I was walking through resortsworld when a security guard started walking next to us. After about 50 feet, he demanded our ID, informed us we were on private property, and threatened to have us arrested for trespassing, all in the same sentence. The issue was that my colleague was one of the amateur radio VE for the ham radio village and happened to have his handheld with him. The guard was aggressive, entitled, and arrogant.
Yesterday, I poked another friend to see where they were at the conference. They were not at the conference. They were stuck at resorts world three hours after the conference had started. Their conference badges had been confiscated by security. The security team had tried to force them to throw them in the garbage, and for a while it appeared that security had thrown them away after they had confiscated them. It’s literally just a fancy gameboy!
This isn’t a safety issue, it’s deliberate, malicious abuse by a vendor who knowingly sold a discounted room block to defcon conference attendees and then, through persistent and abusive behavior, tried to force those customers to leave once they checked in. The issue was mentioned early in closing ceremonies as something that will be addressed with the vendor once all conference attendees have been checked out of the hotels. This wasn’t random room check for caches of weapons. It was not a safety search. It was luggage contents searches for the lulz, seemingly intended as harassment. Either they didn’t want us there in the first place, or they wanted the revenue for the rooms forfeited. This was not behavior in good faith and the specific acts that I witnessed personally and others whom I trust communicated to me that they had experienced directly, could only be intended as harassment or profoundly extreme incompetence.
For 20 years, I’ve stayed almost exclusively at Hilton properties when I travel, with the exception of Vegas for HSC. I’m almost certain to switch to another company after this, unless they issue a really, really, excellent apology.
Quit your BS excuses about how this was a legitimate safety issue. This was almost entirely limited to one hotel. Somehow another 10+ major hotels, including Caesars who non-renewed the conference contract, managed to not do any of this.
For instances where security gets that egregious, you may want to consider not just complaining to the hotel. Especially where people have an incident well documented, it may be worth filing a complaint with the state licensing agency. In Nevada, private security personnel and agencies fall under jurisdiction of the Nevada Private Investigator's Licensing Board (PILB). As a heads up, their website is a bit of a kludge to navigate through.
> Their conference badges had been confiscated by security. The security team had tried to force them to throw them in the garbage, and for a while it appeared that security had thrown them away after they had confiscated them.
I'd consider calling the police in a situation like this. "Officer, these men stole my conference pass, which I paid ($$) for, and they won't give it back."
Police in large American cities are not likely to be of much assistance in this situation. Assuming they attend at all, I would expect them to not understand the nature of the issue and probably proceed to make it much worse.
From other reports, it sounds like hotel security was trained about hackers carrying the Flipper Zero. Maybe they thought the badges were something like that?
My understanding was that every hotel chain brand was basically a franchising operation. You'd probably want to look up the property owner and whoever was operating that specific hotel. They might own hotels of other brands which you'd want to boycott as well.
The irony here is that they have undoubtedly undermined their overall security posture in a meaningful way here.
Imagine singling out a group of people who previously had no ill will towards you for targeted harassment and that this exact same group of people also had the capability to fuck with you in unpredictable ways without getting caught.
This is literally the most fundamental 101 intel / LEO thinking of: means, motive and opportunity.
If I were them I’d be doing my best to make up for this starting with some serious apologies and firing whoever came up with this idiotic idea.
Since the festival shooting Vegas hotels have a policy of entering every room every 24 hours. If you skip housekeeping, they get suspicious and then they send security to check on you.
Some clever hackers figured out how to use the phone system to make them think housekeeping had been there[0], so now they do inspections when BlackHat/DefCon is in town because they don't trust their own tracking systems.
[0] One of the hotels had housekeeping dial *5 on the room phone when they entered the room to clean, and then *5 again when they left. So some hackers would put out their "do not clean" sign and then just dial *5 twice 10 minutes apart so no one would get suspicious.
That's simply not true. I've stayed at PH, TI, and the Venetian over the last 3 years for conferences and personal travel, I pass on housekeeping the whole week, and there have been no security checks like you describe.
I'm white, blue eyed and speak without an accent but I do have friends of shall we say Mediterranean complexion who have run into problems with hotel security.
