Locksmiths Pissed Off At Geeks For Letting Out The Secret: Lockpicking Is Easy | Hacker News Reader

Locksmiths Pissed Off At Geeks For Letting Out The Secret: Lockpicking Is Easy

theglobeandmail.com

86 pointsnickb37 comments

I am always amazed how much it feels like we are in a world of guilds who are concerned their "secrets" will escape.

Anyone who relies on restricting information to stay in business is in trouble these days.

I'm pretty sure (and there's a quote in the article about this) that thieves pretty much ignore locks and just smash and grab. Locks keep honest people honest.

  "Anyone who relies on restricting information to stay in business is in trouble these days."

That would be the "SEO" industry (not the entire industry.. just 90%).

Add (management, strategy) consultants to that.

The only thing they need to keep hidden is their own ignorance.

And illusionists.

Actually, a lot of them(Derren Brown, Penn & Teller, James Randi) do reveal a lot of their tricks.

And other illusionists.

Yes and no. Perhaps more accurately you should say 'Anyone who relies on restricting information indefinately to stay in business is in trouble these days.'

There are many cases where restricting information for a limited duration is an entirely viable business proposition. A classic example is Pay TV. In Europe, Pay TV operators make an absolute truckload of money each time the Football World Cup rolls around. Why? Just before the tournament starts, they all update the algorithms protecting their broadcasts. In general, these algorithms are pretty thoroughly hacked, and you can relatively easily get your hands on a pirated STB to get your feed. But it takes a while to figure these hacks out (anywhere between 1 month and several years, depending on how clever the scheme is). The thing is, it's no good figuring out how to crack the system in 3 months time, the pirate's customer wants to watch the football live! So, he has no choice but to cough up the money for the official STB/Pay TV subscription.

thieves pretty much ignore locks and just smash and grab.

Thieves, but not spies.

I'm thinking spies already know how to pick a lock. Unless it's Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd, but even they seem to get the job done in the end.

Anyone with an access to this book and some practice can crack even the most secure locks and safes: http://security.org/dial-0/lss.htm

There are at least two great examples in "Freakonomics": the price of life insurances, and selling your own house (think real state agents.)

Yes. So the above quote is a bit misleading. Better cite Kerckhoff's principle.

Take a look at the mattress industry if you ever get a chance.

yep, it's horrible.

Manufacturers purposefully change the model number between retailers so it's impossible to do any sort of comparison shopping.

Surely locksmiths should be happy if ordinary key locks become insecure -- they're the ones who are going to be called out to replace them with higher-tech locks.

It's the rest of us who should be pissed off, we're the ones who'll have to pay them money to replace our locks.

A lot of the high tech locks have key backups - so it makes me wonder if they can easily just be bumped too.

I want to get one of those fingerprint ones soon - because I am horrible with keeping track of keys.

unfortunately fingerprint recognition is notorious for bad security. there are exploits for various systems out there that involve sophisticated techniques such as gummy worms and replay attacks carried out by gently breathing on the fingerprint reader.

I was looking at a sweet one that also allows you to enter a code. It hooked up to the internet and allowed you to program restrictions on codes. For example, if you had a maid come in regularly (wouldn't that be nice?), her code would only work on certain days or during certain hours. Or if you were afraid you left your stove on and wanted someone to check, you could give them a code that would only work one time. I don't know how much you'd actually use those features, but it was a neat gadget.

Personally I'd be happy to unlock my house the same way I unlock my car -- by pressing a button on a device in my pocket. Better still, it would be the same device. Better still, I wouldn't have to press the button at all, it would unlock as soon as it noticed I was approaching, and then re-lock itself as soon as I was inside. That's probably the best solution in the longer term.

From a guy's perspective, those wireless keys are annoying as hell, because I keep it in my wallet. Most cars will start freaking out if you leave the car with it in your pocket while it's still running. Not only that but sometimes you get locked out when you don't want to, etc... because you left a certain radius. Example: returning a cart at the store.

Keyless entry fob... OK. Proximity system... needs some work still, especially from a wallet-carrying perspective.

I'll have to admit, I like just pressing a button on the door handle to unlock and being able to just walk away, but more often than not the slick-factor gets carried away and causes more pain than good.

edit: I have a Mazdaspeed6 with the proxy key.

Like the wireless keys used in various cars like the Prius? You can press the start button, as long as the key is detectable somewhere on your person?

There are some mods to do that kind of thing (door unlocking, etc) with bluetooth. It would be nice if you could access your car and your house with the cell phone you keep in your pocket anyway.

Bluetooth could do this. Bluetooth proximity locks are available for computers, though I've not heard of one being used for doors. I suspect the Bluetooth "signature" (whatever it is) could be easily sniffed if someone knew about the lock, but it'd still be pretty cool.

Business Idea: the same thing, but with a chastity belt. eh? million dollars, easy. >_>

Yeah, and as a web-service

You want to lock yourself in?

I have a home made kit made out of big paper clips. Its not that good, and im a bad picker, but i find it interesting. Its a nice hobby. I feel safe because my dad installed a good lock that uses an electromagnet to unlock our metal door. Eastern Europe in the 90's(and now too) required such measures.

I've never heard of that. Does it use the magnet to hold the door locked, or to unlock it? If the latter, what happens when power goes down or the battery runs out and you want to get in or out? If the former, what stops people from disrupting the power supply to bypass the lock?

The magnet opens the door. Its basicly home made, and its security through obscurity. Only some nabors and friends know about it, and about 4-5 people know how to unlock it(it doesn't use a key, it has a metal detector and a fake door bell, you put a bolt on the metal detector, which is hidden, and pres the fake door bell, and it opens, then open the door). You don't know it's there if you look at the outside of the door, you just see a standard lock. Its actually not that secure, anybody that knows how it workers can open it, we only use it if we are outh of town for more than a day, most of the time there is at least one person home. If the power goes down, you have to wait for it to come back. You can get in from a window if that happens and unlock it from the inside. It's not a problem from the inside, you just pull the lock. Ooops, i said too much :D

Banana?? I admit, I was curious... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbOajWDg_Ts

I was a little curious too - I was expecting something more like macguyver where he used only a banana.... a little disappointing, but does have merit I guess.

How do you become a locksmith anyways? It seems to me they'd start as amateurs like these.

Perhaps today. Earlier it was: Belong to the right family - a family that did log picking for ages.

i suppose its good that this is staying within geek culture as opposed to spreading amongst high school students or something -- imagine if they all saw that youtube video on how to pick a masterlock with a soda can??

So what exactly lockpicking has to do with Geeks?

'Driven mainly by computer geeks who see parallels between hacking networks and picking locks, the hobby has exploded online.'

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