I'm at a chapter in my novel where a character needs to access a building littered with security cameras. No guard posts but guards monitering the video feed in a security room. I really sort of despise when writers ask how to write something in THEIR own book. I'm rarely at a loss for creative solutions or ideas but I just don't have the knowledge base for this one. If it comes down to it I'll be able to make something happen (plan on doing some research into disabling electronics shortly) but I would like to hear any suggestions or ideas that I may be able to tweak or format for this chapter.
What access to information does your character have? Does he/she know their maintenance routines? Can he/she just walk straight in with a wax mask dressed up in a suit or maintenance overalls and just blend in? Can he/she use a virus or something to take out their camera network? How long does the character have to plan the action? Can they apply for a job onsite as security beforehand? Can they bribe someone already on the inside? Set off fire alarms and arrive as one of the firefighters? Forge government documents that give them access?
Well, I started the scene with her basically dressed for infiltration. Outside the building late at night. She aquired a pass to get into the building, it's just the security cameras. I can do a rewrite where she goes through something more elaborate but as she is she's set as extremely mentally unstable so I don't see her making the time for too elaborate a plot. I'm seriously thinking about having her go straight chaff grenade like in metal gear lol.
If she's so mentally unstable, wouldn't she just go in guns blazing? That would kind of fit the bill of her character better maybe. I don't know. Maybe take a few crazy friends with her? Does she particularly care for any reason about being seen or caught?
She cares as far as not being able to help her comatose husband. She has reason to believe that the building shes breaking into houses a cure.
A new idea maybe....why not take along a paintball gun and shoot "out" the cameras? If she's crazy she can also bring some pals along to "redecorate" the place with spray paint....think of a non violent animal rights activist protest. Works if people think animal research is happening in the facility and she slips away to do whatever while security is trying to figure out what's happening in all the chaos.
A very viable way to defeat all modern digital security cameras to wear a coller around your neck with 6 high power infer red LED lights. Even in the day time the digital camer picks up the IR signal. if not a coller a base ball cap or hat will do the same. try looking at cctvcameras at night and you will see the IR light flow. Try looking at your tv remote control through your phones camera or picture camer and then press a button. What you end up with on the camer is a body with a bright light as a head. You can use normal light LEDS as well at night as it over loads the lens system too. As a criminal you dont need to cover your face as it cant be seen by the cameras but could be seen by people, so how about a lone ranger mask instead of a full face one, the leds could be sewn into the collor of james bonds tuxedo A thrid option is cheap nasty simple laser pen pointers and chewing gum, sit it on a wall or stab them into the soil and point at a camera, again it over loads the front digital lens, james bond of course would have sucker pad holders, magnetic holders or tripod holders. to get the lazer in the right spot as he could follow the lazer pointer light dot up the wall onto the cameras For the anti criminal, the use of an video, video camera wont be defeated by it, so have a million pound cctv system and a couple of old crappy ones just in case.
With a pass in hand, can she pretend to be an authorized person? That would usually be the optimal way to enter a secure facility. Depending on what she does when inside, someone might not even notice; the guards watching cameras would just see someone who is supposed to be there. Failing that, she could get whatever she needs to leave the facility somehow, making it more vurnerable. Also worth considering, she doesn't have to succeed. She could try, fail, then have to deal with the consequences.
I have been speaking to my cctv guy at work. my day time job involves this stuff. his answer was a recent burglary involved three blokes turning up on site dressed as builders, on each builders head was a hard hat, on the hard hat was a miners light looking head lamp. its extreamly common to have these fitted to builders hard hats. it was not untill afterwards that they found out tthe lights were high power Infer red illuminators. when they looked back at the footage after the crime was found out the next day they had no face or head shots just white blurrs as it had over loaded the cctv sensors. when the police went round asking for descriptions the one guy was desribed as five foot to six foot, dark black white skin with a dark brown blonde hair colour. there is footage but none of the site gaurds or witnesses can remember what they looked like, other than looking like builders heres another pointer, everyone misses out in the james bond films too. in any factory posh offive or B&Q, asda and tescos, everyone has to do it. there is a staff log on system, ID cards and name badges and the like. but theres also a site visitors book, its an old skool way to by pass all the digital security. we turn up as builders and ask to sign in on the builders book, this then gives us a manual ID badge and card to go through the gates. you will also find that a builders badge will open more doors and areas than a staff badge will, after all theres no reason why doris or boris need to get access to the roof when their job is on the 2nd floor, where as bob the builder needs to get all his tools past the x ray scanner as well as onto the roof and into the basements next tot he secret vaults as a builder, a real life one, i find a hard hat and a yellow jacket gets me past all formers of security very easily and more you cock up doing it the better as they expect you to me a moron as your a builder. i have walked straight into high security areas very easily as i did not know they were high security areas, the staff knew not me its very common for that reason that a firm has two seperate forms of door security. you might have bog standard credit card type swipe cards for front doors and main areas and roof access etc. but they have a seperate mag tag system to get through the door where the secret lab is with both systems seperated completley and the inner one on aan internal server free standing system
So basically having that kind of light just shining from you would obscure what the camera catches? It is a great idea I could probably use but it still leaves the problem of security seeing a blurred figure on the grounds. Well she murded the man who had the pass to the highest level of the building where the subatances used for pharmaceutical means are kept. Its basically a government pharm lab but its also a front for the antagonist. I actually did plan on having her "fail" in a way by having her meet a shady group of employees called 'agents' who are basically shells of humans possesed by the antagonist main fighting group, a sort of dark being that can turn to mist and posses or influence people. They trick her to joining their side against the protagonist. She used to be a guardian like the MC but lost her position because of the murder she did to get the pass to save her husband. This character is a very tragic one.