It's all in the small print too which nobody reads (these hotels have legal advisors).
I think your post contradicts itself. It sounds like they "do inspections" every day of the year.
> Since the festival shooting Vegas hotels have a policy of entering every room every 24 hours
> so now they do inspections when BlackHat/DefCon is in town because they don't trust their own tracking systems
What's the difference between these two statements? It sounds to me like the only point is that they have a manual ledger to track inspections, which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
> What's the difference between these two statements?
One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour.
The other describes that they don't trust their usual implementation during BlackHat/DefCon.
> which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
The whole thing provides probabilistic protection anyway. (Also known as a security theatre, if you want to be uncharitable.) A determined attacker will appear as a model hotel guest up until the point they want to attack. Then they wait until housekeeping is done with their room and move their weapons in the room only after. Hotels are full of people moving luggage around at all hours so this won't be suspicious to anyone.
The policy will probably catch some would be attackers (the dumb ones). It will also probably uncover a lot more drug overdoses/suicides/murders/sudden heart attack victims, several days earlier than they would be uncovered otherwise.
I bet that for every Stephen Paddock found there is at least a hundred "oops this room has a dead person in it for some reason".
I think they mean that cleaning services will passively do inspections, but past cons have marked their rooms as being already cleaned in their system. They do manual inspections during Defcon because they can't rely that cleaning services have gotten to their room.
Holy shit, there are hotels that still do housekeeping every day post COVID? Please name names, I want to stay there! Even better if there are ones that still do real room service where someone wheels a cart into your room, not leaving a bag at the foot of your door.
Last time I traveled the concierge looked at me as if I was some horrible person because I requested daily housekeeping, not this "on demand" nonsense which has sadly become pervasive.
They had that rule, every 24-hour room checks, for a few years after the Mandalay Bay mass shooting in 2017. Since Covid they removed that rule and don't do the room checks every 24 hours, unless, I guess, they really want to do it.
Room service counted as a room check so security only did it if you refused room service.
Sure it does. The reason they do security sweeps is because they don't trust the attendees. Normally they mostly leave it up to the housekeepers. They only do sweeps when big conferences with known "tech nerds" are in town.
Since when is a soldering iron a hacking tool? When I saw that picture on the internet I legitimately thought it was a joke (similar to those magazines telling the parents to look out for "hacking software")
You need to remember that America is stupid enough that working on calculus problems on a plane, is enough to delay the plane and get searched because the person next to you thinks you're a terrorist: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/iv...
I blame Hollywood, not the hotel staff. They can’t be expected to know what each and every stray circuitboard is/does. Not all circuitboards are bombs, but almost all modern bombs have circuit boards.
Vegas local here, after Oct 2017 no Vegas hotel room on the strip is going 24 hours without hotel staff seeing the inside of a room - every hotel has this policy. I don’t know why people expect privacy in Vegas, there are more cameras and technology watching you here than anywhere else in the US.
The obvious question is "would these inspections have stopped Route 91?" I strongly suspect that would have had NO impact. The guest was known to them, was a high roller, known to get comps, and used the service elevator over several days to load the room with weapons hidden in cases. All for the purpose of attacking a large outdoor festival next to the hotel.
The other obvious question is, did the people who "cyberattack" them do so from _inside_ their own hotel? Is there some reason to think simple visual room inspections are going to help prevent their networks from being attacked?
None of these are logical responses to the stated problems. They're just ways to reduce privacy with a very thin corporate liability excuse tacked onto the end of it. I don't trust that they can people safe, and I don't trust their motivations in deploying these "techniques."
I'd rather sleep in the tunnels with the homeless at this point.
Likely, if there were another terrorist (which is not very likely, they usually don't repeat the same thing over and over) the housekeeping would report something weird, and then somebody would file it somewhere, and would sit on it for hours if not days, and then when the shit hits the fan, everybody would trade the blame and claim it wasn't their job to do something about it. I mean, the US Secret Service works this way, do you expect hotel security to be better?
I agree with you that it probably would not have stopped it, but Steve Wynn at the time was convinced his staff would have discovered him.
