm aiming for approximately 60 people to attend. I can handle all the logistics of operation. The only thing I can't wrap my head around is: how do I prevent theft at the lan party? Do I hire security guards? Do I need security cameras? I don't know the people who will attend, and I don't know if they're trustworthy enough to not steal other people's equipment. What do I do?"
Related, have everyone sign a release.. (Score:5, Insightful)
...stating you are not responsible for lost/stolen/damaged equipment.
Stuff doesn;t get stolen (Score:2, Insightful)
Nothing (Score:5, Insightful)
Your better off not trying to do anything to secure anything short of your own equipment. Just post a sign at the door that states that there is "no security" and that every individual is completely responsible for their own property.
video capture, check id's (Score:5, Insightful)
Post signs saying you will record video. And do it (assuming you have a large rectangular space, 4 cameras to get a 360 degree view should be easy to set up, and relatively cheap). Record video capturing the face and ID of each person attending, at a bottlenecked entrance. If you have a venue with a parking lot, notify everyone that there will be videotaping of the parking lot, and again, do it. If you have the budget, hire a professional to do the ID checking. This should pretty much make any theft a non issue to prosecute. Be sure to post a disclaimer that you're not responsible for items lost/stolen though.
Theft happens. (Score:3, Insightful)
Businesses have an accounting factor called "inventory shrinkage" which really just amounts to "theft". People will steal from time to time, not many actually do it, but some do, and so thefts will happen. You can increase security to discourage it, but you can never make a full guarantee.
Thus, you can increase security in practical ways, but eventually increasing security stops being practical and can even fail to increase actual security. After that, resign to the fact that theft happens. You may increase ticket prices to compensate for the expected loss of a router or two. If it doesn't happen, consider it a credit to the next lan party's theft compensation.
Easy (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously though, this does this question have anything to do with technology? Do the same things as you do when you throw a regular party, i.e. trust people who come not to steal stuff and to keep track of their own stuff. Or ask couple of friends to keep an eye on things if you are really paranoid
Re:Tag everything ! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How many people at the party do you know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Better yet, don't invite people you don't know. It's that simple. If you don't know someone well enough to trust them not to walk off with your stuff, you shouldn't be inviting them into your house. I sopose you could hire a gaurd, or delegate security, or any number of any other things; the question is, do you really want to have to do that in your own house?
Re:Insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose somebody gets hurt? Are you ready to handle a big personal liability lawsuit?
Oh please. If you're constantly worried about being sued you might as well just never get out of bed in the morning.
The reality here is this is a LAN party, not a frat-boy keg party. The risks are low.
If you're really concerned about it, most homeowners policies have a personal liability coverage in them.
Re:Insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose somebody gets hurt? Are you ready to handle a big personal liability lawsuit?
I would NOT do what you are describing.
Not even trying to be funny but honestly, in no other country than USA would this be among the first things people think. I can't imagine that anyone in Finland would ever sue some organizer if they get hurt... Aside from it being clearly organizer's fault, such as letting toxic gas (not just farts) into the room. I mean... what? How do people even hurt themselves in lan parties?
I'm not saying the parent didn't have a valid point. If this is in USA and people really do raise law suits as easily as the rest of the world claims they do... Sure, get some sort of insurance.
But to thieving issue... Just tell people "Hey, if you have no friend here to watch your belongings and can't keep them safe yourself when sleeping, etc., you can leave the small valuables to me for a receipt.
Can't imagine this being an issue, though. I've been on countless lan parties from a dozen people to five thousand people (Assembly 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008), often without knowing anyone and always leaving laptops and often more (still packaged graphics cards, etc.) and such on the tables. Nobody has ever stolen anything from me nor have I heard that anyone else has lost anything in any of the events I've been in...
Have some trust in people. I know some would say "Yeah, you'll regret that trust when someone demands you two grands for that equipment someone stole from him" but seriously, guys:
If you can't have enough faith in humanity to throw a lan party because you fear for all the items that could be stolen, accidents that could happen, insurances, law suits... Your attitude to life sucks.
Re:Insurance? (Score:1, Insightful)
What about equipment damage? All around I would never allow 60 people I didn't know into my house, for any reason.
Re:Insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
It sort of depends on where he lives.
Some people here actually don't live in the I'll-sue-your-pants-off US of A.
