Need to cut through the BS on Alarm monitoring costs

A Classic:

Well, I was wondering how he got a copy of the software, but stranger things have happened. I have Ademco profiles for some of the big players. They just showed up in my mail one day in an unmarked envelope with no return address, and an unreadable postmark. Since I never used them I might not even still have them. I threw a lot away when I moved the office a few years ago.

Excellent point! You are totall right about "security companies". The irony is that while my current company was slamming the low cost national competitors as just "monitoring companies" they themselves do only 2 things: (1) make money monitoring (2) make money installing and servicing the monitoring devices.

Not once in 7 years of service have they mentioned one single word about physical security. Even their mailings to me are all really just ads for more electronic services and boasts about the size of their new monitoring center. Even when they did the wired installation which took about 3 days, they never once made a *single* suggestion about physical security. All they did was fished wires through this old house.

While you are totally right about physical security, I tend to not worry too much about it in my neighborhood since we literally have been rated the safest city/town in the US. That being said, I probably should still pay more attention but...

- Would you like to see the code I wrote that reverse engineers the DMP ICOM protocol? (this is the protocol that DMP doesn't show anybody)

- Would you like to see a screenshot of my full version of Remote Link?

- Would you like to see a screeshot of me accessing the programming via the display devices?

- Would you like me to send you pdf's of all the full DMP installation and programming manuals?

You would be surprised at how much you can get by being 'nice' to the installers, especially when you are able to help them by teaching them things...

Just because you lack the skills to either access or figure out this information by yourself, does not mean that others do too...

Yeahhhhh, later TROLL...........

As I said, they gave it to me since I was helpful to them when they were beginning to rollout Internet monitoring since none of the techs then knew very much about computers or the Internet...

However, I was able to reverse-engineer the protocol even without RemoteLink since the DMP ICOM protocol is not encrypted. It just required a little listening using Wireshark to figure out the protocol and see that even the remote key is transmitted in the clear...

Maybe one day I will post to this group all the *gaping* security holes in the DMP internet protocol in general and in the setup of my alarm company in particular that would allow anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of computer programming to cause all type of havoc both to individual customers and to the alarm monitoring companies that service them. The holes ae big enough to drive a truck through. Sadly, even the most low-end e-commerce company uses inifinitely better security on their websites than DMP uses in its protocol. Kind of ironic given that we are supposedly talking "security" companies...

Well, the 'uneducated' installers at my alarm company are taught to twist and solder. Unfortunately, the ones that did my installation were lazy and "forgot" to even solder about half the connections -- they were just twisted. So by going back and soldering the joints, all I did was bring the installation up to the level that the installers are supposed to do according to their training.

Unless you are in some type of hostile environment (outdoors, near the sea, chemical exposure), a good mechanical + solder connection should last pretty much indefinitely. How do you think components are connected inside the panel? I have made solder joints 40+ years ago that are still good. If your joints are twisted, soldered, and taped in a 'normal' environment and still failing I call either "bullshit" or that you are not as good at soldering as you think. Perhaps you have some cold solder joints? In 40 years of doing electronics, I have never seen a properly done solder joint fail by itself (of course enough mechanical twisting will break the joint but the wire itself would typical break even ealier). Also, in my experience, CRIMP connections are at least as likely to fail since a lot of people don't do a good job crimping - either too much or too little crimping force or they don't insert the wires properly. Also, a solder joint is both a mechanical and a chemical/welded connection, so it is theoretically electrically superior to a crimp connection.

That is why I have an alarm. My only claim is that the combined chance of fire plus nobody being in or near the house to hear the alarm plus the 'national' company taking 20 minutes to respond is pretty low. All of those events (except maybe the second) are very low probability. The chance of all 3 failing at the same time for any given individual consumer (e.g., me) is extremely low (the product of 3 low probabilities). Of course across the entire country there may be a couple of anecdotes per year of such combined failure.

Agreed!

Well, you would be pretty *stupid* to be overpaying for commodity service. Both products and services are source all over the world. If the quality is the same, why overpay for computers, software or anything else.. You do know that most computer parts are manufactured and assembled overseas. Even Apple, that paradigm of a quality US company, does nearly all of its manufacture and assembly overseas.

Of course, here I am just talking 'outsourcing' to another state in the US. Hardly radical in the 21st centruy. I wouldn't think that there would be too much of a language barrier with someone in Kansas calling my fire or police department.

