Hacker News Reader

Comment by psychotik | Hacker News Reader

Why not use a lock with a keycode instead? I don't see a single scenario where Lockitron works better.

http://consumer.schlage.com/Products/Pages/category-landing....

For me, it'd be about guest access. Sure, you could give out your codes, and then change them later, but that's a pain (with the Schlage products at least).

FWIW, I find it simple enough to add/remove codes as needed. I can see how punching ~15 buttons can be a pain, but I don't find it so.

I think the main benefit here is that it works with your existing lock, so it could work on apartments, dorm rooms, office doors, etc. Those key code deadlocks have always existed, but never very popular.

In the US, maybe. Here in Seoul it's everywhere. Practically all apartment units come with them pre-installed.

Renters. Lockitron isn't viewable from the outside.

The user codes for these products are 4 digits, and 4 digit codes do not offer much security.

I had a 4 digit Master lock in 7th grade, and an 8th grader spent a little bit of time with the lock, determined the passcode (chosen at random), and then changed the combination.

I wouldn't put one of these locks on my home, or on anything that I wanted to actually "lock"

Some rental properties use 4 digits. On his own house my friend uses proper lock with 10 digits, for example.

The keycodes are pretty easy to guess. Regular users will only ever enter the correct codes so if you look carefully at the keypad you can see which digits have been pressed. Most likely there will only be 4 of the 10 possible digits used. I've actually encountered keypads where the order didn't actually matter so you could get in in seconds.

Combine that with the assumption that the average consumer probably used a date of some significance for their 4-digit code and in the US you can guess that 0 or 1 was first, 0, 1, 2 or 3 was the third position, leaving you only to guess the second and fourth position.

There are only 24 possible combinations of a 4 digit code anyway (assuming 4 different digits). I doubt the devices do a lockout on the wrong code, so it wouldn't take that long to hack.

uh, where'd you get 24? how about 10 X 9 X 8 X 7 = 5040 combinations.

>I've actually encountered keypads where the order didn't actually matter

If the order really doesn't matter, then that counts combinations twice (1234, 1243..). There are 10000 possible 4-digit codes, 5040 permutations, and actually 210 combinations.

You haven't taken into account that by looking at the keypad you can tell which digits are actually used.

Because from fingerprints and similar gunk on the pad you can tell which 4 digits were used.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com