Did anyone else say "your sign looks like you spent $1 on it, you're keeping the devices insecurely out on a bench, and this whole setup doesn't inspire confidence and is sketchy af?"
There is exactly zero chance I'd be leaving my device with these people. Trusting your phone to strangers when you can just silence it and leave it in your pocket is a fool's errand - this whole thing is just silly. It's unnecessary risk - everything from auth, to payments, to my career is piped through this device. Leaving it with absolute strangers is leaving someone with my most significant and risk-prone tool that I own.
Sorry to be pedantic but common folks - let's use some common sense here. This is so silly.
It's not that you're likely to be victimized in this particular venue. It's that you should practice good habits if your device has, or ever will have, access or exposure to information you or your company would be damaged by if stolen.
And those are publicly known capabilities. You should assume that potential adversaries will have more than that. Am I certain that such exploits are known for the very most recent iPhone/iOS? No. But it would still be foolish to bet on them not being known.
Cheers.
Stealing it may be more difficult, but it's much easier to lose a phone than a car. I've never lost my car, but I've lost 2 phones (I got one of them back).
Even if you think of the people you're giving the phone to are trust worthy there's just no good goddamn reason to risk it.
I'm sorry - but this is just bad personal opsec regardless of what event you're attending, or who you're rubbing elbows with. Sorry, but my opinion on this is different than yours.
If they had a bank of PO Box style lockers (so some rudimentary physical security) and a security guard I’d be satisfied, but a couple fellow founders standing guard over a card table while also themselves being distracted by the meet-and-greet nature of the event is not my idea of a good place to leave my phone.
It's just a dumb way to run this, if this is what you want to do. The amazing part is that they found so many people willing.
Honestly it doesn't surprise me that much. People who tend to end up in these opportunities have incredibly privileged lives that allowed them to arrive at such an event/opportunity. With those privileged lives they can be quite insulated from stuff like theft, security, etc.
Just because someone's privileged, or rich, or a founder, or hell even technical... doesn't mean they have common sense. Handing custody of your phone over for no reason other than a "social experience" is just evidence of how they're out-of-touch from normal life/security practices.
Why would anyone with an ounce of sense give these people and their setup anything of value?
OK. A typical key costs, what, $1? Would you hand me all your keys?
You can trust me. The economics of stealing some cheap pieces of metal are pretty silly.
It's just a setup I'd expect from someone in grade 2, not people pretending to be professionals.
I also use my phone for all sorts of security authentication. I wouldn't volunteer it to anyone else for any reason that wasn't an absolute emergency. It's a needless risk without any benefit. I can just keep it in my pocket on silent.
*obvious parody