Rent a space (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Insurance? (Score:4, Insightful)
If you can't have enough faith in humanity to throw a lan party because you fear for all the items that could be stolen, accidents that could happen, insurances, law suits... Your attitude to life sucks.
I guess its pre-emptive pessimism (new word?), because your attitude in life doesn't currently suck, if somebody steal a $2000 system your attitude WILL suck.
But I personally find that outlook on life better: Go to a party expecting it to suck, when you are surprised and happy with the entertainment. You got more than you expected and a nice surprise. Expect a present to have coal in it, now you can be appreciative and happy when its a new video card for your PC. Didn't get what you want? So what, you knew it was gonna suck right, you can't be unhappy.
Re:Insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
I run a business out of my house which entails some 30-40 people passing through each week.My homeowners insurance explicitly excludes home-run business liability.
That's interesting, but irrelevant. The OP isn't hosting a business, so I don't really see how your situation applies.
Attitude doesn't prevent lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
Wishful thinking doesn't solve real problems. His "attitude to life" isn't what will prevent theft or defend against lawsuits. His attitude didn't create thieves or lawyers, why would changing his attitude make them disappear? It's not his fault the US is filled with lawyers and thieves.
That goes for both the LAN guy and the commenter guy.
In the US, you need to protect yourself from lawyers and thieves. No one else will do it for you and the lawyers and thieves protect each other.
Re:Insurance? (Score:1, Insightful)
Can't imagine this being an issue, though. I've been on countless lan parties from a dozen people to five thousand people (Assembly 2003, 2004, 2005, 2008), often without knowing anyone and always leaving laptops and often more (still packaged graphics cards, etc.) and such on the tables. Nobody has ever stolen anything from me nor have I heard that anyone else has lost anything in any of the events I've been in...
And I've held LAN events where items have been stolen each time. These events have been between 60-150 people. I think the issue is exactly as you say: people need to hold on to their stuff, and if they can't they need to give it to someone who can.
Re:Insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
St. Paul wrote that "faith is the evidence of things unseen." Which, when it comes to the core goodness and decency of humanity, is entirely appropriate.
Re:video capture, check id's (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you kidding me? Put up cameras is your solution? No offense, but at any of the large LAN parties I've been to, when you went to check your tapes you'd find nothing on them but a nice full-motion shot of goatse.
The solution is to either
a) Risk it
b) Spend some time talking with some business owners around town who host public events, like bars, etc. and are familiar with the issues you mention.
c) Pay someone to worry about that part of it for you.
d) Convince your gullible friend to host it instead.
e) Just don't have one.
Good luck!
Re:Insurance? (Score:1, Insightful)
Have it at a hotel.
Re:Insurance? Lawsuits? Really?? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is honestly the first time I've ever heard these things mentioned when it comes to organizing LAN parties.
The purely logical side of me wants to say, "Hey, yeah... nice advance planning. I never even considered the idea of maybe looking at insurance for such an event."
But the practical side of me? It thinks "WTF is wrong with people today?!?" I've been to a number of LAN parties hosted at people's homes, and even hosted a couple myself. Everyone I've ever met at them was MORE courteous and considerate than average. The closest thing to a "theft" I ever saw was a situation where someone accidentally picked up and packed up another person's Ethernet cable. I think that got sorted out when another individual offered to just give the guy one of his to keep, for free, since he had plenty of them at home anyway.
The way I see things, sure ... ANY time you have some sort of party or get-together involving multiple people, you have a "non zero" risk of something bad happening. Maybe someone will fall down a flight of stairs and break an arm? Maybe they'll plug a defective network card or cable into your gigabit switch and fry the thing? But like the parent post says, you can't even get out of bed in the morning and do anything useful if you're scared of everything.
Ultimately, I'd feel FAR safer around a bunch of avid computer gamers willing to drag their expensive computer gear over to my house than the random mix of individuals drinking at the corner bar. (You have to remember, they're all taking a certain amount of risk coming to some "stranger's house" with their equipment in tow, too. The host isn't the only one putting himself out there.)
Re:Insurance? (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, he said he had the logistics all worked out. Author didn't ask how to protect against the threat of thievery by Lawyers, but instead asked how to stop thievery of computer equipment by participants.
Security cameras. good.
