Perfect Security
99percentinvisible.org
99percentinvisible.org
I've watched Schuyler talk[0][1] at RVASec (a small richmond va security conference) the last couple years.
If you find locks even almost remotely interesting, Schuyler is the guy who will talk until you think they are really interesting. He's super passionate about locks and gives a ton of easily digestable information about them.
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=emhart
I discovered this by reading this comment, and as soon as I read "security anthropologist", I figured there couldn't be two of those.
It's also interesting to think almost every house in the country has one of those locks, yet no one seems too concerned.
A) A pickable lock
B) A door that can be kicked in [fire code requirements]
C) Unsecured windows that can be broken to gain entry.
D) Crawl spaces that can be used to force entry from the outside.
You need alot more than a lock to secure a building.
Another thing that people often mix up, are security and safety. A secure door/building is a death trap. If people can't get in/out in an emergency, that's usually terrible, for almost any kind of building. A building that you can't break into or out of in less than a minute, is unsafe.
Or to put it another way: what's the difference between being in prison and living in a castle? ;-)
But yeah, stronger locks are pointless when you have doors that are designed to be kicked in [or out] in an emergency by someone who is able to apply a certain level of force to the right spot on the door.
Or care if you upgraded the lock and gave them a key?
So given the landlord would be fined by the city and told to change it back is the reason the landlord would care.
You could pick the lock or break a window, but that requires enough effort/behavior out of your norm to stop the impulse to maybe do something not-so-honest.
Even if you get a secure lock, are you also going to reinforce the door frame? If someone wants in they will get in. It just costs more if you want to make it harder to perform certain type of attacks against your home defense.
I can't remember where I read it, but a locked door is quite effective in preventing burglary as forcing the lock or crashing a window would greatly increase the chance being detected.
When looking at the video, the key looked very "old fashioned", and I thought that surely they're not widely used anymore. In Finland, most locks are something called (after quick look to Wikipedia) disc tumbler lock, and I hadn't really thought about how common they're elsewhere.
They look like these http://www.bobi.com/assets/Products/Bobi-mailboxes/accessori...
I can pick all the locks of my appartment in under a minute.. but im not worried.
The postman leaves packages in the lobby behind the building front door.. that door which he and everyone else has the code to, and everyone let everyone else in if they dont know it (or just give them the code really).
Never lost a single package.
I suspect the risk to gain ratio isn't popular.
A well-designed electronic lock based on modern cryptography might be immune to almost all of these attacks, so in a sense we're pretty close to getting perfect security back. In real life, of course, nothing stops attackers from simply ignoring the lock and bashing the door in.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_in_depth_%28computing%...
The big difference, is that in the digital world, seeing is possession -- if someone walks up on your porch an reads the documents you've placed there, you'd never know.
(Writing this, I kind of realize how some seemingly sensible people think that the crazy laws on computer intrusion makes sense... but the don't. That's a discussion for another time, though. Along with how analogies may not be the best vehicle to determine sentencing guidelines new areas opened up by new technology...)
a very well secured secret that is also not talked about will be very safe.
a poorly secured secret that is also not talked about will not be very safe, and you probably wont even know when its stolen.
in the real world, the later happens most of the time. hence why security by obscurity is highly discouraged. it enforces the security mechanisms to be pretty good.