Pot meet kettle. I take that as you walking away with your tail between your legs... Always interesting how people resort to name calling when confronted with facts...

Considering all the useless noise you add to this group, you must be one of those 'sleazy' alarm scam artists that gives the whole industry a bad name.

So far the sum total of your contribution to this group has been:

1. Post false accusations
2. Name call
3. Post irrelevant information as a 'scare tactic'

Please keep your noise on another thread...

Not really

Doug

Well if your troll detector is as good as your ability to count my posts, then that would explain why your troll detector is also experiencing such a crazy false alarm :P

I truly hope that your alarm installations are a bit more reliable and less prone to such wacky false alarms :P

(NOTE: for the humor impaired, I am teasing! I really appreciate tourman's willingness to be helpful and am very thankful to him. Thank you tourman!)

Since I actually know a thing or two about the Internet, I did a trivial google groups search on myself: "+author:blueman

+author:" and found a grand total of 490 threads containing a post from me going back to 2003. Even that includes a number of posts that are by someone else with the same id. Many of the windbags on this group probably post more than that total 9 year volume just to this newsgroup in one month :))

I truly appreciate the few (including tourman) helpful posters but the majority of participants here seem to be more interesting in scaring off people and protecting their security system guild than in helping other people.

I understand completely. Reverse engineering a protocol and simulating it in Perl would be way beyond your pay grade :P

That makes reasonable sense though it is probably hard to generalize given the variety of non-soldered connection mechanisms out there.

HOWEVER, in my case there was no 'crimp' conector, just twisted wires. Hence cleaning the twisted wires with flux and adding solder is a good solution IMHO.

"Connections" on a computer circuit board open for fractions of a nanosecond and still work. They are also subject to repeated heating/cooling cycles that are more extreme than a typical single alarm wire. Also, the vibrations (particularly if there is a fan or hard drive nearby) are much worse.... yet the solder joint remains supreme...

Interesting -- the comany that did my installion is by far the biggest company in my home state of Massachusetts. They have 20,000 plus customers. They are considered the "cadillac" of alarm companies and saturate all the upscale neighborhoods.

Yet their installations use solder connections... go figure. All connections (except at the panel) are twisted, soldered, and wrapped in white electrical tape... They believe (rightly or wrongly) that it is the mark of a high quality installation.

Personally, I would agree that crimp connections are certainly faster and most likely as reliable as solder if done correctly. Solder connections also are harder to do and take more skill. Hence since time is money and the average installer has barely a high school degree and some minimal technical training, it makes sense to use some type of connector.

RHC: Sir, it has nothing to do with anyone's level of education. You seem to have some sort of chip on your shoulder relative to the people in our trade. It is a simple matter of the fact that approved B crimp connectors are widely in use in the industry and 100% reliable as long as the wires are never nicked in the process. I don't know anything about this company you speak of; however, if in fact they are soldering every connection, they are widely wasting their time for little or no benefit. Plus in some of the areas where we typically have to work, a hot soldering iron would be a fire hazard in the extreme. Why would any company risk setting a fire for no real gain. It sounds to me as if the management of this company are stuck somewhere in the 1960's....

PS: Speaking for myself, I hold two university degrees. Most installers I know are not necessarily college educated, but I submit to you, this has no bearing on their attitude to work, or much of anything else for that matter. Success in business has more to do with basic, old world attitudes towards honest and hard work than to any specific level of education. I have at one time, run a business worth over $600 million a year, but this does not make me a good installer, or for that matter, a good independant businessman either.

I suggest, if you wish to be taken seriously here, a change in basic attitude might help.....

I agree it's not about degrees. It's about training - teaching good soldering skills and maintaining good QC is harder than teaching crimping. I'm sorry if I wasn't more clear.

I didn't have the slightest chip on my shoulder until I started getting attacked for asking honest questions about a real situation. If people are going to lie about me, call me names, slander/disparage all low cost providers then yeah I will naturally develop a small chip on my shoulder against such installers that thus reflect poorly on your vaunted industry.

