Hi
I search this forum for “Kensington” and was surprised:
https://digital-defense.io/ recommends a Kensington Security Lock.
Is a Kensington Security Lock for my home (not a public settings) useful / recommended?
Apple hardware event don’t support Kensington Security port.
I thought about making it more difficult for a thief to get steal my hardware if there was a break-in at my apartment.
Thank you
Why not get an insurance instead? If someone breaks into your home and have time to steal something, they usually go for valuable things like money, gold, silver plates, etc. If someone is directly targeting you then you have a bigger problem. Also a simple bolt cutter can cut it easily
Kensington locks seem to be pretty vulnerable, I don’t think we should recommend something that’s going to give a false sense of security.
there are chains that use the same interface which work with any lock so you can pair with a quality one
I imagine it’s only useful if the data on your devices is incredibly important to you but you don’t have a NAS somewhere in the corner 
.
If your worry is the value of the thing they steal just get insurance.
If you have a NAS, hide it 
Can you give recommendations?
Thank you
I guess then we’d need to research what the best locks are, because it seems like most locks are terrible. Also need the chain to be resistant to easily cutting it, I’ve seen some bike locks that are quite resistant to cutting/sawing/grinding, not sure what the situation for laptop locks is. But interesting, I think that could be a good addition to the hardware security page. It would be nice to have some general criteria to go by instead of just saying “this lock is good”, is there any official rating system that locks can get, and same for chains/wires meant to secure things?
Locks are usually a deterrence against opportunistic threat models. Yeah, anyone with bolt cutters or some time and effort can get past it.
An example, or maybe a tangent: I use a pretty bad lock for gym equipment. I’m guarding against those who would just rummage in open lockers and give up. I’ve heard stories of people getting robbed in gyms by someone bringing in giant bolt cutters and grabbing stuff, but that’s the risk I take.
Kensington locks are for one thing only: to stop someone passing by to just grab the device and walk away with it. It will not stop someone with intent/experience/tools.
I’ve watched Lockpicking Lawyer so much that it changed my viewpoint with locks. I view them now as a delay tool. The bad ones out there don’t even delay at all. The really good locks cost more than the device you want to protect and that doesn’t really make sense to me.
I’d only really get these Kensington Locks if theft is a recurring issue and you cannot really relocate to a better location. An unsophisticated thief can simply cut through the wire dressed as a maintenance crew with a big bolt cutter. Most people probably wont think of you as a thief if you dress appropriately.
I’d say having full disk encryption to your device is more important than a Kesington Lock.
I could not find a PeerTube mirror 
Not exists?
He is Youtube only unfortunately.
Thinking about it some more even if they’re flawed it’s still better to have than nothing at all, so I think it’s worth mentioning in our hardware page.
Do you have a recommendation / product name?
What risk are we exactly mitigating with this?
someone breaking into your home taking a few more seconds to take your laptop or?
I fail to see the use case for general people, our audience. If i am after your data i will just break the plastic of your laptop, it really is not that strong…
I can see use cases for this. Imagine having a group of people over for something such as a party not knowing that there is a thief among the group. Everyone’s in the main room having drinks, talking and laughing. Meanwhile, the thief is entering you bedroom trying to make as little noise as possible. He see’s your laptop and realizes he can quietly slip it into his gym bag/backpack and nobody will see or hear a thing.
A lock would stop someone like that. Also, just because it’s possible someone could always use bolt cutters to get around it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be recommended.
Opportunistic threats
A few use cases: securing your computer in-use for one. You can put it on a table leg or something and if someone tries to swipe it they’ll have deal with the lock first, could be useful when you’re in a public place. Second, it deters theft. Most locks are pretty useless but we still have them because it stops the lowest effort criminals. Third, it would just be good to cover it since many machines have this slot and people probably wonder what it’s for. So going over the strengths/limitations of it would be informative.
They can be quite robust.
In one office all the computers were bolted down with very chunky bolts drilled right through plates.
Depends to some extent on the lock and the laptop design.
Based on at least one person’s feedback the cable on Kensington’s locks is supposedly more difficult to cut than you would expect. A bolt cutter will still get through, maybe just not that quickly.
But yes, the point is essentially forcing most people that might try to steal the laptop to break the laptop in order to get rid of the lock.
It’s meant to stop things like coffee shop laptop snatching or someone trying to sneak out a laptop that doesn’t belong to them in an office.
It won’t stop someone that’s after the contents on the hard drive.