He claims they implemented policies in 2015 to enter and inspect all rooms after more than 12 hours of DnD. In other interviews he admits they "profile" everyone that enters their hotel.
“ Authorities have said he brought 23 weapons in 10 suitcases into the room and set up cameras inside and out to watch for police closing in on him.”
If they are looking through everyone’s rooms I would hope they find this now as he took days to get all of the guns and ammo up to his suite. I am not law enforcement and can’t say for sure though. The US has done a lot worse in the name of terrorism (I believe this was a terrorist act).
This policy by itself: perhaps not. He did skip a room cleaning one day before the shooting, but he quite probably could have worked around one if he knew it was coming as a matter of policy. It is, however, just one of many changes made, all of which in concert (no pun intended) would make something like that at least significantly harder to do.
For instance, he had bell desk bring 22 large suitcases to his room over a few days. That's a huge red flag that would not go unnoticed now (and there's likely some procedure about logging/reporting since then). Prior to that event, nobody logged or even paid attention to such things. When you work with whales in Vegas, you just get used to eccentric rich people being eccentric rich people. Now you're at least aware of threats from people posing as them.
of course they wouldn't have, but if they don't change their policies at all, they have 2 new problems: some patrons will perceive your property as not taking security seriously if other hotels have "beefed up security" while yours doesn't. Secondly, if there were another shooting, even if it wasn't nearly as big as the Route 91 massacre, in court they could point to your lack of doing anything whatsoever "in the face of the nations worst shooting".
I feel I have privacy in my home here in the Las Vegas suburbs. Surveillance stops at the strip for the most part. But the strip is not “home” for anyone I know and I would never call a hotel * stay at anywhere home. Strangers have access to your room at all times, that is why they provide safes.
Then you must not rent your home. I've lived in rented apartments my entire adult life and while not daily inspections, everywhere I've lived the management has mandatory inspections every few months to check on fire alarms and other maintenance issues as well as making sure residents aren't violating policy by having more than two pets, trashing the apartment, allowing roaches and other pests to fester, etc. It can be annoying, but if I don't own it, it's not really "my" home.
Because it's part of the United States, where personal freedoms are supposedly respected. Reading so many comments describing daily room searches at hotels as just the new normal state of affairs makes me sick. I hadn't been aware that the terrorizing mass media had ruined hotels even harder than they ruined air travel.
The Las Vegas Strip and its hotel casinos are famously one of the most surveillance-heavy areas in the world due to the casinos ostensibly looking for casino cheaters but it goes way beyond that now in the name of "safety"
* If housekeeping was unable to service the room, security will come take a look.
The protocol for DefCon rooms:
* Security comes and takes a look no matter what, and is, from reports, particularly invasive. E.g. asked to look for USB sticks as evidence of "hacking tools": https://x.com/d0rkph0enix/status/1822879409126162779
For those who don't want to follow a X link: Soldering irons, breadboards, USB sticks, and WiFi access points are called out as "hacking tools." What clowns!
* Housekeeping is optional, and not preferred. Housekeeping never shows up.
* Security is never seen once on any floor above the ground level.
This has been my experience in Las Vegas in 5 different hotel rooms in the same hotel this year. These were 3 to 4 day stays. If the stay is longer than that then maybe a visit from security is more likely, but I didn't see them at all in the afternoons, evenings, mornings, any time. There was a security guard at the elevators on 1 day out of all the days I stayed.
The "protocol" probably depends on the hotel, where it's located, the events going on around Las Vegas at the time, and probably what the budget for security is.
The reports of mandatory security coming from "locals" and others in the comments here seem pretty wild to me, and far outside of what I've experienced in Las Vegas in the last year.
I expect privacy in any hotel room, regardless of where I am. Certainly not the same level of privacy I'd expect in my own home, whether purchased or rented. But daily security checks? No way, that's unreasonable. If I've put up the "do not disturb" sign, I expect no one to enter my room, at all, except in an emergency, or in a non-emergency where I'm present and have agreed to let someone in. That seems to me... entirely normal and reasonable to expect.
