New security measure, wondering what you think Options

[Thistledown]

Just a really simple idea that I had for building security, and I was wondering what you thought about it. And ways to circumvent it.

Basically, taking the long plastic drapes that you see in food services and stuff. Clear plastic, about 1/16 inch thick, goes from cieling to floor. Today they're used for keeping flys out of a room, or temperature, breeze, etc. The pieces are about a foot wide, and overlap by a few inches. They are made so that anybody can just walk through them and they part away.

Now, take those, and drape them accross a halway, with a camera or some kind of motion sensor on them. Along comes mr. invisible shadowrunner. Any attempt to walk through it is easy enough, but sets off some alarm, from the plasitc sheets moving. For being really secure, add a ward to it to stop astral's.


So, any ideas on how a runner can get by them?

[Austere Emancipa...]

It's certainly more stylish than the ultrasound, millimeter wave radar, heat, magnetic field and vibration sensors. :)

To get around them, if they're only watched with a camera or a similar easily fooled sensor, you can use an illusion that makes it look like they aren't being moved, or you can mess with the camera itself. Of course no one would protect their facility like that -- they'd be connected to vibration sensors and electronic currents that would always let you know if someone passes through them unless they've taken hold of the facility's CCSS.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Apr 28 2004, 02:05 AM

[Herald of Verjig...]

If you're going with something like that, add a bit of style. Get those beaded curtains (not sure the proper name, it's a bunch of strings with beads hanging down over an entryway). It looks decorative, will be close enough together that even the smallest gnome or fox-shifter will disrupt it and is less obvious as a security measure.

It is still at risk of imaginative avoidance, but probably costs less than many other ways to stop invisible intruders.

[mfb]

you can also hack the camera slave, same as you'd handle any other camera. but if you taped conductive material in a connecting line across the plastic strips, and ran a current through it that kept the alarm circuits from activating...

[Eyeless Blond]

[Smiley]

Hell YES. Consider that idea stolen. With a motion sensor instead of cameras and other equally "easily fooled" ( :please: ) security measures, i think you have a winner there.

[Arethusa]

It's a solid and cheap measure, but not a good one for use everywhere. Remember that setting one of those up is fine for low traffic areas, but for anything that sustains decent volumes of people, it's not really practical, and if equipment of any sort has to pass through, it's really not usable at all. Or course, you could concievably conceal it in a wall, but that creates architectural problems.

[Smiley]

But PRIMO for use when you have a mage in your campaign who trid phantasms everyone into invisibility. Sweeeeeeeeeet! :grinbig:

[Capt. Dave]

[Abstruse]

GOD I hate those things...I work at a Remote Encoding Center for the US Post Office and for some unknown reason, we have those damn things leading into the workroom floor. It's not even like we handle any mail or anything, it's a REMOTE Encoding Center...it's just a bunch of computer terminals with digital pictures of the mail on them! And we have those damn plastic strip things! Annoys the hell out of us because when you walk through them, they swing backwards and if you're walking behind someone who's not watching who's behind them or are just a prick, you get slapped in the face by the things...

Something like that might work as a security measure though if you ran a very light current through them (assuming they have conductive materials inside them) or coupled with a motion sensor rather than just a camera, but only if it's used for security after business hours. Ours aren't for security, though, as we have a maglock (I don't know what else to call it, it's a powerful electromagnetic lock set to unlock for 10 seconds when the correct coded card is slid through the reader) and a "security guard" at the door at all hours, plus a few cameras. I try not to talk about the security up there much as I get enough weird looks from people as it is...good idea though for after-hours when there's not any traffic...

PS. Our stupid plastic curtains are sure in a high traffic area. It's the main door leading to the workroom floor, and we have over 1500 employees at the center working round the clock, so people are going through them all the time. Everyone hates them, but no one's bothered getting them replaced or even asked why they're there in the first place.

The Abstruse One

[Talia Invierno]

[weighing in late] ... Like. Like very much :vegm:

[Cain]

Heh. One facility I created had Zen sand gardens surrounding the place. It gave the invisible shadowrunneers a nasty shock when they walked across it, and the miniguns opened up on them.

