How can you tell if your alarm company's...

[Tim May]

On Saturday, August 9, 2003, at 04:23  PM, Harmon Seaver wrote:

> On Sat, Aug 09, 2003 at 08:52:32AM -0400, Roy M. Silvernail wrote:
>> On Saturday 09 August 2003 02:01, John Kozubik wrote:
>>> On Fri, 8 Aug 2003, Tyler Durden wrote:
>>>> ...in cahoots with the "authorities"?
>>>
>>> Most intelligent and savvy people I know "roll their own" Tivo (PVR, 
>>> etc.)
>>> - I think the answer to your question is that it would be reasonable 
>>> (and
>>> trivial) to roll your own alarm system.
>>
>> But it's not trivial to roll your own 24/7 monitoring company with 
>> the ability
>> to call in the cops.  If the monitoring company is compromised, you're
>> \033653337357 anyway, but without them, all you have is one of those 
>> car
>> alarms that everyone ignores.
>
>    But how important is that anyway? Most any half competent burglar 
> knows
> enough to cut the phone wire before the B&E, so they don't get called. 
> That
> means that, yes, if some dimwit middleschool kid is doing the job, the 
> cops get
> called, otherwise no.
>

Cellphones are cheap enough, and monthly charges are small enough when 
N machines share the same monthly account charge (Dad, Mom, Johnnie, 
Suzy, and Alarm). I would be surprised if today's alarm companies 
already aren't making good use of cellphones.

I have a couple of perimeter lights and alarms on solar panels. Nothing 
to cut without either first using a ladder or, possibly, an accurate 
pellet gun to somehow disable the electronics. (One is mounted under 
the eaves of my roof, very high up. I may put another one in a tall 
oak.)


I've also considered installing a full system with a beeper, with 
802.11b cameras wirelessly sending to a laptop on a large battery. (If 
invaders/thieves/government agents find the laptop, in a closet devoted 
to this, they may not find the second such receiver, possibly hidden 
quite well. Or, for those who live near others, kept in a closet in the 
home of a friend. And even if they find it, I'll presumably still know 
I was invaded.)

I figure that for a few thousand dollars and a spare laptop or two I 
could have a system very resistant to cutting phone or power lines, and 
something which would make surreptitious entry teams think twice. 
(Leave a couple of the 802.11b cameras visible, put another behind a 
Lexan plate, etc.)



--Tim May
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any 
member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm 
to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient 
warrant." --John Stuart Mill