Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

The comments seem to be missing the two key aspects: accessibility and surveillance.

The smart lock requires you to have a charged, working smartphone that you can use in order to get into your own apartment. One of the claimants is 93 and lacks the manual dexterity to do that.

On top of that, smart locks can report when you enter and exit your home to the landlord; and, if under the landlord control, can provide other people with a pseudo-legitimate access to it. I don't know what the tenancy law is in NY, but in the UK this is supposed to require the permission of the tenant except in an emergency.

(Does anyone have the search expertise to find the actual case from NY public records?)

View on HN

> charged, working smartphone

Not just that, you also have to install a proprietary piece of software onto the phone from a third party and accept their TOS.

> can provide other people with a pseudo-legitimate access to it

I think in the news story the smart locks were only installed on the front door not on the doors to the homes. If the landlord installed them on the doors for the homes as well, that would be very troubling indeed.

Which then pings Facebook/Google/some other third party about your activity.

> charged, working smartphone

> Not just that, you also have to install a proprietary piece of software onto the phone from a third party and accept their TOS.

Also, the lock has to be charged at all times... is that the landlord's responsibility?

Fail open, uhhhh

A burglar's dream.

Fail open and get your stuff jacked? Or fail closed and have to ingress/egress via the window (or worse)?

I can imagine smart locks with no secondary opening mechanism being installed in my old dormitories at school. People already locked each other in with the penny jamming trick. Imagine if you could do that either by disrupting the power supply or setting up a cell/wifi jammer?

>and accept their TOS...

Money quote.

People aren't thinking ahead here about what this opens you up to with respect to privacy loss. Think about the permissions on your phone such an app could ask for in the future. Now consider that if you don't grant them, you could potentially not get into your apartment.

Smart locks are a cancer. We should cut them out early.

Yeah, I and bet that TOS includes a mandatory binding arbitration and class-action waiver. When the lock fails who is going to be held responsible?

Def not the landlord or lock company.

> People aren't thinking ahead here about what this opens you up to with respect to privacy loss. Think about the permissions on your phone such an app could ask for in the future. Now consider that if you don't grant them, you could potentially not get into your apartment.

Forget the future: the TOS currently permit the collection of personal information for marketing, to which the company blandly responded, "we don't do that".

> Smart locks are a cancer. We should cut them out early.

Baby with bathwater. Smart locks are useful. Bad implementations are bad. You can have one with both a normal key lock and a card which uses a standard RFID tag rather than a specific app. They're both convenient and failsafe.

>The smart lock requires you to have a charged, working smartphone that you can use in order to get into your own apartment.

When you say “The smart lock,” are you referring to the one in this story? The article mentions that this smart lock, which led to a common area, had a keypad:

“Lisa Gallaudet, the landlords' attorney, said the smart lock was on a single door and that tenants were able to enter a numeric code to get in and didn't need an app. They'd also been offered codes they could enter without a phone.”

So a few things here.

(1) This system did not provide access to a tenant’s apartment directly, only a common area, probably a hallway or entry to the apartment area (article mentions tenant was trapped without it)

(2) The claim that a 93 year old lacked the dexterity to operate the smart lock is spurious. A physical key requires more dexterity than pushing numbers on a keypad.

Overall, this does not seem like a resounding victory for tenants everywhere. More like, a technical win that would support future action by tenants if they find themselves faced with a mandatory-smart-lock-on-their-actual-door situation, which this is not.

It does look like a privacy win to me. Isn't it?

The smart lock could be operated without identification, using a code. It’s not clear to me that this code was unique per user.

This does not look like a privacy win to me. It looks like a good precedent that will aid in a privacy court battle in the future.

> The smart lock could be operated without identification, using a code. It’s not clear to me that this code was unique per user.

"It's not clear to me that this is true" is different from "this is false".

(Also note that the only evidence in the article even for the existence of the code, let alone the question of whether or not it identifies the tenant, is an attorney's claim; in the article, it is not denied, but nor does anyone else confirm it. For example, the attorney's claim is perfectly consistent with the possibility that there is a code, but that the landlord did not inform tenants of it, or would not provide it to them.)

