[Noisebridge-discuss] Thoughts on establishing commitment to NB

[Leif Ryge]

On Tue, Jun 04, 2013 at 03:03:46AM -0700, Eric W. Rasmussen wrote:
> HA!
> 
> I stopped by last week and noticed that my Money Box locks have been
> circumvented.
> 
> The donation box that I built for the t-shirts remains, but the
> cable/lock is gone.
> 
> I made a lock and cable for the front door donation box.  The cable
> has been cut. The box has been broken because no one has the keys
> for the lock. I tried to give Danny the keys to the boxes last year
> but he wouldn't accept them. I tried to give the keys to Snail
> (President) but she looked at me like I was an inconvenience.
> 
> Knowing this, it would not be difficult to walk in and walk out with
> a donation box.
> 
> Regards

Even before the lid on the plastic box was broken, it was possible to
reach inside past the cable lock you installed, but for some reason, the
lid quickly got broken too. But the lock remained for quite a long time.

If you couldn't get someone to accept the keys, why would you leave the
lock there? Was it because you knew the lock wouldn't stop the box from
being emptied? Did you think potential thieves would see a trivially
circumventable lock and be discouraged from stealing the money?

I think that the lock was *encouraging* rather than discouraging theft,
so a few weeks ago (after someone told me they were concerned that the
box was not secure) I finally cut the cable off the box.

> On 06/04/2013 02:21 AM, Jake wrote:
> >As if that weren't bad enough, i KNOW people steal money from both
> >the t-shirt donation box and the noisebridge donation box.  We
> >don't empty them nearly often enough and really, it's pretty
> >pathetic how poor our cashbox security is considering we're
> >supposed to be hackers.
[...]

I'm a hacker who thinks physically securing a cashbox is a difficult
problem and it is easier to have a low-security box and empty it
frequently. I agree we don't empty it nearly often enough; I've done it
a few times and I'll try to do it more frequently.

I haven't emptied the front box recently because someone put a bunch
more tape on it again and I don't have a key to the lock and haven't
bothered to cut through the tape yet.

If anyone wants to build what they think is a secure cash box, please
make sure to give keys to enough people that the box can be emptied
regularly!

~leif
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