> there are more cameras and technology watching you here than anywhere else in the US
What does that have to do with it? Just because casinos want to watch what's going on to prevent cheating (or just too-good play), that doesn't mean the hotel-room privacy situation should go to shit.
My last few trips to Vegas I stayed in Airbnbs; I guess I will continue doing that for the foreseeable future when I visit.
This comes as news to me! I’ve stayed in Vegas numerous times since then, and I almost always decline housekeeping. I’ve never had anyone come into the room (to my knowledge, anyway). I wonder how selectively this is enforced.
> I don’t know why people expect privacy in Vegas, there are more cameras and technology watching you here than anywhere else in the US.
Yeah I can't imagine ever willingly going there (eg unless my work forces me to). It's a very curious choice for a community with so many privacy activists. The shooting excuse for the inspections is stupid. Anyone could walk in and set up in 10 minutes.
I'm fascinated by the juxtaposition of the idea that "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" and the assumption that your bedroom should be searched every 24 hours because of a policy.
I had never in my life heard of this before now and I am no stranger to hotels.
I would go straight to the front desk, demand my money back for that day and then never stay with hotel again along with making sure the corporate office got a nice email about their bullshit policy.
Maybe over priced Vegas hotels can do this but any hotel I have ever stayed at needs to make the customer happy because the competition is so fierce. Most hotels will go out of their way to make sure you are happy. Not randomly inspect your room like you are a child.
It is absolutely astonishing to me that Americans call their country "the land of freedom" while at the same time their society keeps on producing more and more bizarre ways to control the citizens, paralleled only by communist regimes. Usually when I try pointing this out they act confused and explain to me that I'm misunderstanding their idea of freedom. "You know what, no adult can be trusted to be left alone in their own room for 24 hours, the official policy is to make regular inspections" turns into "the hotel has freedom to check on their guests, if you don't like it you're free to go to a different hotel (closest one is 10h drive away)"
Some pretty bizzare things happen at UK airport security.
Our government is currently trying to use the recent riots as an excuse for even more surveillance and censorship.
The arguments include "the rioters used social media". That is one reason its going to be easy to catch them. They themselves were posting photos and videos - self-surveillance.
Check into a hotel room in Idaho and this won't happen. Check in to one of the hotels in the city who makes its money on tourism where the worst shooting in the US occurred and here we are. We are talking about 5 Miles of Las Vegas Blvd.
You sure you're allowed to post this? You better double-check with your department of censorship.
Remember that you're also free to open a hotel that doesn't have this policy and there's plenty of cheap land to be had very near Vegas. If you're right that this is something people want then it should be quite successful, maybe it can host the next DefCon. That's the American way to solve the problem.
Additional regulation generally yields less overall freedom.
Why does DEF CON have to happen in Vegas? I can understand staying after Caesars Palace abruptly terminated their contract, but in future years, is there any real glue that keeps people there? I mean supposedly this is one of the most paranoid groups of people congregating in one place. Wanting hotel room privacy should be something that should be factored into the venue-search in-general, right?
Are there any huge advantages to staying in Vegas? Why not another city, perhaps with negotiated privacy for rooms at choice hotels?
I agree that it's probably the best situated for that, but most conferences don't need the best.
Let's look at San Francisco. A city that is not as well-suited for conventions as Las Vegas. Dreamforce (Salesforce's annual conference) draws 40,000 people. DEFCON drew 30,000 this year. DEFCON could easily be held in SF. I'm not suggesting they'd want to or should move to SF, but it would be... fine.
As someone who (very) occasionally goes to conferences, Vegas is fun! I get that. I enjoy Vegas, at least for a few days before I get sick of it. There are good restaurants and shows, and virtually no puritanical laws around alcohol consumption like you find in nearly all other places in the US. It's a 24/7 city, the only one in the US. I see the appeal. (And also get why many people dislike it, largely for the same reasons many people like it.)
But c'mon, there are plenty of other US cities that have the infrastructure to support a conference like DEFCON. Conference organizers pick Vegas because they like it, not because other cities can't support them.
