Wired has a detailed report on a diamond robbery that netted either $100million or $20million, depending upon who you believe. Complete with secret surveillance, crooks who loose control, etc.

Yours,
Joel

Neat read.

That is pure black trenchcoat Shadowrun right there.

The only problem with this article is that it is so awesome that I just sent it to all my players, and therefore, I will be unable to use it as a plot in the future.
Dammit!

Sure you can you just have to reference it before hand. This is going to be like that Italian job. (watch SR cringe at the idea of 10 layers of security to bypass).

wow. I'm reading this and yelling at whoever installed the security on this place. you installed the magnetic door sensors on the OUTSIDE OF THE DOOR?

They look like a late add, there probably wasn't space left in the conduits.

Bypassing the alarms in pitch darkness, by feel, is what really impressed me.

That and they are paid 800,000 to 1.25 mill a year for their prison time when they sell the loot.

Keep in mind that most security measures are more deterrents than actual obstacles. You expect any obvious security to have some form of counter (light sensor: do the job in the dark, etc.) but keep some of them hidden (such as the whole thing in the ceiling, which admittedly was installed poorly: there should not have been an access panel in the room) or otherwise locked away (the foot long key, which they failed at and didn't keep locked up in another section of the building at all).

Heat sensors I'd never thought of how to get around, but the styrofoam is clever. I hadn't thought about insulation material as being a valid solution. Motion sensors are also difficult, but if you train you can move slowly enough (or if the sensor is stupidly built to only alert if BOTH heat and motion then it becomes trivial).

They should have had pressure sensors in the floor.

Indeed, there were some pretty silly failures on the part of whoever set up that safe. Keep in mind, while there were "10 layers of security", as the article says, 7 of them were installed on the door (so perhaps "security systems" would be more accurate than "layers of security").

It is a good reminder however that security is not always implemented perfectly. It's certainly acceptable to have significant flaws in your security that an educated runner could bypass almost trivially (and some of those security tools were trivial to bypass - a key in the utility closet??)

That was a fun read. Thanks.
-paws