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 heard of many things. There is an infinite repertoire of possible techniques how they could have verified that nobody entered their room. Ranging from the low tech (dust, crisps, hair stuck to the door frame, filling the room with angry bobcats), through the social engineering (befriended the head of security who told them), to ultra high tech (lidar triggered camera array reporting to a satellite ).
On a balance of probabilities without hearing more on how they specifically verified it I will still assume the alternate hypothesis. Which is that someone on the internet is very sure about something and they are wrong.
It is not due to a lack of imagination. Or because I haven't heard some cool spy trick you have heard about. It's because I find it (in the absence of other information) the most likely explanation given a lifetime of observations about human nature.
Personally, I don’t believe they check every room every day for the simple reason that no hotel is going to pay (or properly supervise) the manpower required to actually do that, unless they really have to. Which even the most paranoid of them would realize was unnecessary after a month or two.
C’mon.
These are the same people that started to not change linens or provide new clean towels unless you ask (or infrequently) for ‘environmental reasons’. (Aka profit margins)
And yes, back in the day it was normal for housekeeping to clean every occupied room every day, unless you told them not to. Unless you were in a roach motel or something.
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".
> 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.
I find it puzzling how you (and all the other commenters here) accept this rule like sheeps. Normally, you US citizens cannot stop boasting how the USA is supposedly "the land of the free".
So don't take this personally, I'm replying to this as to all the others that appear like they find it totally normal that some security guy or hotel cleaning can enter a rented room. Every 24 hours, or at all. It's not normal. And IMHO not even needed / helpful.
No 24h check will ever hinder a mass-shooter. The criminal would just wait until room cleaning made their job, then go to his car and get the big suitcase with all the guns and ammunition one can buy entirely too easy in the US. And then he can shot from his room, minutes after this compulsory do-nothing 24h "security" check.
Here, were I am (Germany), things are completely different.
First, it's not so easy to get weapons. Not even at gun exhibitions. That in itself helps tremendously getting a less violent society.
Second, here we have the right, upheld by courts, that a hotel tenant can make the hotel not enter his room. A "do not disturb" sign is everything that is needed. If you want, you can look it up under "Frankfurter Landgerichts aus dem Jahr 2009 (AZ 2-19 O 153/08)".
Sure, there are other rulings that landlords (including hoteliers) have under some circumstances the right to enter a property they rented out. Like fire, or water pipe broken. Actual, imminent danger. Not hypothetical danger! But they even cannot get a general "you can always enter" term signed, that would be null and void over here.
The more free private entities are from government oversight, the more carefully they have to read contracts. For example, even the US is not quite so free as to allow people to sell their organs. If it were, citizens would have to carefully read room rental contracts at hotels, to make sure there were no conditions which included forfeiture of a kidney.
(FWIW, I'm now living in Germany, and it's significantly more relaxing with a bit less freedom. There's definitely different tradeoffs which make more sense for different people).
The most illuminating example is, unfortunately, in a controversial area; so please take this as descriptive rather than normative: Back in my city in America, when I heard a loud bang in the night, 4/5 of the time it was fireworks or a car backfiring, and 1/5 of the time it was gunfire. I found an expended 9mm round while walking my dog one morning. It wasn't even a particularly dangerous city, by American standards; but every year I had a 3/100k chance of being killed by gunfire; even accidentally, even while just sitting in my living room.
Here in Germany, I'm not magically immune to crime, but the base rates of gun crime are so low that I never worry about loud bangs. That comes at the cost of the freedom granted by the Second Amendment in America.
Another, slightly less salient & serious example: Germany has strict laws about public photography. Take a look at any "embarrassing pratfalls" or "annoying Karens" video reel: They may be US-weighted, but they come from all over the world--but not Germany. The lack of freedom to document the people around you on video trades off with the security of knowing you can slip on a banana peel without being known worldwide as "the banana peel guy."
> you (and all the other commenters here) accept this rule like sheeps
What do you mean "accept this rule like sheeps"? Do you expect violent resistance? Do you want to sue someone because a security guy poked their head in the room for 30s? How would "I do not accept this rule like sheeps" look like in your opinion? How far would you go resisting it?