Vegas is a fantastic bang/buck proposition if you can stay away from gambling. It isn't that vegas has the absolute best of everything, it's that the average in vegas bests everyone else's mid-high end options.
Also understand that, the conference, no matter which conference mind, is half the draw, the other half is being in vegas itself. Move it elsewhere and it'll be much, much smaller for that reason alone.
Also, it’s always been in Vegas, so there’s inertia, and part of the draw is the attendance synergy with the rest of the hacker summer camp events like black hat, bsides, and others. There’s no good reason to change, and a lot of good reasons to stay.
I’m not sure what the hotel is hoping to gain here, and the argument in this thread is very weird.
The argument for this in the comments below seems to be justifying this saying that the hotel is doing safety checks because of a prior mass shooting, which was unrelated to DEFCON, or that they’re looking for “suspicious networking equipment” which none of the staff is trained on how to go find let alone even identify.
Moral implication of do not disturb aside, this seems very poorly executed and meaningless. If the management of the hotel for some reason is paranoid and doesn’t like these guests, then don’t accept their business.
The argument is this has been going on for a long time and isn't anything new or surprising. It's even happened at past events and has always been known to the organizers as commonplace. It isn't justifying the behavior, but attempting to put it into context.
I noticed that a hotel I stayed at reworded their door signs to say “cleaning not required,” which seemed to me a sensible way to reframe expectations.
Legal obligations aside, how would a provider of public accommodation figure out who to refuse the business to? Do they size up guests at checkin to see if they look hacker-ish?
Is that more fair than a bumbling effort at deterrence by advertising your existing security policy, of casting eyes in every room every day—a policy you apply uniformly to every member of the public who wants to rent a room?
If they don't want to be an attractive lodging option for DEFCON attendees, maybe they shouldn't reserve a discounted block of rooms for DEFCON attendees.
My understanding from some other conversation was that these rooms were sold as a discounted block to the conference; they knew it was going to be defcon people.
The "inspection" was reportedly carried out in a threatening and illegal manner that held attendees against their will and coerced them to give up private belongings.
The DA should prosecute the "security staff" for their illegal acts and make an example out of them. This is not the first time a hotel has done this, and they will continue to act outside the law until those responsible face felonies and prison time.
They have to know the glorified mall cops doing such inspections have no ability to differentiate "hacking tools" from typical laptops and thumb drives (because they are the same thing).
So the real goal must simply be intimidation. Of course, given the audience, that tactic is unlikely to have the desired effect.
> 1. Every person who makes or mends or causes to be made or mended, or has in his possession in the day or nighttime, any engine, machine, tool, false key, picklock, bit, nippers or implement adapted, designed or commonly used for the commission of burglary, invasion of the home, larceny or other crime, under circumstances evincing an intent to use or employ, or allow the same to be used or employed in the commission of a crime, or knowing that the same is intended to be so used, shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.
Having lock picks in your possession coupled with the circumstances that suggest you intend to use them would be a crime.
It wouldn't be a stretch to find someone with a flipper poking at things could run afoul of this law.
It is in the "a flipper is legal, but be very cautious having it... and if you were some place where you shouldn't be and had a flipper, it could make things worse."
Readit News
Yesterday, I poked another friend to see where they were at the conference. They were not at the conference. They were stuck at resorts world three hours after the conference had started. Their conference badges had been confiscated by security. The security team had tried to force them to throw them in the garbage, and for a while it appeared that security had thrown them away after they had confiscated them. It’s literally just a fancy gameboy!
This isn’t a safety issue, it’s deliberate, malicious abuse by a vendor who knowingly sold a discounted room block to defcon conference attendees and then, through persistent and abusive behavior, tried to force those customers to leave once they checked in. The issue was mentioned early in closing ceremonies as something that will be addressed with the vendor once all conference attendees have been checked out of the hotels. This wasn’t random room check for caches of weapons. It was not a safety search. It was luggage contents searches for the lulz, seemingly intended as harassment. Either they didn’t want us there in the first place, or they wanted the revenue for the rooms forfeited. This was not behavior in good faith and the specific acts that I witnessed personally and others whom I trust communicated to me that they had experienced directly, could only be intended as harassment or profoundly extreme incompetence.
