Physical Access Control always existed. Humans always wanted/needed to restrict access to their physical properties and to do so invented a bunch of tools over the age. To use such tools efficiently a way to prove the identity of individuals and delegation was required.
It is custom to pay for the tools once if no improvement or changes, and regularly for the delegation. Decades ago we paid for weapons and wooded doors for tools, certificate of paper for identification then guards for delegation ; nowadays we pay for door unit, readers, wiring and armored doors for some of the tools, access card or biometrics for identification then an access control system for delegation usually sold with some maitenance plan.
Now, it was slower than originally expected but the access control industry finally evolved. The new generation of access control systems are closer to computers (ok, they are) than their ancestors which were more automats. Same goes for the door units, readers and even the relay/switches. Credentials evolved too: access cards are runing small operating systems with preloaded applications and mobiles are used as new identification materials for physical access.
There is software everywhere, it shouldn’t be a breaking new. What it means to us is that each actor (tools, delegation, credential) should be considered for their historical properties and value, but also as an embedded system runing a piece of software, with all the requirements coming with it. Such consideration should be the same for everything related to IoT but is even more critical into our industry focused on delivering security. And this is why we started Leosac.
We want to bring all the benefits of open source development which has been proven to be efficient for software security to the physical security world which sorely lacks such approach. We want you to be able to easily and freely upgrade your critical systems to deploy security fixes. We want you to be independent from the economy changes where companies, employees, products and partnerships are changing constantly. We want you to be free to decide with which trusted third parties you are working with without having to change your whole installation each time. We want you to be in control.
The Plan
There is a lot to do in just a couple of years! Below is our ideal plan and what we believe can be achieved in such timeframe.