> This does not look like a privacy win to me. It looks like a good precedent that will aid in a privacy court battle in the future.

But the article says:

> It won't set a legal precedent because it's a settlement, but it represents a win for tenants who had issues with smart locks and landlords installing them against their will.

From the sounds of the lock being referenced here, it was not what we usually refer to as a "Smart" lock. It was a simple code keypad. This whole discussion is based on a misnomer applied by a reporter who is neither a tech expert nor a locksmith.

I stayed in an AirBnB recently and the owner installed a smart lock while I was there. Assigning a unique code for each user is the entire point; you can invalidate the code once their lease is up, rather than worrying about the keys getting returned or copied.

A physical key may require more dexterity for you, but maybe not for the claimant.

> A physical key requires more dexterity than pushing numbers on a keypad.

There are adapters and grips designed for people with arthritis.

It’s worth noting that many smart locks nowadays have flat capacitive-based keypads, which even I as an able-bodied adult have issues pressing accurately.

I used to live in a place with a main door that was a smart lock and I loved it, now I have to carry keys again which is super annoying.

But one time the battery died while the landlord was out of town, which meant I couldn’t get in my building for hours until his friend was able to find and bring over the physical key backup.

But one time the battery died while the landlord was out of town, which meant I couldn’t get in my building for hours until his friend was able to find and bring over the physical key backup.

Why not get your phone charged somewhere? Neighbors, a shop, ... surely someone could lend you an outlet + charger for 30 mins?

I believe OP implied that the battery in the smart lock itself died.

Sorry for the confusion, this was a smartlock that used a keypad. No phone integration. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a smartlock in person that uses a smartphone to unlock, although I've heard they exist.

Anyway the unit in question took 4 AA batteries which needed to be replaced every 6 months or so. The batteries of the lock itself died earlier than expected. Apparently the wifi connection to the front building door was bad and that caused the battery life to drain significantly faster than advertised.

Do you know any 93 year olds?

You might want to account for the lifestyle impact of switching from physical keys to stuff you have to memorize.

Arthritic fingers don't aim well. Keys are somewhat self-centering and easier to operate without good accuracy.

Memory also degrades with age. Many people in their 80's and 90's start experiencing memory loss. My 85 year old father sometimes forgets the route to drive to the shopping center he has been driving to for decades. Relying on elderly people to remember a keycode or operate a smartphone is not a good strategy.

I suspect there is a certain amount of muscle memory involved in using keys. I don't even think "which key do I need" when locking/unlocking my doors, my hands automatically select the correct key.

What about security?

A hidden camera watching someone entering a code is not as secure as placing a key in a hole.

A hidden camera can get the bitting of many keys quite easily.

But now you have to be an expert in two or three things or have multiple people help you break in. The come back and test your faked key is also going to be more suspicious than a one shot you know the code and walk in.

> (2) The claim that a 93 year old lacked the dexterity to operate the smart lock is spurious. A physical key requires more dexterity than pushing numbers on a keypad.

In this case absolutely not. I've used the lock in question. It does not have physical keys, and the keypad is non-responsive, and round in shape (think rotary phone). Every person I know who has used the keypad has had trouble both on their first and succeeding attempts. I am pretty good with it, but it requires typing very slowly and using my thumb in order to ensure the key press is accepted.

I'm also thinking a 93 year old with bad eyes. My grandmother in her late 80's could thread a sewing needle by feel.

I don't have a smartphone and I doubt I'll ever choose to get one.

I have a dumb phone and mainly leave that at home. Anybody who wants me can leave a message and wait for a callback. Seems to work well for past 20 years.

I don't have a fancy one for the very reasons of tracking, loss of privacy/data collection and above all for this type of use, and what the parent didn't mention, I do not trust tech even slightly, being a tech guy myself.

If you rely on power and intelligence, other than manpower and brainpower, to unlock a door, then you're a bloody fool.

(NB cost of a spare key ~£5).

  (NB cost of a spare key ~£5).

Depends on the key, really. Some keys herearound can be very expensive to replace and require written authorization by the landlord.

With most keys you can't waltz into Mister Minit and have them pull a copy.

> require written authorization by the landlord

How are they going to even know?