For 20 years, I’ve stayed almost exclusively at Hilton properties when I travel, with the exception of Vegas for HSC. I’m almost certain to switch to another company after this, unless they issue a really, really, excellent apology.
Quit your BS excuses about how this was a legitimate safety issue. This was almost entirely limited to one hotel. Somehow another 10+ major hotels, including Caesars who non-renewed the conference contract, managed to not do any of this.
Edited for spleling.
I'd consider calling the police in a situation like this. "Officer, these men stole my conference pass, which I paid ($$) for, and they won't give it back."
https://www.elliott.org/company-contacts/hilton/
Imagine singling out a group of people who previously had no ill will towards you for targeted harassment and that this exact same group of people also had the capability to fuck with you in unpredictable ways without getting caught.
This is literally the most fundamental 101 intel / LEO thinking of: means, motive and opportunity.
If I were them I’d be doing my best to make up for this starting with some serious apologies and firing whoever came up with this idiotic idea.
Some clever hackers figured out how to use the phone system to make them think housekeeping had been there[0], so now they do inspections when BlackHat/DefCon is in town because they don't trust their own tracking systems.
[0] One of the hotels had housekeeping dial *5 on the room phone when they entered the room to clean, and then *5 again when they left. So some hackers would put out their "do not clean" sign and then just dial *5 twice 10 minutes apart so no one would get suspicious.
It's all in the small print too which nobody reads (these hotels have legal advisors).
I don't understand why you would not want them to clean your room as it's included in the price.
> Since the festival shooting Vegas hotels have a policy of entering every room every 24 hours
> so now they do inspections when BlackHat/DefCon is in town because they don't trust their own tracking systems
What's the difference between these two statements? It sounds to me like the only point is that they have a manual ledger to track inspections, which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
One describes the policy. Which is what they want to achieve. They want to achieve that a hotel employee checks on every room every 24 hour.
The other describes that they don't trust their usual implementation during BlackHat/DefCon.
> which is probably for the best, given that any would-be domestic terrorist would surely know how to use Google and find this information too.
The whole thing provides probabilistic protection anyway. (Also known as a security theatre, if you want to be uncharitable.) A determined attacker will appear as a model hotel guest up until the point they want to attack. Then they wait until housekeeping is done with their room and move their weapons in the room only after. Hotels are full of people moving luggage around at all hours so this won't be suspicious to anyone.
The policy will probably catch some would be attackers (the dumb ones). It will also probably uncover a lot more drug overdoses/suicides/murders/sudden heart attack victims, several days earlier than they would be uncovered otherwise.
I bet that for every Stephen Paddock found there is at least a hundred "oops this room has a dead person in it for some reason".
The protocol for non-DefCon rooms:
* Housekeeping services the room.
* If housekeeping was unable to service the room, security will come take a look.
The protocol for DefCon rooms:
* Security comes and takes a look no matter what, and is, from reports, particularly invasive.
Last time I traveled the concierge looked at me as if I was some horrible person because I requested daily housekeeping, not this "on demand" nonsense which has sadly become pervasive.
They don't change sheets or towels ("for the environment")... just inspect the room, then leave.
Haven't been to the US though...where is the connection to COVID?
Room service counted as a room check so security only did it if you refused room service.
Seems like whoever drafted this policy has no idea what they're talking about given USB drives and empty breadboards are on here
DEFCON attendees having mandatory daily room searches by conference block hotels - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41222930
You need to remember that America is stupid enough that working on calculus problems on a plane, is enough to delay the plane and get searched because the person next to you thinks you're a terrorist: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/iv...
The other obvious question is, did the people who "cyberattack" them do so from _inside_ their own hotel? Is there some reason to think simple visual room inspections are going to help prevent their networks from being attacked?
None of these are logical responses to the stated problems. They're just ways to reduce privacy with a very thin corporate liability excuse tacked onto the end of it. I don't trust that they can people safe, and I don't trust their motivations in deploying these "techniques."