Maybe a security deposit to participate. Requirement for participants to show a government-issued picture id, have someone validate it for admittance, and take a picture of the ID and the person before allowing them in.
Have a check-in station at the door. Every participant is going to provide the serial numbers of each piece of electronics they bring in, and your event staff will place a difficult-to-counterfeit RFID tag on each properly checked piece.
They will sign an agreement agreeing to a special checkout process before being allowed to leave.
Anyone who does not cooperate with special checkout process properly forfeits their deposit.
The checkout procedure is to inspect all bags, luggage, etc, and any equipment they are carrying.
Any electronic device that does not have a tamper-resistant RFID sticker on it is forfeit, until the database of serial numbers can be examined to determine the owner.
If the owner is found to be another participant, or the serial number on the equipment has been tampered with, the police are called.
If the item was not properly checked in, then the person is allowed to leave with it.
Have plenty of security cameras (both visible and hidden)
Make sure there is no place to dispose of a RFID tag illicitly removed.
Provide participants some method of locking up their equipment; I.E. cable locks, or some kind of locker/lock box, each participant gets a key to.
OTOH, uber-security may actually result in attempts at thievery, just to prove it can be done ("now it's a challenge").
Re:Insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
indeed if you are going to host a nontrivial sized lan party (more than about 10 participants) power arangements are going to be a big deal. If you allow 2A at 240V (4A at 120V) per participant and you have 60 participants that is 120A at 240V you need to find. A normal domestic service simply will not supply that. Depending on what power is availible at the venue you may need to hire a sizeable generator.
and when you have found that you will need to work out how you are going to distribute it safely and effectively. And you need to pay particular attention to earthing arragements too as those PCs are going to have quite high eath leakage.
If you are running a nontrivial sized lan party in a location that does not have fixed wiring intended for large numbers of PCs a local electrician who understands both event supplies and large computer installations.
Re:Insurance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah, It would be interesting to see how strong the age/uid correlation would be. I'm probably a hundred years old by slashdot standards.
At a guess - you got an ID in the first week or so that Slashdot had them. Perhaps even the first day. This means you had access to the internet during the day. And had plenty of time. So - perhaps you were at Uni (college). Say 19 years old.
add 10 years - at a guess - 29 years old now?
Am I close?
Re:Insurance? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe a security deposit to participate. Requirement for participants to show a government-issued picture id, have someone validate it for admittance, and take a picture of the ID and the person before allowing them in.
Have a check-in station at the door. Every participant is going to provide the serial numbers of each piece of electronics they bring in, and your event staff will place a difficult-to-counterfeit RFID tag on each properly checked piece.
Next, watch people not come to your party. It turns out they don't LIKE being treated as criminals. It turns out that serial numbers of stuff is not that easy to figure out, and no other party will require it. It turns out that RFID tags and -equipment are kinda pricey and do jack shit for stuff that's in bags or backpacks (say ... a laptop). Want to stripsearch participants too ? Put every bag through airport-security like scanners ?
They will sign an agreement agreeing to a special checkout process before being allowed to leave.
Anyone who does not cooperate with special checkout process properly forfeits their deposit.
Unless that deposit is > the price of the stuff you are about to steal ... Big whoopdiwoop. Nobody is gonna post a $2000 security-deposit. Cleaning deposits are probably a good idea though.
The checkout procedure is to inspect all bags, luggage, etc, and any equipment they are carrying.
Any electronic device that does not have a tamper-resistant RFID sticker on it is forfeit, until the database of serial numbers can be examined to determine the owner.
At this point, you are just asking for a jam at the checkout lines. You'll need dozens of people manning them at any party exceeding 300 people to get at least a semblance of movement. Stuff will go wrong, your gear WILL break at the most misopportune times, power of the database machine will go out for some reason or other, etc, people WILL want to get (the fuck) out to catch their train/bus/mommy riding them home, etc.
You simply can't search all bags and crates of stuff. You can check some of the big stuff, and usually your budget will not be enough to cover lots and lots of glitzy equipment.
If the owner is found to be another participant, or the serial number on the equipment has been tampered with, the police are called.
If the item was not properly checked in, then the person is allowed to leave with it.