> ...you can't waltz into...

I've never come across a key that couldn't be duplicated with a quick £5 waltz. IME only I suppose.

For example : [1] & [2]

Only the entity ordring the locks is authorized to have additional keys made. And it's pretty heavily enforced by the manufacturers and distibuters.

Copies are also more than 5 quid.

[1] https://www.dormakaba.com/hr-hr/proizvodi/proizvodi/mechanic...

[2] https://www.assaabloy.ch/en/local/switzerland/landingpage/as...

Edited to add : While the web pages talk pretty much about smart locks, both manufacturers offer purely mechanical locks (or hybrids), which cannot be copied easily.

Maybe it's that I've never rented a nice enough place, but all my past landlords have chosen the £10-a-lock non-patent-protected locks over the £100-a-lock high security locks.

My landlord in the US uses cheap locks, he said he throws them away after each lease and puts in new ones. It was lucky for me one day when I forgot my keys, but had my lockpicking kit in my backpack. It took about 5 minutes to rake both the knob and deadbolt and get in.

where i live, it's customary to either re-key your door after you rent a new place or just exchange the whole lock.

as long as you give back two copies of the key by the end of the lease, landlords usually don't care.

Those are very high end ones I'd expect to see on commercial installations or homes of the ultra rich. Most landlords in my part of the US use the cheap regular off-the-shelf locks, where you can copy the key for a couple of dollars at Home Depot and throw the lock out once the tenant departs.

>How are they going to even know?

Because it's a non-standard key with print on it: "Property of X, not to be copied without permission" and because it's a non-standard key, to even get the blanks requires knowing whom to ask for permission to make copies.

Think something like US Post Office box keys, or bank safe deposit keys.

"Property of X, not to be copied without permission"

Not even that. The keys I was referring to have serial numbers and the blanks are strictly controlled.

Only the owner of said serial numbers (usually represented by a card) can order copies directly from the manufacturer or their designated agents.

Normal key copy shops wouldn't even have the blanks to furnish copies.

I don't think that it's totally impossible to copy such keys and it will be probably even be harder to prevent copys in the future (think 3d printing). But you can't have them copied by any old shoe maker with a key copy side business.

Back in my university days they would only give us one key to a room that was designated for our club. They had the special blanks with the second set of teeth on the inside.

I just found "normal" blanks with the same cross section, whipped up the tooth profile and a holding fixture in some pirated CAD program and took a thumb drive and the blanks down to the machine shop during lab hours.

Anyone who knows how to use a machine shop can duplicate any key. For most keys there are specific machines that don't require skill to operate that duplicate it. The skill required to duplicate the other keys, combined with the "do not duplicate" stamp on the other keys means that such keys are rarely duplicated.

In the vast majority of the US, there is no law against businesses duplicating keys stamped with "do not duplicate" which means it's usually not too hard to find a shop that will do so.

That depends. You are legally correct. Most shops when seeing a do not duplicate key will do some checking to see if you should be allowed to duplicate the key (but there is no standard here), compared to any other key which they will duplicate no questions asked.

Also some "secure" keys don't have any blanks. Most shops don't have the ability to duplicate them. You can still get them copied, but you need a skilled machinist at considerably more cost.

> I don't think that it's totally impossible to copy such keys and it will be probably even be harder to prevent copys in the future (think 3d printing). But you can't have them copied by any old shoe maker with a key copy side business.

I remember a story recently about a secure luggage key. And every luggage lock was supposed to use it, but you weren't supposed to be able to get copies. But then a newspaper article printed a full-page image of the key, so... yeah, it got duplicated on a 3D printer that day: https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2015/09/11/tsa-master-lugga...

My memory says that in NY, the landlord cannot enter or authorize someone else to enter without 24 hours notice to the tenant.

This is not widely known, and virtually every rental contract says otherwise. But those terms are unenforceable.

For the record, I learned this from a lawyer living in New York as an example of why many landlords choose not to rent to lawyers.

It turns out that while discriminating on the basis of race and religion is illegal, it is perfectly legal to discriminate on the basis of profession. As a result it can be challenging for lawyers to find a place to live.

