How Secure Are Home Alarm Systems?

[Chance]

So a repairman from Monitronics stopped by our house today to upgrade the cell device in our system to 3G. Nice guy, and I chatted with him while he worked. The battery on the system was low, so he had to replace that, in addition to a circuit board.

When he pulled the panel off the wall, I noted it had three wires: one for power, and the other two for a landline phone (which we don't have). Somehow I imagined the system was more... robust. I asked:

"So the whole system is controlled from this panel?"
"Yep."
"...So what's to keep s-"
"-Nothing. I know what you're going to ask, and the answer is, 'Nothing.'"

That's not what I had in my head. I figured the monitoring service periodically pings units to see if they're still active, or at least something to ensure a unit hasn't been disabled. I assume any ex-con worth his salt is going to be familiar with this.

Much of my home defense plan has been predicated on the unit eventually calling for help, and hopefully scaring off any intruders before something worse happened. Knowing there's a workaround has left me ill at ease.

So how secure are home alarm systems, really?

[SLG]

Depends what system you get. The kind you have is one of the less secure ones. Im not an expert on these, but i have had a small amount of training. I personally go with a cellular system that i can control and service myself. None of these are amazing, but its still a good layer to have.

[Notso]

I'm no expert but I have had different ones from a few major companies for years now. (I move a lot). Every time I see an install I cringe. The truth is its a layer of defense. In reality it's two things- a deterrent for not so smart criminals and an early warning system for you if your inside asleep. That's about all. The average crook who cases your house might move on if they see any signs of one. If they break in and it goes off, they might run but I think most are going to grab what they can for a few mins and beat feat. I view mine as early warning for the middle of the night. Now how I'm going to react at 2am from REM sleep as that goes off is a different story. I think we envision ourself clearing a house like the best doorkickers but in reality I'll probably run around in a circle twice, run into a wall, have an ND and then pass out only for the dude to step over me and take my tv. The other thing that gets overestimated is how long it takes for the police to get there. I live in a city and it took an hour once. An hour is eternity if the chips are down. Lastly, like any defense, and pardon my paranoia, how integrated are your sensors? What has them and what doesn't. The average system has three or five sensors total. Do they intermesh? Are they different types of sensors to pick up different triggers (glass break, motion, fire, video, sound)? We just picked up a nestcam so we can use it to see what's going on "on the other side of wall" and for things we want to watch.... My poor wife.

I guess in my lowly opinion, like most security situations, plan to be on your own and you won't be disappointed. I think most times they are sold to make people feel safe and secure- the illusion of security.

Sorry for being "negative nancy".

[Vinh]

Normal home alarm systems are particularly useful for letting you know your home has been ransacked while on vacation, and alerting teenage females to imminent rape. Home alarms are last priority, so police response time (that I've personally witnessed three times as a 3rd party clearing the property) tends to be in the 45-60 minute range. Still, monitored home security systems are good for discouraging hobby criminals. I remember back in the day, if your dial-up internet was interrupted, it meant your phone line had been cut and the home invasion was underway.

[LSP552]

Whatever system you use, it should have active monitoring. It's also useful to have a panic button. Police response to a regular alarm call can be slow, but a panic alert generally means an active issue underway.

A key fob with panic button is a handy nightstand option.

[BehindBlueI's]

Mine pings via the cell network.

An alarm is the difference between a few minute smash n grab vs hours cleaning you out and grabbing the safe.

[LittleLebowski]

Depends what system you get. The kind you have is one of the less secure ones. Im not an expert on these, but i have had a small amount of training. I personally go with a cellular system that i can control and service myself. None of these are amazing, but its still a good layer to have.

Key word highlighted
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[David S.]

GunNuts: Interview With a burglar.. This 45 min interview covers a lot of this stuff.

[Chance]

I hadn't considered that responding to alarms was a low priority for law enforcement. I need to do some recalculating.

In other news, "It Takes a Thief" is on YouTube! Just found it. Awesome series. Discovery Channel show (back when Discovery was about actual information), and the essential premise is that two ex cons find a house that's easy to rob. In exchange for letting one of the hosts rob the house, Discovery will provide them with a state of the art security system. The crew sets up cameras in the house, and while one host robs the house, the other sits with the owners and watches the footage. Seeing how much the guy can steal in the span of about five minutes is amazing.

Highly recommended watching for civilians. The first episode is here.

[Maple Syrup Actual]

My last career was doing commercial telecom work. I still do a bit of it, actually, because the money's good and banking on print media...

Anyway, it's totally common for guys like me to shut off all the phones to a place like, say, a bank. I go warn them, and then I cut everything. The alarm goes off. On very rare occasions this generates an extremely limited police response, if the alarm has a secondary line, like a cell phone, to call out on. I think I have seen this maybe half a dozen times.

A few months ago, I cut the phones to a commercial building at around 5 am. Then I opened an exterior door, which they'd left alarmed, I guess forgetting that I was coming in that morning. I did a bunch of work inside with the alarm going off. It was a big medical centre, with a law office upstairs, in a sketchy part of town. The police station is three blocks away. It took half an hour for anyone to show up. I introduced myself and off he went.

It's a layer, but if you want it to be anything beyond a seatbelt made of packing tape, A) make it cellular, and B) pay a lot more for it than you're going to.

Plenty of places have the phone lines cut, and they only know that there's an annoying beep once in a while. If those alarms went off, unless someone ELSE phoned it in, nobody'd know.

For someone with basic knowledge of phone and cable systems, cutting phone lines is a two minute task and rarely requires access to secure areas. I popped the lid off the underground that feeds my local police station - this is a station of maybe 500 officers - and it was secured with a little force I like to call "gravity". If you could lift the vault door by it's attached handle, you could cut the 200x cable feeding the police station.

Telecom grids are WILDLY nonsecure.