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Self-stocking internet fridge faces a delivery come down

Lee D Silver badge

Securing your house is pointless. It's impossible and expensive.

What you need to do is ensure that entry requires FORCED ENTRY. They need to break a window, or a door or a cat flap or whatever in order to get in.

Then your insurance is covered, a crime has definitely been committed (even if they couldn't get it), they risk attracting attention, and you know how they got in.

Any kind of system that allows people to open stuff without forcing entry is really useless, no matter how high-tech it is. Fingerprint and eye-print scanners? Useless if they can be faked, unplugged, unscrewed, the wires tapped into and then replaced without anyone noticing, a wireless signal intercepted, etc.

All you need to do is make sure that the easiest route is for them to have to break something, and for that something to not be "the house" for replacement-cost purposes.

I'm speaking as someone with an RFID-controlled alley gate. Because it lets you into the alley. Which gets you no more access to my house (hey, you might be able to nick an Amazon parcel left there earlier that day, that's about it). It doesn't get you into the neighbour's, my back garden, out-of-sight (in fact, doing so puts you in front of two cameras that I monitor from work, which alert me if the gate is opened even legitimately, so I can monitor parcel deliveries.

To get anywhere else, you need to cause damage, probably on show, certainly including snapping of fences and trellis when you're balancing on top of them trying to jump over them, and then you end up in a slightly quieter spot with even heftier locked doors and even more cameras that send alerts to my smartphone.

The RFID-controlled gate is for MY convenience. It lets me pick up parcels without having to walk all the way round and unlock every door. It gives me a place I can tell couriers to deliver to, and watch them doing so. It gives me a place I can have neighbours put stuff more-securely than leaving on my doorstep. And it lets my girlfriend ride her bike straight through into the alley on a rainy day and then sort it out later, while it stays behind an RFID-controlled gate that beeps inside the house when it's opened.

But the actual security? Very low-tech for the most part. Locked windows. Locked doors. Wired alarm that texts me. Wired cameras that I can access from work (including a "lost-signal" message if they are cut).

Why on earth you'd want anything able to open your HOUSE door, I can't fathom. But they can deliver behind my alley-gate, or I can even supply a keyfob if I know they're coming, or I can open it remotely with a phone call. You won't GET anywhere by doing that, but it provides all the convenience and delivery options required.

Hell, I was half-considering a large delivery box - basically a steel chassis with a one-way door like a bank drop-box. It was too expensive and insecure to bother with.

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