[liberationtech] Vandalism and Video Surveillance

[Marc Juul]

On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 2:58 AM, Sean Alexandre <sean at alexan.org> wrote:
> We have a strange problem at our hackerspace, with minor vandalism. At first it
> seemed like someone was just being messy, but now it looks malicious.

This seems like it'd be more suited for the hackerspaces mailing list.

> As one simple example, we recently had a work day to organize the space. Parts
> were put in boxes based on what they were: hard drives, networking equipment,
> etc.  One box had phones, and had four simple touch-tone phones. Someone took
> each of them and put them randomly in other boxes.
>
> There have been other things like this, some worse. We have another room with
> wood and metal working tools, and someone took tools and parts out of their
> containers and spread them around the room.

Honestly, I'm almost not sure whether to take this seriously. I have
never been to a hackerspace where this is not business as usual. If
there is an afterlife, I hope it's a hackerspace where slight disorder
is so out of the ordinary that it is deemed vandalism!

> I have to say that I'm not at the space enough to give details on everything
> that's happened.  But, the general consensus now seems to be that what's
> happening is being done maliciously.

Never attribute to maliciousness what can be explained by stupidity or
not giving a damn.

> Some have spoken in favor of installing video cameras, to surveil the space, as
> a way to stop this.
>
> Others, me included, really don't want to see video surveillance in the space.
>
> Any thoughts on what to do?

This is a conversation that has probably taken place in each and every
hackerspace ever started. I have yet to visit a hackerspace that
actually put up video cameras (but maybe they exist?).

Depending on how high-traffic the space is, logging incidents and
logging entries into the space (user id and time) could give you the
info you're looking for (though again, this may be an unpopular option
for privacy reasons).

There are also encryption schemes that can require e.g. any 9 out of
10 keys to decrypt, which means you could implement video surveillance
that require most or all of the members to consent before the video
can be decrypted and viewed.

Or one of you could spend the few minutes it takes to re-organize the
minor out of place items.

Seriously... other hackerspaces deal with theft, homeless people
sleeping in the space, violent individuals, armed robbery, hate
speech, etc. and they still haven't set up cameras. A certain amount
of disorganization is only to be expected. Even without getting into
privacy issues I find it somewhat hilarious that people at your space
would rather spend time and money setting up a video surveillance
system rather than spend a few minutes cleaning up a mess every now
and again.

-- 
marc/juul



> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Crossposted [1] earlier to discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org [2]
>
> [1] http://lists.hackerspaces.org/pipermail/discuss/2014-March/thread.html#9154
> [2] http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
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