It isn’t all that uncommon in large buildings or in building complexes to have some sort of security to keep everybody honest and keep any “bad” people out. It never fails to surprise me how easy it is to circumvent most security setups. The most strait forward method usually works best, walk the goods out the front door. Ok, it doesn’t always work but when the setup is not high security it has a tendency to work out just fine – well or I have been quite lucky.
Not that long ago I wanted a new desktop and my coworker Mathew suggested that we simply build one from scratch. I liked the idea of getting my hands dirty with the hardware again, but there was one little snag. I was working out of town and it would take a few days best case for the parts to arrive. Simply put I might check out of my hotel before everything arrives. Well, Mathew suggested we should order the parts and bring them to the office and assemble it after work.
I must not have been using the critical thinking part of my brain as it seemed like a good idea. Once all the parts had arrived we knocked off work early one day and built the computer. It was fun and actually took only a little over an hour to assemble it. We installed the operating system and played around with it over the following week but finally Friday came and it was time to go home. It was only then I considered how it might look if someone started to ask questions why I am leaving with a fully functional tower computer.
We put it back into one of the boxes and then carried out the side entrance through the employee turnstile. I just left about the same time as everyone else and blended in with the crowd. To be honest it was a great computer but even so it was more than a pain carrying it on the train back home.
Yet it was lucky that I didn’t try this in Chicago. That security guard in that building was concerned about a paper bag full of books and some odds and ends from my desk.
“Laws are like spider’s webs, which hold firm when any light, yielding object fall upon them, while a larger thing breaks through and escapes.”
Athenian Solon (638-559 BC):