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Hotel Room Security and Privacy with Special Guest Patrick McNeil – WB39
This is your Shared Security Weekly Blaze for October 22nd 2018 with your host, Tom Eston. In this week’s episode: Hotel Room Security and Privacy with Special Guest Patrick McNeil.
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Hotel security has been a hot topic being debated in the cybersecurity and privacy communities ever since the annual DEF CON hacking conference which was recently held in Las Vegas. The conference hotel security staff at Caesars Palace, conducted random hotel room searches unbeknownst to conference attendees. This caused a firestorm of criticism from conference goers but also brought attention to how we all should all think about the security and privacy of the hotel rooms we stay in. In this episode I want to share with you some helpful tips and advice to increase your security and privacy while staying in a hotel room.
Tom Eston: Joining me to discuss hotel room security and privacy is physical security expert, Patrick McNeil. Patrick has a background ranging from software development, networking, operations, and product security and currently works for an application security company. He has travelled extensively for work over the last nine years, staying in hotels, ranging from five star hotels, to hotels with blood stains on the carpet. I think I want to hear more about that. And Patrick is also a lifelong martial arts practitioner, runs Oak City Locksport and does physical security consulting for Stern Security when time permits. Welcome to the show, Patrick.
Patrick McNeil: Thank you very much, Tom, appreciate the opportunity to be on.
Tom Eston: So tell me a little bit about these hotels you’re staying in. Blood stains on the carpet, what’s that all about?
Patrick McNeil: Yeah, that was an unfortunate situation where I went to a conference and the conference coordinator had some hotels nearby that were recommended, and this was in downtown Chicago. And let’s just say, while she thought it was a safe neighborhood, it really wasn’t. And the hotel of course, is completely booked up. I check into my room and do my normal walk around and there’s literally blood stains on the carpet probably the size of a dinner plate and some blood spray on one of the [chuckle] walls.
Tom Eston: Oh no.
Patrick McNeil: It wasn’t a whole lot, but it was enough to freak me out, and I know I’m asking for a new room and it’s completely booked up. So I ended up staying there but it was like put the towel over it so I didn’t have to look at it. And just stay away from that area. It was obviously old.
Tom Eston: Obviously [chuckle] old. Yeah, that’s scary, but… Hopefully you’re not staying in hotels like that anymore.
Patrick McNeil: I try to avoid that. [chuckle]
Tom Eston: But you wrote a really great blog post recently about safety in and around your hotel room. And I think you wrote this because of the controversy that happened at Caesars Palace back during DEF CON in August in Las Vegas, with the conference attendees of the conference. Could you give us just a brief overview of what happened at DEF CON for our listeners that may not be familiar with the controversy?
Patrick McNeil: Sure. And you’re right, I did write the first post and i
Published on 7 years, 2 months ago