I suppose many have come across the story of a man calling police from his apartment building lobby after another man apparently tailgated his way into the lobby to meet a female friend who lives there. The tailgater videotaped the man calling police - apparently as some defense/offense to show the caller's callousness to the Interweb. Of course the aspect that has been sensationalized is that the caller's young son is also in the frame of the video begging the dad not to call police. Oh, yes, there are also rampant race overtones as the parties involved seem to be racially different, and that has dominated the news coverage. The actual incident seems to resolve when the tailgater's friend does show up (coming from outside) and the caller tells police that everything is OK. Still, the tailgater posted the video to social media.
Interestingly, I just finished a security awareness project where we discuss tailgating and other physical scenarios. I wish we had envisioned this one. Realize the caller has been vilified to point of people asking his employer to fire him (mind you the caller did none of this while at work, on the job, etc.). I've yet to see anyone point out that the tailgater videotaped the man and his son without permission, in the lobby of their apartment building, and then posted the video to Facebook.
Our cultural hyperbole seems to run up against reasoned action. If you doubt that consider a matrix of different appearances and genders and how this scenario plays out differently. It shouldn't happen that way because that is the very vulnerability that leads to social engineering exploits. Yet, how do we as security practitioners fight that avalanche? Perhaps this all has something to do with the Millenial culture of sharing (perhaps oversharing) everything. Listen, doors have locks and callboxes for a reason. It's not just wise of a person to insist that these things aren't circumvented. It's neighborly. The caller had no knowledge as to whether his fellow resident was expecting this man and whether she herself would have buzzed him into the building. I'm sure people are making assessments about my background and biases given the fact the transgression I see here is a gross invasion of privacy (the tailgater uploading a video of the man and his son without their permission), but I would caution that you never know someone's full background. For example, the caller who was so concerned with the possible trespasser, his backstory apparently includes his father having been murdered by a trespasser in his driveway.
