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Comment by olefoo | Hacker News Reader

I had two, almost simultaneous reactions to this.

On the one hand "oooh, that's useful, I need another set for loaning to cat-sitters."

On the other hand, "Keys are worthless now!"

The gripping hand is that keys have been worthless for quite some time, but we continue to use them. Whether out of habit, or because they feel sufficient.

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Locks and keys keep honest people honest, and make people feel "secure". There's a lot of value in that. The actual security value most locks provide-- not so much. I don't think this service changes that dramatically.

If keys are useless, what are we using them for?

They're clearly not useless.

Useless, in the sense that they are less than adequately effective; a reasonably able locksmith can open most barrel locks in seconds. If a criminal puts it in mind to acquire the skills, opening the locks is a small part of thievery, getting around the alarm is probably more of a concern.

I don't buy this reasoning. Yes, if someone really wanted to get in, they could probably learn to pick locks. But that doesn't mean locks are useless - now we reduced the pool of potential criminals to people who 1) know to pick locks 2) have been hanging around the area enough to know when the neighbors are away and unlikely to notice anything suspicious while a stranger is picking the locks 3) take greater risks. This is a significant improvement from anybody who saw that the car wasn't parked and decided to waltz in.

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