I'd rather sleep in the tunnels with the homeless at this point.
He claims they implemented policies in 2015 to enter and inspect all rooms after more than 12 hours of DnD. In other interviews he admits they "profile" everyone that enters their hotel.
https://nypost.com/2017/10/08/vegas-shooting-wouldnt-have-ha...
If they are looking through everyone’s rooms I would hope they find this now as he took days to get all of the guns and ammo up to his suite. I am not law enforcement and can’t say for sure though. The US has done a lot worse in the name of terrorism (I believe this was a terrorist act).
For instance, he had bell desk bring 22 large suitcases to his room over a few days. That's a huge red flag that would not go unnoticed now (and there's likely some procedure about logging/reporting since then). Prior to that event, nobody logged or even paid attention to such things. When you work with whales in Vegas, you just get used to eccentric rich people being eccentric rich people. Now you're at least aware of threats from people posing as them.
I expect privacy in any home where I live, whether it's for a decade or for a day.
When the door closes, it's "my personal space" for the duration I paid for.
Of course, now Vegas begs to differ.
Deleted Comment
Because it's part of the United States, where personal freedoms are supposedly respected. Reading so many comments describing daily room searches at hotels as just the new normal state of affairs makes me sick. I hadn't been aware that the terrorizing mass media had ruined hotels even harder than they ruined air travel.
The protocol for non-DefCon rooms:
* Housekeeping services the room.
* If housekeeping was unable to service the room, security will come take a look.
The protocol for DefCon rooms:
* Security comes and takes a look no matter what, and is, from reports, particularly invasive. E.g. asked to look for USB sticks as evidence of "hacking tools": https://x.com/d0rkph0enix/status/1822879409126162779
* Housekeeping is optional, and not preferred. Housekeeping never shows up. * Security is never seen once on any floor above the ground level.
This has been my experience in Las Vegas in 5 different hotel rooms in the same hotel this year. These were 3 to 4 day stays. If the stay is longer than that then maybe a visit from security is more likely, but I didn't see them at all in the afternoons, evenings, mornings, any time. There was a security guard at the elevators on 1 day out of all the days I stayed.
The "protocol" probably depends on the hotel, where it's located, the events going on around Las Vegas at the time, and probably what the budget for security is.
The reports of mandatory security coming from "locals" and others in the comments here seem pretty wild to me, and far outside of what I've experienced in Las Vegas in the last year.
I expect privacy in any hotel room, regardless of where I am. Certainly not the same level of privacy I'd expect in my own home, whether purchased or rented. But daily security checks? No way, that's unreasonable. If I've put up the "do not disturb" sign, I expect no one to enter my room, at all, except in an emergency, or in a non-emergency where I'm present and have agreed to let someone in. That seems to me... entirely normal and reasonable to expect.
> there are more cameras and technology watching you here than anywhere else in the US
What does that have to do with it? Just because casinos want to watch what's going on to prevent cheating (or just too-good play), that doesn't mean the hotel-room privacy situation should go to shit.
My last few trips to Vegas I stayed in Airbnbs; I guess I will continue doing that for the foreseeable future when I visit.
Yeah I can't imagine ever willingly going there (eg unless my work forces me to). It's a very curious choice for a community with so many privacy activists. The shooting excuse for the inspections is stupid. Anyone could walk in and set up in 10 minutes.
what motive would they have that is so important that they insist on spending money on low skill headcount to enter thousands of rooms per day?
honestly i'm struggling to sort out what scheme they're running that makes this headcount investment worthwhile.
I would go straight to the front desk, demand my money back for that day and then never stay with hotel again along with making sure the corporate office got a nice email about their bullshit policy.
Maybe over priced Vegas hotels can do this but any hotel I have ever stayed at needs to make the customer happy because the competition is so fierce. Most hotels will go out of their way to make sure you are happy. Not randomly inspect your room like you are a child.
Any longer than 7 days for inspecting and cleaning every room is asking for pest infestations, or worse.
As a hotel customer, I would not want to stay in one that does not a policy of frequent room inspections.
Our government is currently trying to use the recent riots as an excuse for even more surveillance and censorship.
