[raffraffraff]

Example: there are teenage gangs going around on high powered scooters in my city, carrying hammers and mini grinders. They pair up on a scooter, steal a bike and disappear.

I watched them. They don't want to hang around longer than necessary. They will only approach a bike rack that is clearly visible from the road. They will only steal a bike that has unobstructed access to the road (no tricky bollards or other bikes to get around). Even though they are full of bravado, and shout obscenities and threats at me when I tell them to fuck off, they still run away (even though the one approaching the bikes is carrying a weapon while his companion stays on the scooter ready to escape)

Anything that even mildly inconveniences these guys is enough to stop them attempting theft. The bikes they steal needs to be expensive, out in the open, with direct access to the road, and with a shitty lock. And believe it or not, those tumblers line up a lot.

Throwing a blanket over a bike is probably enough to stop them from even approaching it.

[canpan]

It's not great, but basically if your lock is better than the lock on the bicycle next to yours, they will most likely not steal yours..

[WhyNotHugo]

Your bike should always looks like a less interesting target [for theft] than the other bikes in the same rack.

[kombookcha]

You only need to be faster than the slowest gazelle in the pack, right?

[withinboredom]

Gazelle bikes are pretty fast ... instructions unclear.

[ozim]

Following Dutch jokes:

Well the lock itself for a junkie in Amsterdam has value if you get expensive one it is additional loot.

[hackeraccount]

That's fine as long you are really clear in your mind about what's going on.

It IT there are a lot of people tossing a blanket over the scooter and believing they're affecting the ability of the the attacker when they're really changing the likelihood of an attack.

Imagine if every single person put a blanket over their bike. Now imagine if everyone got a chain that was 10 times stronger. Which world would you rather live in?

[m3047]

Honey pots, tar pits, bot motels, janky configs, visible telemetry (for example): these slow down adversaries in two ways. 1) They directly slow the adversary down and force them to navigate deliberately. 2) They increase uncertainty in uncomfortable ways, the effectiveness of this depends on how important it is for the adversary to remain undiscovered, not "poke the bear". Together, the effect is more than additive.

In addition to likelihood, attacks have shape. And proper installations can force your adversaries' maneuvers to take a certain shape. I've heard this referred to as terraforming.

If you're going to "do it in the road" (a highly visible bike rack), your lock or chain works much better when it is better / stronger than the herd. If everyone has a chain which is 10x stronger, then a better grinder becomes a cost of doing business. Maybe I'd rather live in a world where I didn't use that bike rack.