Anyone who relies on restricting information to stay in business is in trouble these days.
I'm pretty sure (and there's a quote in the article about this) that thieves pretty much ignore locks and just smash and grab. Locks keep honest people honest.
Yes and no. Perhaps more accurately you should say 'Anyone who relies on restricting information indefinately to stay in business is in trouble these days.'
There are many cases where restricting information for a limited duration is an entirely viable business proposition. A classic example is Pay TV. In Europe, Pay TV operators make an absolute truckload of money each time the Football World Cup rolls around. Why? Just before the tournament starts, they all update the algorithms protecting their broadcasts. In general, these algorithms are pretty thoroughly hacked, and you can relatively easily get your hands on a pirated STB to get your feed. But it takes a while to figure these hacks out (anywhere between 1 month and several years, depending on how clever the scheme is). The thing is, it's no good figuring out how to crack the system in 3 months time, the pirate's customer wants to watch the football live! So, he has no choice but to cough up the money for the official STB/Pay TV subscription.
Surely locksmiths should be happy if ordinary key locks become insecure -- they're the ones who are going to be called out to replace them with higher-tech locks.
It's the rest of us who should be pissed off, we're the ones who'll have to pay them money to replace our locks.
unfortunately fingerprint recognition is notorious for bad security. there are exploits for various systems out there that involve sophisticated techniques such as gummy worms and replay attacks carried out by gently breathing on the fingerprint reader.
I was looking at a sweet one that also allows you to enter a code. It hooked up to the internet and allowed you to program restrictions on codes. For example, if you had a maid come in regularly (wouldn't that be nice?), her code would only work on certain days or during certain hours. Or if you were afraid you left your stove on and wanted someone to check, you could give them a code that would only work one time. I don't know how much you'd actually use those features, but it was a neat gadget.
Personally I'd be happy to unlock my house the same way I unlock my car -- by pressing a button on a device in my pocket. Better still, it would be the same device. Better still, I wouldn't have to press the button at all, it would unlock as soon as it noticed I was approaching, and then re-lock itself as soon as I was inside. That's probably the best solution in the longer term.
From a guy's perspective, those wireless keys are annoying as hell, because I keep it in my wallet. Most cars will start freaking out if you leave the car with it in your pocket while it's still running. Not only that but sometimes you get locked out when you don't want to, etc... because you left a certain radius. Example: returning a cart at the store.
Keyless entry fob... OK.
Proximity system... needs some work still, especially from a wallet-carrying perspective.
I'll have to admit, I like just pressing a button on the door handle to unlock and being able to just walk away, but more often than not the slick-factor gets carried away and causes more pain than good.
Like the wireless keys used in various cars like the Prius? You can press the start button, as long as the key is detectable somewhere on your person?
There are some mods to do that kind of thing (door unlocking, etc) with bluetooth. It would be nice if you could access your car and your house with the cell phone you keep in your pocket anyway.
Bluetooth could do this. Bluetooth proximity locks are available for computers, though I've not heard of one being used for doors. I suspect the Bluetooth "signature" (whatever it is) could be easily sniffed if someone knew about the lock, but it'd still be pretty cool.
I have a home made kit made out of big paper clips. Its not that good, and im a bad picker, but i find it interesting. Its a nice hobby. I feel safe because my dad installed a good lock that uses an electromagnet to unlock our metal door. Eastern Europe in the 90's(and now too) required such measures.
I've never heard of that. Does it use the magnet to hold the door locked, or to unlock it? If the latter, what happens when power goes down or the battery runs out and you want to get in or out? If the former, what stops people from disrupting the power supply to bypass the lock?
The magnet opens the door. Its basicly home made, and its security through obscurity. Only some nabors and friends know about it, and about 4-5 people know how to unlock it(it doesn't use a key, it has a metal detector and a fake door bell, you put a bolt on the metal detector, which is hidden, and pres the fake door bell, and it opens, then open the door). You don't know it's there if you look at the outside of the door, you just see a standard lock. Its actually not that secure, anybody that knows how it workers can open it, we only use it if we are outh of town for more than a day, most of the time there is at least one person home. If the power goes down, you have to wait for it to come back. You can get in from a window if that happens and unlock it from the inside. It's not a problem from the inside, you just pull the lock. Ooops, i said too much :D
I was a little curious too - I was expecting something more like macguyver where he used only a banana.... a little disappointing, but does have merit I guess.
i suppose its good that this is staying within geek culture as opposed to spreading amongst high school students or something -- imagine if they all saw that youtube video on how to pick a masterlock with a soda can??