The arguments include "the rioters used social media". That is one reason its going to be easy to catch them. They themselves were posting photos and videos - self-surveillance.
Remember that you're also free to open a hotel that doesn't have this policy and there's plenty of cheap land to be had very near Vegas. If you're right that this is something people want then it should be quite successful, maybe it can host the next DefCon. That's the American way to solve the problem.
Additional regulation generally yields less overall freedom.
Deleted Comment
Are there any huge advantages to staying in Vegas? Why not another city, perhaps with negotiated privacy for rooms at choice hotels?
I would be happy if the location or date of all 3 changed. The peak temperature outside was around 110° all week this year.
Search results are saying that defcon sees some 30k people. The 2023 Chicago Auto Show had 300k. Major city with all the amenities.
https://www.chicagoautoshow.com/the-2023-chicago-auto-show-c...
Historically, Vegas had a cost advantage. I don't know if that's still the case.
Let's look at San Francisco. A city that is not as well-suited for conventions as Las Vegas. Dreamforce (Salesforce's annual conference) draws 40,000 people. DEFCON drew 30,000 this year. DEFCON could easily be held in SF. I'm not suggesting they'd want to or should move to SF, but it would be... fine.
As someone who (very) occasionally goes to conferences, Vegas is fun! I get that. I enjoy Vegas, at least for a few days before I get sick of it. There are good restaurants and shows, and virtually no puritanical laws around alcohol consumption like you find in nearly all other places in the US. It's a 24/7 city, the only one in the US. I see the appeal. (And also get why many people dislike it, largely for the same reasons many people like it.)
But c'mon, there are plenty of other US cities that have the infrastructure to support a conference like DEFCON. Conference organizers pick Vegas because they like it, not because other cities can't support them.
Also understand that, the conference, no matter which conference mind, is half the draw, the other half is being in vegas itself. Move it elsewhere and it'll be much, much smaller for that reason alone.
Also, it’s always been in Vegas, so there’s inertia, and part of the draw is the attendance synergy with the rest of the hacker summer camp events like black hat, bsides, and others. There’s no good reason to change, and a lot of good reasons to stay.
The argument for this in the comments below seems to be justifying this saying that the hotel is doing safety checks because of a prior mass shooting, which was unrelated to DEFCON, or that they’re looking for “suspicious networking equipment” which none of the staff is trained on how to go find let alone even identify.
Moral implication of do not disturb aside, this seems very poorly executed and meaningless. If the management of the hotel for some reason is paranoid and doesn’t like these guests, then don’t accept their business.
Legal obligations aside, how would a provider of public accommodation figure out who to refuse the business to? Do they size up guests at checkin to see if they look hacker-ish?
Is that more fair than a bumbling effort at deterrence by advertising your existing security policy, of casting eyes in every room every day—a policy you apply uniformly to every member of the public who wants to rent a room?
Deleted Comment
The DA should prosecute the "security staff" for their illegal acts and make an example out of them. This is not the first time a hotel has done this, and they will continue to act outside the law until those responsible face felonies and prison time.
Ha ha. In _Vegas_? Not in this timeline. The DA is _not_ on your side in this fight.
(When Spotting the Fed may actually also be useful.)
So the real goal must simply be intimidation. Of course, given the audience, that tactic is unlikely to have the desired effect.
https://www.toool.us/lockpicking-laws.php
> 1. Every person who makes or mends or causes to be made or mended, or has in his possession in the day or nighttime, any engine, machine, tool, false key, picklock, bit, nippers or implement adapted, designed or commonly used for the commission of burglary, invasion of the home, larceny or other crime, under circumstances evincing an intent to use or employ, or allow the same to be used or employed in the commission of a crime, or knowing that the same is intended to be so used, shall be guilty of a gross misdemeanor.
Having lock picks in your possession coupled with the circumstances that suggest you intend to use them would be a crime.
It wouldn't be a stretch to find someone with a flipper poking at things could run afoul of this law.
It is in the "a flipper is legal, but be very cautious having it... and if you were some place where you shouldn't be and had a flipper, it could make things worse."