The underside line is this: No body has made a wristband that the 'bad guys' can not beat. But by utilizing wristbands, we just make their lives a little more difficult.
You wish to be sure they will help you allow right people in to a place and that they will keep the wrong people out, if you are like people purchasing event wristbands (or armbands or bracelets) for an event.
You have to determine how strict you wish to be-basically what's the risk/reward relation of raising the difficulty for cheaters. The threat is low that some body will attempt to beat the machine, If it's a community circus with a $1 admission. If it is Disneyland and today's ticket is $75, or if it's a beer garden where a great deal of under-age school children could be tempted to slip in, then your payoff for cheaters is a lot higher.
At the very least they can be tamper-evident, if wristbands can not be tamperproof. Your security people could spot counterfeit bands or bands which have been flourished a genuine access and passed to someone externally, if the crooks attempt to cheat.
Tyvek crowd control bands like those from TabBand could control all but the most dedicated cheats. Each one has several security features:
1. When some one tries to get it off and set it on again the closure of the Tyvek wristband is scored, which means it must seem shredded. An instant visual check always of the closing can expose tampering.
2. Each band is sequentially numbered. When the group doesn't bring the right amount selection, it's a fake. Perhaps they were snatched by someone, if numbers are lacking within your series.
3. Each band features a black-light picture, quickly examined at the doorway.
4. The groups can be printed with your event name, which makes it easier to spot someone with a fake.
If you wish to be very careful about who gets in, we recommend that you have a close look at all event bracelets at the event entry to identify signs of tampering. This simple action can stop many criminals from getting through and it is like a cop using a radar gun by the side of the trail. The deterrent effect is potent.
The closure is still another story. You'll see group control wristbands and hospital wristbands that use a little plastic snap to close. The click is usually used on a vinyl or wristbandscity and may seem like it would be considered a secure way to close a group around someone's arm.
Surprisingly, we've discovered that it is much less secure as an adhesive closure. The next time you receive one at a conference, decide to try tampering with it after you've used it. Take to buying the click to determine when you can open it and re-close it. Also, decide to try ripping the vinyl watchfully in the snap and then getting it back in place. Pretty easy, right?
If someone received a legitimate function group, removed it, and passed it to someone outside who had not settled or was not of legal drinking age, the outsider may pass-through a security checkpoint without having to be detected.
A little while ago we looked to the country's foremost security professionals to see what they considered the adhesive-versus-snap decision: Roger Johnston and his Vulnerability Assessment Team at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. These guys have selected more locks and seals than imaginable and they know their stuff.
After peeling and chopping and picking at the options, they reported, 'While a 'snap-style' closing used by some manufacturers at first might appear more secure, we found it simple enough to pop the snap or tear the band, making it more susceptible to attack than the adhesive.'
More details is found on this site.
After the Vulnerability Assessment Team's tests, we made a decision to stay with an all-adhesive item line-up at TabBand, feeling that it had been the safest for all applications, from function bands to hospital patient IDs.
One thing to understand about adhesive: it gets stronger following a few minutes. It's essentially glue, right? Place any glue on two elements and straight away pull them apart and they'll come apart. Give a while to them to bond and, with respect to the glue, you might never get them apart without destroying the parts.
Uploading ....