Question on security

[mishab]

Last night I tried to show off a front of our office security guy telling him about my recent advances with Elk setup. He was impressed what Elk can do and "approved" my purchase.

Then I walked him through the security diagram and he said something that made me think that this whole thing is far more complex. I need your advice.

Well he said, and i agree, that a security system is reliable only when your phone line is present 24x7. He said that a thief upon entering your home will hear a siren and will have 3 options:
- run away and hide
- keep going inside as police wont arrive in next 5-10 min
- cut the phone wires and go inside.

Obviously I can silence the alarm and make it call the monitoring service and then fire off the siren. He also said that placing a decal on each door just makes thief aware of a security system inside the house so one will without a doubt cut the phone line first.

anyway, i think you know where i am coming from here. I like the idea of having the siren on at night so i can wake up if something is up, but what should it be when i am not home?

please let me know your take on this.

- misha

 

[AutomatedOutlet]

I'd keep the siren on. It will scare away most crooks I think. In addidion, if the police do come, they will have a confirmation that an alarm went off and that no one is there to turn it off.

 

[bfisher]

I would make sure all the lights in the house automatically come on too during a break-in. This will help scare off any intruders considering going in...

 

[rfdesq]

I would also look into a cellular backup to protect against cut phone lines.

 

[v1rtu0s1ty]

guys, this thread reminded me something I did back when I was 12 yrs old. It's for shutting down or making the phone ineffective. I cut a working rj11 wire. Then I shorted the red and green wire. So it's now in the looping mode. I remember that when my brother always stays on the phone for 3 hours, and he doesn't prepare me food, I'd grab that hack and go to another wallplate and insert that connector. Suddenly, phone line becomes dead. LOL. I don't know if it's going to work here though in US. I have a feeling it's going to work.

So assuming a burglar enters the house and has that RJ11 hack, all he has to do is find a phone line in the kitchen, remove it from the wall, and connect his hack. Can you guys verify this since I don't have extra phone wire?

Another lesson learned is that, it is always a nice idea to have separate/dedicated/padlocked phone line for security.

Thanks.

Neil

 

[electriclight]

The shorted RJ11 will not work in this case. When the M1 grabs the phone line it disconnects the house side of the RJ31 jack. It would work on the phone company side of the RJ31, that is if you had any jacks on that side.

 

[v1rtu0s1ty]

The shorted RJ11 will not work in this case. When the M1 grabs the phone line it disconnects the house side of the RJ31 jack. It would work on the phone company side of the RJ31, that is if you had any jacks on that side.

That's an excellent feature!!!

I can't wait to have it. Thank you very much for the info!

 

[mustangcoupe]

But now with cellular and voip in all diffrent configurations (fiber, DSL, Cable and maybe some day broadband over power lines) what is the thief going to need to cut to kill the phone lines? even though I use VOIP over my high speed cable I still have phone wires connected to my house.

I am also thinking can I have my wifi router (using non-standard firmware) actually use someone elses wifi (I have a few in the neighborhood I can connect to) then send me an email using the neighbors wifi (anyone done this?) that there is a alarm and also phone trouble... then they would have to cut everyting including power to my house to make it not notify me

 

[jeffx]

All security panels should be wired this way.

Main line --> Security Panel --> House Phone Jacks

Mine is a little more complex:

Main line --> Security Panel --> Intercom System (2-way monitoring) --> HAL2000 --> House phone jacks

 

[IVB]

The shorted RJ11 will not work in this case. When the M1 grabs the phone line it disconnects the house side of the RJ31 jack. It would work on the phone company side of the RJ31, that is if you had any jacks on that side.

It's actually much easier to disable the security system in my house (not for long, though - i'm working on it). In my case the phone lines run from the telephone pole, down to my house, inside the house from a location 4' off the ground and 10' from the street. Not just me, every house in my neighborhood is like this. It's an old neighborhood, the newest house is 90 years old.

I mentioned in another thread that when my neighbors were razzing me about the amount of security I was putting in and that I was encasing the telephone lines in pipe, I looked at them, walked literally 3 [long] steps to their phone line, made a sniipping sound, and said "there. Now your fancy ass security system doesn't work."

Took them all of 15 seconds to say "eh, how are you planning on encasing your phone line again".

 

[v1rtu0s1ty]

But now with cellular and voip in all diffrent configurations (fiber, DSL, Cable and maybe some day broadband over power lines) what is the thief going to need to cut to kill the phone lines? even though I use VOIP over my high speed cable I still have phone wires connected to my house.

I am also thinking can I have my wifi router (using non-standard firmware) actually use someone elses wifi (I have a few in the neighborhood I can connect to) then send me an email using the neighbors wifi (anyone done this?) that there is a alarm and also phone trouble... then they would have to cut everyting including power to my house to make it not notify me

Look at this kind of setup, you need a mechanism on either firewalls(1 firewall will work but 2 is better for master/backup) that it knows that your current internet provider is down similar to Cisco's HSRP protocol or the open CARP. I've done CARP before but single gateway. In your case, you have 2 gateways, like load balancing but one is idle. And, huge issue is, will your neighbor allow you to do this? Not unless they are your relatives.

 

[mustangcoupe]

It's actually much easier to disable the security system in my house (not for long, though - i'm working on it). In my case the phone lines run from the telephone pole, down to my house, inside the house from a location 4' off the ground and 10' from the street. Not just me, every house in my neighborhood is like this. It's an old neighborhood, the newest house is 90 years old.

Not just your neighborhood... it is almost all the houses here in the city I live in. all wires are arial and run to the houses and terminate near the ground on the outside wall then enter the house for your inside wiring....

 

[v1rtu0s1ty]

I need your recommendation folks. Since I have a new house, it's nice to have the demarc point protected. Usually, for the phone line, the demarc point is outside the house, housed in a box. Is there any box that you know off that has lock? And should I install this housing myself? Which box do you recommend though, brand please?

 

[noshali]

Here is another one.....since most of us have our elk connected to the ethernet module...add a switch if that is the only CAT5 wire coming in and for 9.99 get a separate vonage line...500 incming and 500 outgoing minutes, connect the connection to line straight to the elk. Add $9 for security monitoring services and you don't have to pay the 39.99 that you used to pay ADT. Plus this way the intruder could do all he wants to the phone lines outside and inside the house.

this way the intruder will have to cut the cable outside for you to lose the connection.

I like the cellular idea but have no idea what it takes to do this.

thanks & Regards,

 

[rfdesq]

I like the cellular idea but have no idea what it takes to do this.

A cellular transmitter from Uplink, an ELK M1XSP, and $7.50 per month to NextAlarm.