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Comment by k-mcgrady | Hacker News Reader

>> This is a complete privacy and security nightmare both from the potential of cracking it and from installing an app that will probably grab every permission it can.

Aren't hotel room locks already easily cracked? I remember seeing it on HN last year. As for permissions - if you don't like them don't install the app, they aren't going to deny you a key.

>> It's also going to be entertaining seeing people with dead batteries begging a charge from people in the lobby.

Presumably in this case they would give you a key.

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>Aren't hotel room locks already easily cracked?

They are, but this will only make them worse.

There is no reason to believe that an nfc controled lock is any less secure than a traditional physical tumbler lock. In fact, if set up correctly (well sealed pannel, sound generation of keys, etc), it could be significantly more secure since well set up cryptography is a hell of a lot harder than simple lock picking.

That's a big "if". Big enough to be implausible - even nuclear missiles were sitting in the silos for years with launch code set to "000000"; what makes you think that hotels will care more about their security? See e.g. this: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/hotel_door_lo...

Moreover, the electronic mechanism pretty much never opens the lock: it activates a relay, which opens ... drum roll ... the physical lock. So the old, mechanical lock vulnerabilities are preserved, and new electronic ones added on top. What could posibly go wrong?

"mechanical lock vulnerabilities are preserved"

I've never been to a hotel that uses an ordinary key since those can be easily replicated, so that point is moot: all the electronic locks (most common these days) already have this "vulnerability" ("so why put a lock there in the first place?").

Second, since this system is being developed to use a smartphone, the security is easier to manage than a PIN code (such as 000000...). One can use centralised key-servers, etc.

Third, the company making these locks (the physical part) is ASSA Abloy, which is an extremely reputable lock company instead of the one in your link.

>Third, the company making these locks (the physical part) is ASSA Abloy, which is an extremely reputable lock company instead of the one in your link.

Fair enough, maybe they thought about the physical side then; Abloy make what is arguably the best mechanical lock in the world.

Still doesn't mean the authentication side is secure though.

"Still doesn't mean the authentication side is secure though."

It doesn't mean it cannot be made secure, either.

Aren't hotel room locks already easily cracked?

IIRC the post you're probably thinking about was the fact the reprogramming port for hotel use allowed an attacker to do gain control. This is an implementation problem with the hardware attached to the door, regardless of key technology.

Even with poorly-protected service access interfaces and magstripe keys the incidence of malicious attack doesn't provide economic incentive for hotels to do better. Bluetooth based locks may provide incentive to swap out all the existing poor security locks in a building, but there isn't anything preventing the computer security of the new locks from being even worse.

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