In particular, I have something against the people on here who (a) Accused me of lying about having the RemoteLink program (b) Accused me of being a 'troll' for asking an innocent and relevant question regarding the pros/cons and pricing of local vs. national monitoring services (c) Assumed I couldn't possibly be capable of the basic vocational school level of electrical wiring and panel programming, let alone be able to reverse engineer and emulate the DMP protocols (d))Cast apsersions on national monitoring companies based on 'scare' stories and anecdotes (e) Took a general condescending attitude towards anybody not in the brotherhood of alarm installers (f) Made wildly ridiculous and provably false claims about the number of posts I have made (hey what's more than 4 orders of magnitue between friends)

I have no issue with (a) People like you who have been balanced and helpful (other than your ridiculous claim about the number of posts)

(b) Companies that charge however much they want to charge provided they don't make false claims disparaging low costproviders and are honest that they are charging up to 400-500% more than monitoring companies primarily because they can get away with it since the average customer either lacks the skills to take care of his system or is too lazy to price compare. Hey, I support capitalism. average person without technical skills may have no other choice. Several responders were exactly so honest and I respect them for their ability to extract premium pricing for what is basically a commodity service.

I never disagreed with that. Why are you finding arguments where none exist?

The company's name is American Alarm. Look it up. Give them a call. They are the largest and most premium provider in Massachusetts.

I don't disagree. I was just citing their justification for soldering. And by soldering the 'wrapped' connections I was merely bringing it up to "their" quoted standards.

Good for you. I have far more degrees than that, though I would be the first to admit that degrees don't necessarily mean anything :P

I couldn't agree more and congratulations on running such a large business.

Pot-kettle. Look back on the thread. See who started the name calling and disparaging comments first. My original thread simply laid out the facts and the near-verbatum arguments I heard from both my current company and a national monitoring company. I was careful not even to mention company names.

Indeed, I have been far more polite than your so-called "professional" colleagues in this newsgroup.

The sad thing is that you seemed to be one of the "good guys" until you started piling on to the "troll" slander.

I agree it's not about degrees. It's about training - teaching good soldering skills and maintaining good QC is harder than teaching crimping. I'm sorry if I wasn't more clear.

I didn't have the slightest chip on my shoulder until I started getting attacked for asking honest questions about a real situation. If people are going to lie about me, call me names, slander/disparage all low cost providers then yeah I will naturally develop a small chip on my shoulder against such installers that thus reflect poorly on your vaunted industry.

In particular, I have something against the people on here who (a) Accused me of lying about having the RemoteLink program (b) Accused me of being a 'troll' for asking an innocent and relevant question regarding the pros/cons and pricing of local vs. national monitoring services (c) Assumed I couldn't possibly be capable of the basic vocational school level of electrical wiring and panel programming, let alone be able to reverse engineer and emulate the DMP protocols (d))Cast apsersions on national monitoring companies based on 'scare' stories and anecdotes (e) Took a general condescending attitude towards anybody not in the brotherhood of alarm installers (f) Made wildly ridiculous and provably false claims about the number of posts I have made (hey what's more than 4 orders of magnitue between friends)

I have no issue with (a) People like you who have been balanced and helpful (other than your ridiculous claim about the number of posts)

(b) Companies that charge however much they want to charge provided they don't make false claims disparaging low costproviders and are honest that they are charging up to 400-500% more than monitoring companies primarily because they can get away with it since the average customer either lacks the skills to take care of his system or is too lazy to price compare. Hey, I support capitalism. average person without technical skills may have no other choice. Several responders were exactly so honest and I respect them for their ability to extract premium pricing for what is basically a commodity service.

I never disagreed with that. Why are you finding arguments where none exist?

The company's name is American Alarm. Look it up. Give them a call. They are the largest and most premium provider in Massachusetts.

I don't disagree. I was just citing their justification for soldering. And by soldering the 'wrapped' connections I was merely bringing it up to "their" quoted standards.

Good for you. I have far more degrees than that, though I would be the first to admit that degrees don't necessarily mean anything :P

I couldn't agree more and congratulations on running such a large business.

Pot-kettle. Look back on the thread. See who started the name calling and disparaging comments first. My original thread simply laid out the facts and the near-verbatum arguments I heard from both my current company and a national monitoring company. I was careful not even to mention company names.

Indeed, I have been far more polite than your so-called "professional" colleagues in this newsgroup.

The sad thing is that you seemed to be one of the "good guys" until you started piling on to the "troll" slander.

RHC: Click on your profile "blueman" in one of your posts....I'm no internet expert but what's with the "900,000 plus posts