Security Summary

[hbn7hj]

Thank you to all who posted actual events or experiences.

Looks like security can be divided into two sections.

Vehicle security
Protection from vehicle content theft.
Hardened door locks (jimmijammer.com and others)
Regular car alarm without motion, noise, or
glass breaking sensors to eliminate false alarms
Loud inside siren tied to the dome light.
Safe bolted to structure for valuables.
Motion detector porch light.

Protection from vehicle theft
An alarm system tied into an immobilizer or a
hidden ignition or fuel pump switch.

Personal Security
Park where you can get in the driver's seat and
leave without backing up.
Carry personal weapons you are prepared to use.
Could be a club, could be a gun if that is your
style.
Carry Mace, Bear spray, Wasp repellant, personal air horn,
or super bright flashlight. Have a plan

Just ideas, add or delete to suit your own style.

[rowiebowie]

Good recap. Thank you for starting a stimulating previous thread.

And a thanks to the moderators for letting the previous thread run it's own course.
.

[gregmchugh]

I think the wasp spray is something people suggest at times but I don’t recall anyone actually using it.

Bear spray is legal to carry in the US and can be taken into Canada.

Mace is easy to buy but cannot be taken into Canada and is not legal everywhere in the US.

Dog spray is another alternative in the US but cannot be taken into Canada as far as I have seen.

https://www.pepper-spray-store.com/pages/laws

[InterBlog]

The spray that is legal in Canada has an actual bear's picture on the front of the can, so that there is no doubt about its intended use. Generics are not legal. I discussed this with a Canadian border security agent on my most recent crossing.

Camera systems can be powerful crime deterrents. I started this other thread to track the development of a mobile 4-camera DVR system that I eventually hope to install to replace the hodge podge of independent measures that I'm using right now.

[hbn7hj]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

The spray that is legal in Canada has an actual bear's picture on the front of the can, so that there is no doubt about its intended use.

Mace's website says Bear Spray is one tenth the strength of personal defense spray because the extra strength is not needed and makes it tougher for the bear to recover.

If you find a four channel solid state DVR I'm sure some of us are interested. We will worry about 12volt/120volt and battery draw later. Pretty sure I don't have the battery capacity for it but it sounds like an interesting technical excercise.

In my reading I found that breaking in to an RV while occupied at night is much more common in Europe. Silent entry grab purses and wallets before the occupants can react.

Not done in the US probably because they might get their "head blown clean off." Most US RVers seem to have dogs, too.

[avanti]

4-channel DVR:
You can get one of those 360-degree "Bird View" camera systems for a couple hundred of dollars. They take four fish-eye camera inputs and record them in four quadrants of a single video stream. Post-processing fuses the four images into a single "bird's eye" view. They make a pretty good security camera.

I installed one in our Sprinter a few years ago. Here is a video showing the raw video:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/412063...posted-public/

[GallenH]

avanti: Very interesting. Who's the maker?

[avanti]

Originally Posted by GallenH

avanti: Very interesting. Who's the maker?

Random Chinese manufacturer:

https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...392986084.html

This was a fairly random choice, and was several years ago. There are lots of options.

Looks like the price has dropped to $50!

[InterBlog]

On top of all the other security tick boxes, don't forget about the usual types of theft for which we are all vulnerable whether we are on the road or not.

I hatched this other thread to describe the "inside job" fraud that we experienced this week when two unauthorized cell numbers were added to my husband's AT&T account. This occurred in conjunction with our addition of the Mobley in-vehicle cellular hotspot. By "inside job" I mean that it was done by a worker who had the authority to modify his AT&T account parameters.

We thought we had the mess under control until we double-checked this morning and found that $3,069 was still scheduled to draft out of my husband's checking account on his monthly AT&T bill, for which only $109 represents legitimate charges. Beware of autodraft.

I'm still not sure the case is resolved, and we have no idea how much additional personal identity information has been compromised during this process. He has to monitor his credit reports daily now.

All this headache for the sake of a mobile hotspot which I really wish I'd never heard of.