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Comment by neuralRiot | Hacker News Reader

I used to work as maintenance on a big chain hotel and we had magstripe card locks, I don’t think strong security is their primary goal as in a hotel the staff can enter any room at any time, the cards me and my team had were “god mode” we could open any door at any time even when locked from inside. If the lock didn’t work “firmware problems, dead batteries, stuck mechanism” we had another device that worked by removing a cover and connecting with a wire, this was also used for testing and FW updates.

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When I worked mainteince on a big chain hotel in a major college town, we had a mark 2.0 crowbar if the key card didn't work. The real fun one was the flippy locks that you could kinda pop by slapping the non-working key card in, and slamming the door. The card would flex and spring the lock back. Then you could use the crowbar again. It wasn't too slow, but it was very loud.

They told me couldn't whistle and spin the crowbar nonchalantly before casually popping open doors that had a dead battery in front of the guest waiting to stay in that same hotel.

> we had a mark 2.0 crowbar

What were the improvements over "crowbar classic"?

That reminds me of the old “bump key” vuln in physical locks with tumblers

> the cards me and my team had were “god mode” we could open any door at any time even when locked from inside.

That is just bad management. The whole point of the interior deadbolt lock in a hotel room door is so no one can accidentally walk in on you thinking it is an empty room.

An emergency keycard that can open a hotel room locked from the inside is only supposed to be kept at the front desk for use during an emergency, mostly by police or firefighters so they do not break down the door and cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage. And its presence and use should be constantly accounted for.

  > cause tens of thousands of dollars of damage

This is surely overstated. I am sure firefighters are trained to do the least amount of damage when forcing a hotel door open. I guess a handheld electric saw could do the trick in less than one minute.

Um, no they’re trained to get in as fast as possible. Life >> cost of any door.

Any non ancient hotel will have metal fire doors that cost near a thousand themselves, plus the metal framing and whatnot.

The cops or firefighters are not going to spend time cutting, they are going to bust it open with a battering ram which will ruin everything, requiring reframing, new door, new thresholds, new frames, new locks ($2k), and maybe flooring too.

And then add in opportunity cost from not being able to rent the room during repair, which would take weeks due to those materials not being available at Home Depot.

I would budget at least $10k, and I bet it would not exceed $20k, but either way, using a battering ram on a hotel door is very costly.

I can guarantee you avoiding damage to the door is nowhere near any list of things any firefighter gives a flying fuck about.

Many U.S. hotels changed that after the Mandalay Bay hotel incident in October 2017. A guest can no longer assume that their deadbolted hotel room door will only be opened in an emergency. Routinely, hotel staff (not accompanied by police) may knock and then immediately open a guest's door for what they consider a "welfare check" (e.g., guest has had a Do Not Disturb sign for 2 days). And, yes, guests may be strongly opposed to this for a variety of reasons (in the room but undressed, etc.) but it often is part of a hotel's normal operating practices. One of many references: https://www.reddit.com/r/askhotels/comments/vaxae2/comment/i...

> Many U.S. hotels changed that after the Mandalay Bay hotel incident in October 2017. A guest can no longer assume that their deadbolted hotel room door will only be opened in an emergency.

I don't see the connection. The Mandalay Bay incident was an emergency, and the door was forced. What needed to change?

I believe the above poster is saying that hotels want their staff to periodically barge in with little warning just to catch the rare moment when there's an alarming array of guns or a dead person or something other than recreational amounts of drugs laying in plain sight.

It would be very shitty policy to "barge in with little warning". Rooms are checked regularly, but there should be quite a bit of knocking, and in the event it is deadbolted and the hotel guest refuses to open the door, or arrange a time the room can be inspected, then hotel management should be convened. Only after initial contact has been made and the hotel guest unreasonably refuses to allow access for an unreasonable period of time should hotel management "barge" in, or call the police.

Yes, a hotel room should be checked regularly, at a minimum of once per week if not more frequently. And that should have always been the case due to pest control, not due to possibility of a crazy shooter.

In any case, I would classify a guest refusing to open the door for a room check as outline in the rental agreement as an emergency (which should simply state once every x days or per management’s discretion).

It could be up to hotel management to go in without police, but I would certainly not give any line level employee an emergency key card to carry around at all times for that scenario. And I would also expect a manager to take on that task themselves.

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