That's the case in nearly every state. Leases generally say "reasonable notice", which lets landlords imply that there is no 24 hour requirement while simultaneously keeping the term technically "enforceable".

In the UK good landlords want to rent to lawyers. Failure to pay rent would eventually compromise a lawyer's professional body membership.

>good landlords

>NYC

I see no contradiction between your logic and "it's hard for a lawyer to rent in NYC" :)

I don't know what the tenancy law is in NY, but in the UK this is supposed to require the permission of the tenant except in an emergency.

I can't speak for America or NY, but Switzerland has exactly the same tenancy law.

The landlord must announce a visit to the appartment like 48 hours in advance an he cannot abuse the privilege. Essentially you "own" the rented appartment during your tennancy.

Emergencies (i.e. a burts pipe) is different, of course.

Exactly. A "bail" is you compensating the landlord for a resource they lend you. You can do (almost) anything you want in your rented house.. at the only condition that you give it back as it was before (minus normal deterioration).

If there's an emergency, the fire services will kick the door.

>A "bail" is you compensating the landlord for a resource they lend you.

Deposit? Haven't heard that name before.

In French that word has a different meaning, it specifically means a rental contract and is pronounced like "bye", I'm not sure it has anything to do with "bail" in English.

So could be that parent is French.

Bail is a security deposit. In English bail is generally used to mean a deposit against a promise to appear in criminal court, but it's the same concept.

>Essentially you "own" the rented appartment.

Possession vs Ownership. In some countries, there law makes a difference and in some like Switzerland and Germany, for example, the possession of an object (or apartment) gives you a number of rights that the landlord can't annihilate by adding more words to a contract.

While in germany the landlord is the owner of the appartment, they have no right to enter it as they want, use it as they want or do anything but emergency work without the permission of whoever pays rent.

On the other hand, since the renter is not in ownership but mere possession of the apartment, they can´t do as they want either; they can't take down a wall even if it's cleared by an engineer to be safe, the landlord has to approve any permanent changes to their ownership unless the contract gives the renter some free reign.

It's pretty much the same in Switzerland.

Structural changes either need the landlord's approval or have to be reverted to how it was before you moved in.

This can obviously be rather expensive if you tore down a wall.

NY also requires an announcement/request 24hrs (maybe 48hrs?) in advance, and landlords are permitted to enter in case of an emergency.

Read up after having a pretty scarring experience about two years ago. I like to take long showers to relax. One day I took a longer than usual shower and just so happened to be rubbing one out. Landlord busted into the bathroom mid rub out saying the water was running too long. I flipped a shit, read up on the laws afterward (previously skimmed them over and had a sense it was/is illegal), wrote a long letter hinting at taking legal action/very real what if scenarios (gf showering,etc). Rent hasn't increased since, beyond nice whenever we see each other, has even invited me to watch the soccer game with him a couple times after dropping off rent...

Regardless, what he did was fucked/illegal, and I was beyond embarrassed, though now I laugh about it when thinking back or a buddy brings it up

Like most things in America, tenant protection laws vary by state/municipality... in NY the laws are generally strong in favor of tenants, landlords must provide at least 24 hours notice, written, for all non-emergency work and they can only enter during "reasonable" hours, typically interpreted as 9-5 on weekdays. A landlord who fails to honor the rules will likely end up in housing court, which is a very expensive process for them. In NY, all residential property leases use a standard form lease provided by the state, and the landlord cannot add riders that void or limit the tenant protections in the lease. There is no concept of a tenant "owning" the property for the duration of the lease, but the lease does provide a warrant of habitability which includes a right to privacy.

Even in NY though, landlords are allowed to request a key to enter the apartment non-destructively for emergencies or legally notified work. Its common practice here to add an additional interior deadbolt to your apartment front door, so the landlord (or building supervisor) will have one copy of the key for the main lock which any prior tenant could have also had, and you'll provide them a spare key for the interior addon deadbolt you added yourself. The standard lease also explicitly allows using a door chain/slider to prevent even keyed entry wile you are present in the home.

Many other states have no such requirement at all, or allow landlords to place much more limiting language they want into lease riders.

> The smart lock requires you to have a charged, working smartphone that you can use in order to get into your own apartment.

