[494] in Resnet-Forum
lab security
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (June R. Quackenbush)
Sat Feb 18 10:25:55 1995
To: resnet-forum@MIT.EDU
Cc: qtjrq@mailbox.syr.edu
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 10:17:19 -0500
From: "June R. Quackenbush" <qtjrq@mailbox.syr.edu>
At Syracuse University, we have 7 24/7 labs.....all but one are nested inside
buildings that have some sort of access control (that are not under our
control). That is, they are in residence halls or classroom buildings, the
access to which are limited to those who live in the buildings or have special
privileges to get into the academic buildings after hours. All of these
rooms have only physical security....that is the equipment is cabled down.
Until this semester, we have had *very* little problem with theft or vandalism.
But, one room in particular has had what I would term a serious problem...
someone has stolen memory out of half of the machines...so we tightened up
the physical security on the cpu's... Note that none of these labs are
ever staffed....they are checked throughout the day to make sure equipment is
working and printers have paper and toner, but no continual staffing.
On the large lab (80 machines) that we control entirely (the door to the lab
is an outside door), we are using a combination of fiberoptic, cardkey, and
camera systems. The door is locked all of the time, even the 16 hours a day
that we staff the lab with consultants. And, yes, there is a lot of
"tail-gating"...but, we have had no problem with this lab at all (knock on
wood).
The fiber optic alarm system, if kinked tightly or broken, sets of an
incredibly annoying high-pitched alarm in the lab and at Security as well.
The cameras are pointed at both doors.
When we first installed the fiber optics, we had a lot of false alarms, but
since our own Physical Plant was responsible for the installation, they
worked pretty hard to get it nailed down to the right degree of sensitivity
(they didn't appreciate the late night calls to make adjustments)...and
the Security staff were amazingly patient.
The few times the alarm has gone off when something suspicious has happened,
Security was able to locate the culprits....because, even though there was
tailgating, there were records of at least some of the people in the lab
at any given time...that combined with the film images of people helped
pinpoint the students who had set off the alarms. In none of the cases did
anyone succeed in stealing anything. I think the alarm going off simply
scared them away....because there were other people in the room.
The biggest deterrent, I think, is that this lab is *never* empty...unlike
the smaller labs nested in the buildings, where it might be likely there would
be only one or two people there late on a Saturday night, this lab never has
fewer than 1/2 dozen people in it. ...and if an alarm goes off, it's pretty
difficult to explain to those people that they should ignore it. Our
technicians all have the capability of disabling the alarm before they do any
work....so if an alarm goes of, it's because someone is trying to steal
something.
For those who don't know much about Syracuse, we too are an urban campus.
-June
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June Quackenbush Syracuse University 315-443-4385 qtjrq@syr.edu
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