Re:Train burglaries in LA
by kqr on Friday January 14, 2022 @03:17AM
(#29931803)
Containers are secure in the sense that you can tell when you receive them whether someone has been inside them (and had the opportunity to change their contents). They are not secure in the sense that they prevent people from entering them.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
so .. tamper-evident but not tamper-proof?
Correct. I think the main reason is that this "security" is geared more around Customs & Border enforcement than anything else.
It helps with customs, but it's a big deal for private businesses too. Before containers, you effectively had to have one trusted person's eyes on the cargo at all time -- and still people along the way lightened the load as they handled the stuff. It was almost considered part of the compensation for a longshoreman.
With tamper-evident containers, you have a trusted person watch the container being loaded and locked, and then a trusted person watch as its unloaded at its final destination, and you don't have to care what happens at every point in between.