Securing items?

I'm new to the game, so I don't really now the rules. Yesterday I was robbed. Thanks a lot to however did it. I mean that both sarcastically and literally. Literally because I really not sure that I want to deal with it and I am glad it happened before I put much more effort into this game.

Am I correct in assuming that anyone can come along anytime and help themselves? Is there a way to prevent this? My containers were Private on the Permissions, but I noticed the Locks were not set at all. Does marking these both as Private prevent thefts?

Assuming that you cannot prevent thefts, I understand that in a post apocoliptic world people will steal from each other. That is certainly realistic. But it is not realistic that people would need to log out to RL, thus allowing any miscreant free reign of their little tribal land.

Once again real life calls and I will leave my stuff unattended. I wish an in game pox on however stole my stuff.

Cart's allow full safety for a limited time (depending where you leave it). (2 real days outside of tribe areas protection from last use)
If you are a citizen (like you are), you can have things in your tribal area with 100% safety. You would have to give people access to your tribe, or baskets.

Off your tribe land bins/baskets are open regardless of the locks, so anybody can help themselves to the contents or even the container itself.

On your tribe land you need to set the locks to stop someone from "stealing" the contents.

Thanks for the info. Good to know about the carts as well. I was on my tribal land. The permissions were set to private, but the lock was not set at all. Glad to hear things are secure there. Would be too much for my anger management to deal with otherwise.