How do you secure your home lab? Like, physically? From thieves?

Submitted ⁨⁨19⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨paequ2@lemmy.today⁩ to ⁨selfhosted@lemmy.world⁩

As I rely more on my home lab server, I’m starting to worry more about it getting stolen. If someone breaks into my home, I think the server will be a pretty attractive target.

Do y’all just stick it in a closet? That seems not great for cooling…

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kokesh@lemmy.world ⁨11⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I live 40km away from the nearest civilization, in the middle of Swedish wilderness. No neighbors and biggest bear population in europe in the woods. So I feel safe :)

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Hotrod54chevy@lemmy.ml ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I plan on rack mounting things on the second floor, but normally someone running in and ransacking a place isn’t going to bother with a server, especially if it’s loaded down with hard drives. Heck, my NAS is in a desktop case and I hate even having to turn it around 😹

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0x0@lemmy.zip ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Blinking lights don’t really attract thieves… gold ‘n’ cash does.
With that said… put it in a room you can keep closed at all times (watch the temps).

And do have backups offsite.

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ripcord@lemmy.world ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Nothing any more than anything else in my house.

Anything confidential is encrypted with a password. Other stuff is replaceable. And would theoretically be covered by home insurance.

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CameronDev@programming.dev ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Home security first of all, with cameras to deter thiefs. That alone mostly solves the problem, but I’m in a relatively safe area.

My “lab” is just a switch, nuc and unifi cloud key, and while they are warm in their closet, its not super hot.

I have a Kensington lock on the security camera box, but someone could theoretically yank that out of the wall.

The rest really isnt worth breaking in to steal.

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- cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  All a kensington lock does is cause a bit of damage so a potential buyer can tell that the equipment was stolen.
  
  A thief will likely want to steal or destroy the DVR, so make sure it’s well hidden or locked inside a proper safe.
  
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  - CameronDev@programming.dev ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    I’m guessing they can rip the other end of the lock out of the wall tbh.
    
    But realistically, theifs aren’t that sophisticated, they aren’t going to waste time trying to find and destroy the DVR, the will grab whatever valuables they can carry and pawn and leave as fast as possible.
    
    The cameras are really just a deterant, they will move on to an easier house instead of risking it with mine.
    
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fhein@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
I mounted mine on the wall under a desk in a room with no other electronics, and then put up a fake wall in front of the server. It can draw in air from the sides, and exhaust upwards behind the desk. But the only real solution is offsite backup, which will also protect against fire and other disasters.

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- frongt@lemmy.zip ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  What do you do when you need to replace a drive?
  
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  - fhein@lemmy.world ⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    So far that has never happened because I’m not using that much storage :) But I shut it down when I need to turn off the mains electricity, and for powering it on afterwards the fake wall can be lifted off. It’s just the area underneath the desk so the panel might be smaller than it sounds like, and it hangs on some hooks so it’s fairly easy to remove if you know what you’re doing. Painted in the same colour as the wall, and with some some random junk on the floor in front, it blends in quite well though. I think the risk of burglary is fairly low, so it’s primarily to soothe my own paranoia.
    
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CallMeAnAI@lemmy.world ⁨16⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
You are paranoid. And beyond putting a camera outside (minimal but some deterance), you have putting bars on windows and shit.

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Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨15⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
My current server is a normal tower PC on the outside, but it is placed in a remote and inaccessible part of my rooms.

My next one (work in progress) will be placed in a corner of the living room (because the cable from the satellite dish is there). It will not look like a computer. Just a white square box with a table top on it. And it will not make any noise (hopefully).

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scintilla@crust.piefed.social ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Genuine question how hard would it be to rig some form of self destruct to a drive that has to be deactivated before power is lost to it. Obviously their would be a backup power solution for if mains power was lost but would it be feasible and doable without breaking any laws inherently (eg being a trap and killing the thief).

I’m not asking for a friend but I also don’t ever plan to use this knowledge I’m just genuinely curious.

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- betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  There have been some interesting DEFCON talks on the subject.
  
  DEFCON 19: And That’s How I Lost My Eye: Exploring Emergency Data Destruction (w speaker) / Invidious: Nadeko or instance selection
  
  DEF CON 23 - Zoz - And That’s How I Lost My Other Eye…Explorations in Data Destruction (Fixed) / Invidious: Nadeko or instance selection
  
  Some of the Invidious instances are busted due to recent changes but Nadeko seems to be working for now.
  
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Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Cellar, steel-door with face-detection. Only if me (and/or wifey) are present the door opens shortly, video-surveillance, alarm-system. Same for gate and entrance. So you first would have to make your way TO the server-room :-) Might be an overkill (who wants to steal a server?!) but our backups and archives are stored there too, 100% fire-proof. And I value those. Money is replaceable.

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tal@olio.cafe ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
Is your concern compromise of your data or loss of the server?

My guess is that most burglaries don’t wind up with people trying to make use of the data on computers.

As to loss, I mean, do an off-site backup of stuff that you can’t handle losing and in the unlikely case that it gets stolen, be prepared to replace hardware.

If you just want to keep the hardware out of sight and create a minimal barrier, you can get locking, ventillated racks. I donlt know how cost-effective that is; I’d think that that might cost more than the expected value of the loss from theft. If a computer costs $1000 and you have a 1% chance of it being stolen, you should not spend more than $10 on prevention in terms of reducing cost of hardware loss, eveb if that method is 100% effective.

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