The only way I see around this is cutting the power supply of the facility. And the emergency one. Alarms will set off but then again they won't be able to detect her on the spot and maybe she'll get the time she needs to get her job done. Or do it like Bruce Willis did: I loved that scene.
all most all security breechs at these places are done by staff, not criminals. if you want to get into the bank of england, turn up at the front door and say your a builder come to do some work and as they expect you not to know the rules and regulations they will let you in to the front door while they sort that out, dont hide, anyone hiding is doing something wrong stand out with a orange flashing light on your head with flags, banners and a brass band, and the security will ignor you as no one that loud is not there illegally, so they must be allowed to be there
Take a look at the movie "Inside Man" with Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster, specifically how the criminals enter the bank disguised as painters and defeated the cameras in plain view of everyone. I kind of wonder if that would actually work in real life? I do understand that when you look like you belong, nobody will question you but does a bank or a high security government lab employ someone who has the specific job of second-guessing everything that goes on? It would seem reasonable to have that extra layer of security. Imagine your government has a lab working on a cure for cancer and then someone just dressed like a lab worker, walked in, picked it up and walked out, now the cure you spent $$$$$$$$$ developing is for sale on the open market with a price tag of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ - how would you explain *that* to your voters/investors?
where i presently work we have a security system; main gate with personal gate and two security gaurds a computer. to have a gate pass logged in your name you need to have someone inside the main building raise a gate pass, from there you need to go to reception and sit and wait for someone to do your inductions and then paperwork and passes, unless your names on the system you cant get in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! unless of course someones cocked up, ( which they do alot here) in which case i the builder get a call from security , pete theres a guy called bob here and he is working f or you and cant get in. i then ask the security gaurd to log bob into the system and pay the required fee of four dough nuts later on that day, bob then diverts from the main reception and forms and paperwork and comes direct to me on my site, also again bypassing both layers of security protacal. once on site bob has already a security pass for a construction worker that will open 90 % of the doors, its only the security areas we cant get in straight away. next time your in B&Q or home base look at the reception desk or customer help desk, on there somewhere will be a sign or A4 sheet, with the usual, " Contractors must sign in to visitors book" somewhere in that area or on a wall near by, turn up at the desk in boots and a viz jacket and a hard hat and say to the girl you have come from virgin media or british telecom or the name on the burglar alarm bell box , or the fire alarm panel thats by the front door and say your there to do a quick check on a reported fault thats come up on your security system computer, sign in on the book, go sit in your car for thirty minutes, and stand by the panel a few times and pretend to press buttons, afterthat go back tot he front desk and ask if you can look at the fibres alarm feed box ( does not exist) or that your getting a back feed interference loop from the power supply to forklift recharging station point ( hope they have a battery forklift) and they will let you into the back areas. everwondered where the cash for the cash points come from?? all those cash carrying high security vans have to sleep somewhere at night,right!! its tool station at oldbury in smethwick in the west mids, dont worry its not where i have worked, opposite the road is a pair of grey gates inthe front of a rubbish looking industrial unit, drop the street view icon there to see the road. its a cash handling facility with a insurance limit of £4m, yep thats right every day four million squid is delivered to there, sorted into trays to replace the tray in the cash point. the sipping containers are filled with bags of gravel so you cant ram the walls, the gates open and the roller door lifts and you drive into an interlocking chamber of doors, once inside the outer doors close and the inner doors open. inside is a open area for all the vans but to the side if the main vault room and above it the security room. i worked in one, the doors are fully auto matic, after the second day of working there, we used to arrive with an arm full of jam doughnuts for the upstairs gaurds and he would open the door remotely for me as i had both hands full, again security bypassed. it is that simple and it is that easy, believe me i do it for a living
@hedgerowpete is spot-on, the best way to sneak into a place is to look like you belong there. Kevin Mitnik, IIRC, snuck into some secure computer facilities by standing outside chainsmoking in the employee smoking area. Someone authorized comes out, he stubbed out his ciggie and grabbed the door before it closed with a quick tip of the hat, so to speak. There was an episode of Seinfeld where George avoided work for a week by carrying a clipboard and looking frustrated; everyone assumed he was up to something important. Come in dressed like Sho Kosugi: and everybody is going to shit their britches and call security. Come in dressed as a plumber or Kevin, or was it Dave, whoever it was from IT, and you'll split the place wide open.
the best secret clock of invisability in the uk at the present moment is not a million pound james bond tuxedo, its a yellow vis jacket
Those we're all really great suggestions and interesting comments to read but I dont know if I can make it work. Being as the government building is a front by the antagonist ( who is an alien overlord from a tangent dimension) which is ran by 'agents', people possesed by the overlords main fighting force ( creatures called Veroes) security is beyond tight. She is being watched the entire time and has an ecounter with the agents at the end of the chapter. Getting past the security cameras and the guards is really just to set the illusion of safety for the reader. To make them believe that this particular character is going to be able to aquire the cure shes after. Though I could still use the idea, if its the guards that need to be fooled. This chapter is the first so far to "stump" me. Havent wrote in a few days now. Need to get something on paper. I Will probably implement the "worker" scheme in some way as it makes the most sense and leaves plenty to be written. Thanks a lot on the help. Much appreciated.
no probs, security by its very nature is compromised as they have to leave the door open for people to walk in
