I've read through your story and I think you're on the right track with what you're doing.

But, re: alarms, I'd like to add a suggestion: Indoor sirens. They can be intolerably, painfully loud for not very much money (because piezos are cheap and square waves are easy). Using a small, random mixture of them can let them beat at different frequencies and periods, which can make them very unpleasant to behold even with hearing protection.

If you feel like being clever, you can even run them with a local battery that activates when they're disconnected. If you feel like being extra-clever, you can make them activate when they don't have the correct termination resistance at the far end of the line, or exactly the correct voltage: This way, whether the wire goes open or short, the sirens activate.

Super-extra bonus points for using a combination of methods. Any time that a thief spends figuring this out is time they aren't carrying stuff out.

And if that still seems incomplete, then: Fill the shop with smoke. They can't function when they can't even see their hand in front of their face. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPgcysyFUiI

I have found that the fog generating alarm systems are the ones that will stop burglars in their tracks.

If they can't see, they're not going to hang about and if they've tooled up with NV then that's a whole different threat model.

Cutting Starlink and stripping drives from a NAS? This seems like a pretty sophisticated operation, much more so than the usual copper thieves and the like. Do you have reason to believe your shop was specifically targeted?

I'd be alarmed that they seemed to know you were going to WWDC. Like, they were tech-aware if they took the drives while you went to tech event... how did they know any of this / scout you?

I have a few pit bulls and a Doberman.

> In the future I'm going to add a local battery backed alarm

Wait, you have an office full of expensive equipment but decided to half-ass DIY the security? No wonder you were targeted.

A proper monitored alarm system would have prevented this. They pretty much all have built-in cellular backup now. Do yourself a favor next time and call a professional.

Don't blow your entire budget on cameras then wonder if you need an alarm system because the only good the cameras will serve is to watch your stuff disappear. You mentioned California so expect these guys to be roaming free in short order if they see any jail time at all. Good luck with seeing any restitution or getting your stuff back.

Modern OSes randomize WiFi MAC addresses unless you ask them not to, and also do some randomization on BT MAC address.

I've worked on something to do this, it' not perfect. It listens for 24 hours, learns what is 'normal'. Calibrates strength of signal (dogwalker on sidewalk, ignore) getting closer than that, between 10pm and 5am, turn on a light or two. Not meaning to spam, but it's at wispyalert.com . Any thoughts, I'd be interested to hear.

No prosecutor is going to waste their time trying to convict someone based on metadata. Even video is often insufficient for a conviction.

Funny enough a router collecting this data near a busy enough highway can bog itself down by collecting unique Wi-Fi identifiers from all the passing cars' networks, not to mention all the hotspots on passing commuter trains.

It never occurs to router makers a static base could see a million Wi-Fi networks come and go every week.

So the radio equivalent of Flock cameras...

Uh hello police department?

I have MAC addresses!

M-A-C...

Yes, I sniff them out the air with equipment I built!

Uh no I'm not on drugs why do you ask?