The landlord claimed (about half way down the article) that there was some sort of code that could be entered to open the door with no phone. Is that not the case?

That is the case - they offer a code you can punch it as well as a key card you can keep in your wallet (according to their website).

Yeah that's a very material piece of the puzzle that seems intentionally buried:

> Lisa Gallaudet, the landlords' attorney, said the smart lock was on a single door and that tenants were able to enter a numeric code to get in and didn't need an app. They'd also been offered codes they could enter without a phone.

Whether that's an alternative depends on the implementation. If it's a code unique to the tenant that goes through the same backend, then the same privacy argument applies. If it's a static code for any tenant, their whole argument falls apart. Either way, if true, bringing up the whole part about the elderly tenant not being able to operate a smartphone is just dishonest.

A tenant who isn't able to operate a smartphone may also be unable to remember and/or physically enter a numeric code.

This is curious. The person is able to operate a key, but is unable to enter a physical code on a keypad? As for remembering the code, keeping a piece of paper with the code is no different from keeping a key.

To clarify my position, I am not in favor of the app for privacy reasons, and prefer the physical lock and key. But it isn't clear to me how far the dexterity argument goes.

In the same way that it seems like someone who could use a key could also use a keypad, it seems that someone who could use a keypad could also use a smartphone. At least one of these two logical steps is broken.

I don't think so. Someone who can use a keypad may have the manual dexterity to use a smartphone, but not necessarily be comfortable using a smartphone for this purpose. I have known people who are comfortable with pressing buttons on an old flip phone, but simply do not get how to use a smartphone. Grasping technology is about more than just manual dexterity.

The claim is that his inability to use a smartphone is physical. I'm taking that at face value because I don't have any other details.

Well, a piece of paper is easier to lose than a key on a keychain. I would suggest a metal key-chainable object that has the code written on it with relief bump-outs. On the flip side the same thing with brail.

Even then, it's not equivalent: a hidden wireless camera installed by a thief can easily see the code on the paper or key thing, or even typed into the pad.

> "This is curious. The person is able to operate a key, but is unable to enter a physical code on a keypad?"

That doesn't seem too implausible to me. If you thrust your key at the lock but miss... you scratch the lock maybe. Not a big deal, you can retry. But if you thrust your finger at the keypad, you might miss and hit the wrong key. Okay, so try again right? Just the same as the physical lock.

Except the key only requires you to successfully align the key and the lock once. The keypad requires you to successfully align your finger and the correct key numerous times in a row. If you mess up the second or third key press, you have to start over from the beginning.

So yes, depending on the nature of the impairment, a physical key might very well be easier to use than a keypad.

Having helped my 93 year old parent with comparable issues on a number of occasions, I can vouch for the validity of this.

Remembering can be replaced with a piece of paper with the code written on it. That's not any more onerous than being required to carry a key around.

And a key generally requires more dexterity to operate than a keypad. I think vision issues might be a valid complaint, since you can usually operate a key by feel; harder to do that with a keypad, especially in the dark.

I don't think we know the precise nature of this guy's limitations, so it's hard to say why he has the dexterity to use a key but not a smartphone. A keypad seems to me to be more similar to using a smartphone than using a key.

In this case the smart lock was just on the front door of the building and people could punch in a code in a keypad as an alternative.

Individual apartments still required a physical key to access.

This is not much different than my old apartment building that required a keyfob to enter the front door, but individual keys for the units.

From the article:

Lisa Gallaudet, the landlords' attorney, said the smart lock was on a single door and that tenants were able to enter a numeric code to get in and didn't need an app. They'd also been offered codes they could enter without a phone

> The smart lock requires you to have a charged, working smartphone ....One of the claimants is 93 and lacks the manual dexterity to do that.

Forget manual dexterity, I'm 42 and I can't reliably assume my cellphone is charged, PARTICULARLY if I'm just getting home (the time it is most likely to be dead.

Comments below point out there is a bypass code, so my comment isn't so much about the in/justice as it is my inability to keep a charge.

> can provide other people with a pseudo-legitimate access to it

I agree with the rest of your points, but I'm not sure that this is meaningfully different than them loaning out a copy of your key.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com