[Austere Emancipa...]

That's the fun thing about people who trust their Improved Invisibility too much: not only is it incredibly easy to get around, you can get around it in very stylish ways.

The VEGM, of course, adds these strips, sand gardens and other oddities purely as a distraction for the players, while the ultrasound, millimeter wave radar, heat, magnetic field and vibration sensors spot them and keep absolute track of all their actions anyway.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Apr 29 2004, 01:41 AM

[gknoy]

[Dog]

I don't get it. I can picture the plastic curtain things, but what can they do that a door can't? Why not just put a door there? Your sensor, whatever it might be, can tell you when the door opens, right? Plus, you can lock a door.

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Abstruse]

Or you don't have the money to buy a full-security suite.

Are they really called maglocks in the present day though? I mean I always thought it was a name SR used before they were in common use, and now most offices use them and probably call them something else...

The Abstruse One

[TinkerGnome]

Yeah, maglocks are called maglocks, even today ;)

They're not very good, though. You generally want to go with an electromechanical lock which stays closed in the event of a power outage. Maglocks pop right open if you've got no power to them.

[Dog]

If you can illusion a door to make it look closed, can't you illusion sand to make it look undisturbed? I do like it for the sublty though. Most guys don't think about if they're leaving tracks. How about a smoke machine? Hell, get enough incense burning and you'll see the air currents left by someone invisible walking through the room. I guess the trick to overcoming illusion spells is to look for secondary effects of a person's presence that the infiltrator hasn't thought of to cover. And guess what, that means more GM detail work. Cool.

Oh, yeah. Speaking of maglocks. There are some that are designed with no card reader/ keypad, or anything on the outside, just a button on the inside, manned 24/7. That could be challenging for a runner. Of course, any decent runner can find a way through that, but it's good for variety for surprise.

[Xirces]

[TinkerGnome]

Electromechanical locks are generally faced on the reverse side with panic bar style openers which are strictly mechanical. You still have to go through whatever access control methods you normally have to in order to exit, it's just that you can do so without power if need be (they should set off alarms if you pull a fire exit while the power's on).

[Crusher Bob]

The ones we had at the looney bin I worked at had mechanical locks that would trip if the power went off, so the doors would stay locked, The exit doors (iirc) had the push bar type things that you could use to get out, but they would set off the fire alarm. Thankfully, I wasn't there the power went out (thus the motion detectors in the halls stopped working) all sorts of silliness went on that night... :(

[Xirces]

That's an good point and ruins my stupid, flippant comment :)

. However I've worked in places where you have to swipe in and out through multiple security zones (which then serves as an occupancy register and prevents access to unauthorised areas). If a door is secured from both sides in any emergency it has be freely open - there's not a lot you can do to stop that.

I've been looking a lot at security design recently IRL and when you start applying real world requirements to SR it gets kinda interesting. If I wanted to secure a facility with SR tech and magic (and matrix, since that equates most to my real interest) I'd have a hellishly fun time.

Always remember that you're securing something for a reason - you have to balance the cost of the security (including lost productivity) against the value of the protected and the risk of an "incident". Primarily the aim is to mitigate risk (rather than eliminate) - which means that anyone determined enough will ALWAYS be able to bypass any security system you have in place (of course the level of skill and determination required will vary). Which of course makes the game more interesting...

[GreatChicken]

While it's possible for the system to look fairly innoculous, how's about making the system almost invisible?

With nanotech, produce absolutely thin, atom thick, threads. They'd barely be seen, if at all, will have about the consistency of air, and can still be used the same way....although this modification makes the system TOO sensitive, cans camera use and makes the motion sensor a requirement....

[Crusher Bob]

The problem there is that random air flows will tend to set the thing off. The whole point fo the system is a cheap alternative to pressure plates, radar, and robotic dogs with bees in their mouths.

Hmm, to defeat illusion spells covering the thing, have ye computer display 'random' color patterns on the curtain, then check them with the camera. Since an illusion can't match the random patterns (they would cycle too fast), you can probably stop worrying about trid phantasm too.