Have plenty of security cameras (both visible and hidden)
Let's keep in mind the OP asked about a lanparty for 60 people. I would assume those 60 people don't want to pay $150 each just so you can buy lots and lots of security cameras. They also might not love the idea of being filmed while sleeping.
Make sure there is no place to dispose of a RFID tag illicitly removed.
What, "don't provide trashcans" ? At a LAN-Party ? Are you nuts ?
Provide participants some method of locking up their equipment; I.E. cable locks, or some kind of locker/lock box, each participant gets a key to.
This is a good idea (tm). Check in your equipment when you go away/go to sleep, check it out again when you come back.
OTOH, uber-security may actually result in attempts at thievery, just to prove it can be done ("now it's a challenge").
It not just results in such attempts, it'll also result in pissed-off guests (long, long waiting times, being treated like a criminal, etc.), lots of blown money on the semblance of security -- which can still be beaten by a determined criminal (RFIDs have to be removable, and there is really nothing preventing you from removing RFIDs in a dimly lit hall of hundreds of people or in the "privacy" of your clan/guild/etc. There are lots of places to hide stuff. Usually you'll HAVE to have fire-exits open, even if they are not a designated exit.
Re:You jerk! (Score:4, Insightful)
You meant, "insensitive clod".
Re:Insurance? (Score:3, Insightful)
Registering for accounts is what took a while -- I'm fairly certain that Slashdot itself had more than a thousand semi-regular readers back when they introduced the user accounts, its just that a lot of them liked the relatively greater anonymity of just entering a name when they posted.
As I recall, I registered the first day they started doing it (paranoid about someone stealing my handle since I'm clearly such a respected member of the community), and I still ended up in the low 500s.
Newbie.
Re:Insurance? (Score:3, Insightful)
A big one was the media: they hated him. Every opportunity they had, they acted like he didn't exist. When he was at debates, the camerapeople would do their best to not even have him in the picture.
The media sucks but I question whether or not it really deserves blame for Ron Paul (or any other candidate who comes up short for that matter). Indeed I think you answered it with your next point:
Another big one, I think (though I don't have any proof) is that I don't think the American people were interested in his ideas of limited government.
I think you hit the nail on the head. You might convince me of the virtues of more limited Government -- but not to the extreme that Ron Paul would advocate for. I heard him once giving a speech about shrinking the Federal Government -- one of the things he wanted to go after was Federal student loans. All the expenses of the Federal Government and he picks that one to talk about? WTH?
Right now, our country is so fucked up that we really need someone like Ron Paul to "press the reset button" of government, and make major changes to bring us back to financial solvency before we go bankrupt.
Eh, if you really feel that way then you should be calling for a Constitutional Convention. I don't think a President has the power to push the "reset" button. As you previously said that would really be a job for Congress. In this respect Ron Paul wasn't really any better than any of the other politicians who were running -- he promised more than his fair share of stuff that he would have no way to deliver once in office.
Instead, the voters have chosen two candidates that do nothing to make things better, and will probably make things even worse
Aren't there at least three other people running? Granted, I've looked at them and wasn't very impressed (I see a crazy witch-burner, a crazy left-wing dude and a crazy left-wing chick with a chip on her shoulder [cnn.com]) but they are running and would be viable options if you don't feel like voting for McCain or Obama.
McCain is rightfully called "McSame", and will probably get us involved in a useless war in Iran before we're even done with Iraq
I don't know what you call "useless". If Iran is indeed pursing nuclear weapons then I think that we have cause to be concerned. I'm not a pro-war hawk but the prospect of a nuclear armed state that seeks the destruction of Israel (another nuclear armed state) scares the hell out of me. Regardless of any American intervention we'd be fucked economically if Iran and Israel came to nuclear blows -- how much of the Worlds oil comes from that region?
Obama's going to jack up taxes so much the economy will go in the toilet
I'd rather see higher taxes if the end result is bringing the deficit down. Obama is pulling the standard issue ideas out of the Liberal play book (so much for a different kind of leadership...) but he's at least being somewhat more realistic than "I'll find you a hundred billion tomorrow" McCain.
Either way, we're fucked.
Eh, I don't know. I had some hope for Obama but I've lost a lot of it over the last few weeks. I still think he's the best of the five choices we currently have. In the end I suppose that's all you can hope for in politics -- incremental change/progress. The system is setup to resist wholesale drastic changes in either direction.