IocTober Day 19 - Hotel door alarm

We’re creating an IoT solution for every day of “IocTober”.

A few years ago I made a conscious effort to bust out of the “mainstream” zeitgeist by unfollowing many tiresome tech dudebros, and instead cultivating a much more diverse selection of the wonderful nerdsphere (for example, see this twitter list I created).

One of the things I learned from getting out of my bubble, was just how much privilege accrues to being a white/cis/straight/first-world male. As John Scalzi said, SWM is “playing life on the lowest difficulty setting” - I’ve never ever had to worry about drink spiking, night time prowlers, dick pics, or dozen other injustices affecting many of my peers. I was skeptical that some of these were even real problems. I learned better.

I see many of my friends talking about the kinds of operational security (“opsec”) measures they must employ to stay safe while travelling, or even in their day-to-day lives. It’s shocking. Men, cut that shit out. Stamp it out when you see it. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

Meanwhile, all this shit still rains on good people. A technical solution is not the right solution, but it’s someting I can offer.

Here are a pair of ideas for hotel opsec:

• intertial sensor alerts when a door is opened or “rattled”

• servo-enabled door immobiliser resists unauthorised ingress

(note: I need to retake the photos for this post, they’ll be along soon)