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danweberon HN's Daeken will expose security flaw in 4m hotel room keycard locks

People do use the legal system for suppression of free speech, to chill censors. There are also lawyers who will take issues like that pro bono. Google up the Popehat Symbol for some examples.

danweberon HN's Daeken will expose security flaw in 4m hotel room keycard locks

"Someone might sue me for doing the right thing" is a pretty thin excuse. There's a reason it's called "doing the right thing" instead of "doing what's easiest for you."

Say I'm a lawyer, and I find out that in order to help a client of mine I have to present evidence that's extremely embarrassing to a close friend of mine. I'm am professionally and ethically obligated to present that evidence.

Now, security professionals don't have, and probably shouldn't have, fiduciary responsibilities like that. However, industries set up codes of ethics for their members precisely because there's a difference between "what's best for me right now" and "what's the right thing to do."

If the idea is to embarrass the industry into fixing these problems, an article in Forbes does a pretty good job of that.

danweberon HN's Daeken will expose security flaw in 4m hotel room keycard locks

He hasn't even gone to the point of no return yet. The vendor's competitors -- assuming they aren't similarly vulnerable -- can point this news article out in their marketing literature.

The company can probably come up with a solution faster than a brand new third party can generate all of this guy's work.

danweberon HN's Daeken will expose security flaw in 4m hotel room keycard locks

In order so that they could do ... what, exactly?

There may be lots of things the vendor could do. They could contact their customers so the hotels have a chance to consider their options. There is a good chance the vendor knows the protocol better than the guy who reverse engineered it; maybe there is a kill-code that they could give their hotels.

when hotels suddenly have to start replacing their locks with less-flawed ones. And I'm not sure a company that produced a flawed products deserves that.

You don't know that other products are better. In fact, he's said that there are other products he hasn't tested but still have the port. Maybe they are even easier to hack.

The company is going to have to deal with bad publicity regardless. It's just that know hotel managers are going to be in panic mode because of this guy is giving out all the directions so anyone can make their own skeleton key.

danweberon Scientists propose one-way trips to Mars

True that. Colonizing would be risky, but out of a billion or so people you ought to be able to find a few hundred that are competent and willing to take on the risk.

A common strategy for Mars missions is to send the supplies there first. You can land habitats, vehicles, food stores, water-producing machines, power plants (and the return vehicle, if we're not talking about one-way missions), and check on them via radio before your crew ever takes off.

danweberon Scientists propose one-way trips to Mars

> Humans can live off the land just about anywhere on Earth

99% of humans only can live off the land because of technology. Most of the US would die tonight without man-made heating, clothing, and shelter. Mars would require different technology, to be sure.

> For colonization to work, it must be self-sufficient nearly from day one

Why? The American colonies did a lot of trade with other countries. They have never been "self-sufficient."

A Mars colony would need to place priority on low-density objects, like generating their own food and water. We obviously haven't done it yet, but we don't think it's impossible. They would still use trade to get in very wealth-dense things, like nuclear fuel and computer equipment for a while, but that doesn't mean that they would necessarily be charity cases.