alt Hacker NewsIf forced partition of a building were the primary goal, that goal could be achieved without badges. Or, at least, without having to badge into every door. Just have locks on every door that are normally disengaged, but which can be locked remotely and promptly.
(While at it, I once worked on an access control system. It was aeons ago; the system ran under OS/2. We installed it on a factory. It worked well, until we ran it in demo mode under production load, that is, the stream of morning shift turnstile registration events. The DB melted. I solved the problem trivially: I noticed that the DB was installed on a FAT volume for unknown reasons, so I moved it to an HPFS volume, and increased the RAM cache for the disk to maximum. Everything worked without a hitch then.)
This actually exposes how this type of system is just security theater usually.
A shooter can get a badge. Most partitions aren't bulletproof (and probably don't have security film), and a shooter doesn't fear getting a cut on some tempered glass.
The thing that would be effective is 24/7 security monitoring with a building lockdown and reinforced entrances/partitions. Of course, the victims whose badges were disabled during lockdown will sue.
So instead, just install badge readers and say that "something was done".