> you US citizens
Wrong assumption.
> So don't take this personally,
I won't. Clearly you don't know anything about me.
> appear like they find it totally normal
I can explain what is a fact of life (they have this policy) without expressing my opinion about it.
> No 24h check will ever hinder a mass-shooter.
As clearly stated in my comment.
> The criminal would just wait until room cleaning made their job, then go to his car and get the big suitcase with all the guns and ammunition one can buy entirely too easy in the US. And then he can shot from his room, minutes after this compulsory do-nothing 24h "security" check.
Yes. Exactly this is described in my comment.
> that would be null and void over here.
Thank you. Interesting addition to the conversation about how it is in Germany. Different places have wildly different legal norms and expectations.
For me it is hard o get upset about this either way. A hotel is a different type of arrangement than renting.
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.
Most of them still have signs up that if you leave the towels in a particular place (like on the floor in the bathroom), they'll replace them.
Hell, a lot of hotels were doing that before the pandemic. I thought it was a really good thing. I certainly don't need my towels replaced every day; that's just pointless and wasteful.
Sorry I’m from the UK. Do you mean if you leave the sign for cleaning they don’t clean the room? Or if you leave no sign they don’t clean the room? Or they just never clean the room if you stay for more than one day?
Wait, then how do you dry yourself off the next day? Is washing towels really too much effort for them? Why would I accept worse service in a hotel than in my own home?!
Because it is bizarre. Most normal people hang their towel on a towel rack after using it, and it dries in time for the next time they take a shower.
Washing your towel after every use is incredibly wasteful, and unnecessary. If the towel is "dirty" after you've bathed and used it to dry yourself off, then you probably should do a better job cleaning yourself while bathing.
Only true if you’re washing solely your towel. If you wash your clothes regardless, you might as well throw in the towel too. Why’d I choose to use a used towel when it can be washed.
What I suspect is that people here have massive washer/dryer combos that slurp oodles of energy, and use them only infrequently?
We can only fit one day of the clothes for the entire family in a single wash, therefore washing happens every day.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Big family + small washer = daily washes. Sounds nice, actually.
But on the other hand: If you didn't have to wash everyone's towels every night, would you still have to do laundry daily?
Bigger washer/dryers are not necessarily more wasteful, for what it's worth... it really depends on their efficiency (both for water and dryer heat). Sometimes doing it in bulk all at once can save water/energy per item even if it uses more overall. And newer machines tend to be a lot more efficient than older ones, especially if they are load-sensing front-loaders. Anyway, that's not really the point.
It's just interesting that your laundry patterns are different than anyone I've ever known. Thanks for explaining, that's all :)
Since you wash your towels so excessively, I am going to assume you likely do the same with your clothes. If you cut down on the amount of stuff you "have to" put in your washer, you might be able to fit several days worth of clothes that actually need to be washed in the washer.
Sure, if you want to re-wear those sweat soaked shirts and pants you wore while it was 33 degrees celsius outside, be my guest. I’ll take clean ones.
Sure we could wash less if we really wanted to, but it just doesn’t signify. The washer uses like 40L of water over 30m of runtime and then it’s done. We hang the clothes (and towels) outside, and by evening everything is fresh.
The shower runs at about 10L a minute. I think you can see how the washing quickly becomes irrelevant, and the shower needs to be heated too, unlike the washer.
What do you mean? If you hang them on the towel rack, they dry (mostly) and can be reused. They do get gross after a while (a week or two) but not daily.
Do you really wash your towels after each use? Why? How?
During covid, many (most? all?) hotels stopped housekeeping while you were there. They would only come after you've checked out altogether. If you needed additional supplies, you'd go ask the front desk for them. Sometimes the rooms would also be staggered (nobody else would be there for a few days after you, in case the virus is still lurking)
After covid, many hotels never fully returned to daily housekeeping, often opting for every other day or so. Some still don't offer it until you check out. Guess they rode the covid coattails for the cost savings.
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.
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.