Bag Security - The chair folly

I read the other day that a pro photographer blogger had his camera gear stolen. Safely stashed under his chair, it was swiped from beneath him while he ate.

This happened to me many years ago, although my bag wasn't even under my chair, it was on the floor under my legs in my line of sight!

NEVER EVER leave a bag on the floor without lifting a chair leg over the strap or hooking it onto your leg. A practised thief can get a bag from under a chair or table, even as in my case, when you've got about ten friends sitting around you (although the thief wasn't caught, we did know who it was; not one of my friends).

I wouldn't be surprised if really technical thieves could cut straps from under chairs, which is why I always hook the strap over my leg so that I'd very probably feel it go.

The other solution? One of these. Like hooking it around your chairleg, Pacsafe don't make your stuff un-stealable, they just make it a no-brainer for the thief to go and steal something easier.

Like the old adage: If a bear chases us I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you. A basic premise of security.