We use Lockitron on our offices and it has saved us a lot of trouble. Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys, presumably because you use your phone for so many other things whereas most keys do nothing but get you into a single building.
My problem with solution like this is the centralization. I dont want to give power over my door to any one commercial entity. I am sure people behind this project are all nice and likable. And it looks like really neat solution feature-wise. But I dont like the principle. Centralization is never good. You dont know the future of the companny, but your doors depend on it to certain degree. Plus it is a single point of failure and added security risk.
But then again, I dont use facebook, dropbox or gmail for the same reason. (Instead I use selfhosted solutions.) So I am an unimportant minority. Its a pity that the trend with new solutions is towards use of centralization instead of decetralization, which gave us Internet, email and even parlament democracy. As I sad before, if email were to be invented today it would be single company's project backed by YC that would rule us all.
From their FAQ: "if you would like to access Lockitron only via your local network, then we welcome you to flash your base-station with a new image that gives you full access to develop as you see fit"
So you can still use the hardware even if you don't like their software.
While I have seen people walking around and trying doors, it's rare and it attracts a lot of attention. There's something of a herd immunity effect from door locking. As long as most doors are locked, a couple unlocked doors don't matter.
While a trained locksmith could probably get past my deadbolt, a random hacker from $current_unpopular_country can't. (Note: this isn't counting non-locksmiths that can also pick a lock). So, using something like this does carry a bigger (if slight) risk. I'm not sure if I'd necessarily trust a relatively new company with controlling my deadbolt.
Then again, I also have a similar setup using an HID tag reader/arduino/relay to control access to my garage door, so it's not like I'm against the technology. It's more that I'm worried about outsourcing the security of my house.
Honestly, the threat profile to me personally is pretty low, but it's still not something I'm 100% comfortable with.
I understand the point you are making. But I think the perception here is important as well. And even though the probability of someone opening the door is quite slim people still lock doors anyway. Irrationality plays into this. People lock bathroom doors even though only part of the time they are exposed in any way shape or form. Most of the time they are only sitting down on the toilet seat (or if a many perhaps standing for a brief period).
Personally on the one hand I agree with you and rationally it isn't a credible threat. But what if I am away on vacation and the door is unlocked during that week that I am away and I don't know about it? How comfortable do I feel with my office door being unlocked for a week? It's a small chance of a big thing happening. (Even if 99.99%).
There are some people even who carry lockpicks and locks and practice picking for sport and they are all over, like on /r/lockpicking and on places like HN....
I don't know who these people might be - but I know they are out there.
I have been thinking about how to move self-hosted solutions more into the mainstream. Nearly every company already has some form of hosting that can be utilized for this. Every household has a router that can serve as a miniature data center. The problem seems to be the heavy maintenance but I don't see how this cannot be proliferated the same way it has been done for applications on mobile platforms.
Did you build your current lock by hand? Did you at least disassemble it and figure out that there isn't a master key that would grant entry? How far do you take this?
Maybe having your locks NAT out or phone home to a third party is a bit much for a lot of people, as it opens new vectors, but you know, bricks and windows and such.
"Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys,"
That also varies on whether you drive a car or take public transportation.
If you drive, leaving your house requires taking your keys and it becomes a habit. Same with leaving work. If you drove there you need your keys to leave.
A good way around forgetting keys also is a realtor style lockbox either on the door or hidden with a spare key.
Yeah, I forget my phone way more than I forget keys, because I need the keys to open (NFC/HID) the door to the garage and to use the car. I use a deadbolt so I can't lock myself out of the apartment, but also can't go into the garage without keys, and I ~never go out the front door. I end up leaving my phone docked in my car about 10% of the time by accident, though.
The key (heh) to not forgetting anything, though, is to have a consistent set of pockets for things -- I always keep keys+knife, flashlight, wallet+cash, iphone in specific pockets. The only times I get screwed up is when I wear clothing without the right layout of pockets.
Ever since I discovered the keep-things-in-the-same-pocket trick a few years back, the number of times I forget stuff at home got to virtually zero. When it's time to leave, all I have to do is slap all of my pockets to get a feel for what's in them, and that's it I'm done.
Regarding the different pocket layout, I've also limited myself to just using the main ones for my day to day stuff, so two front and two back. Though when i wear cargo pants or shorts I do put my wallet on the pocket halfway my leg as it's more comfortable with sitting.
I have panicked several times after I put my MIFI device in my pants pocket instead of its specific pocket in my backpack. And the same when I place my wallet in my front pocket instead of the back after a transaction.
Yeah -- I was even more OCD with my tactical vest, pants, etc. Basically every square inch of MOLLE had a purpose, and needed to work when standing or when prone on the floor (during incoming), etc. And you do weird things like put a first aid kit with standard layout in a standard location (to be used on YOU if injured), and I had my real medical kit in a different position (which I'd use on anyone else, or on myself).
My car's trunk is similarly organized with a trauma bag, fire extinguisher, crowbar, etc.
Heh, I am constantly fretting over the pacticality of the location and contents of my Go Gear...
I am checking and practicing grabbing [defensive item] often, worried that I am testing it wrong, i.e. that if it happens where I need that [defensive item] that I have placed it in a non-practical place.
I'd love to have a security consultant review my go plans and assist.
My moms house was broken into last night, and she awoke to someone stealing her laptop. She was just diagnosed with cancer and has a trach in right now - so it was super scary for her - because even in that instance, she cant even yell for help. The ADP alarm system failed her and my brother was MIA.
PROTIP: I go to the DAISO Japan store and buy little cargo zipper bags to organize all my tech work gear. Console cables, dsiplay adapters, USB charges etc in one - zip ties velcro, sticky-velcro etc in another. laptop chargers in others...
The DAISO store in SF Japan town is amazing for just this sort of thing.
If [defensive item] is a CCW, you might want to try to cut back on reaching for it. One of the biggest tells for someone carrying concealed is how they constantly feel for their weapon...
I use a gunvault by the bed (I don't have kids in the house, but would feel bad about leaving a loaded handgun out anyway, just in case someone broke in when unattended, shot himself by accident, and I got sued, among other risks like a houseguest or maid or repairman) http://www.amazon.com/Gunvault-GV2000S-Multi-Vault-Standard/...
I'm not sure if I'd trust it to resist serious attack, but chording it a few times gives a reasonably large keyspace, opens quickly, and presents the weapon (loaded and chambered, no external manual safety on the glock 19) in a consistent position for drawing, so it's faster than just leaving it loose in a drawer.
In my trailer or tent in Iraq/Afghanistan, I just put a spare holster between the mattress and bedframe and slept with it there, which worked well, but was a higher risk environment and zero legal risk.
Ha, the locations of all our equipment was boiled down to a science in my unit. For example, the tourniquet was in the left side because the left was more difficult to access in prone because we cant remove our right hands from the gun and we need the left elbow for stability. (For non-military people, the tourniquet that a person carries is used on him in case of emergency so he himself should rarely need to access it).
Yeah, I saw a wide variety of unit effort put into things like that. At one level, standardization is good, but at another level, treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment...
The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight. An 18D would then periodically loosen them, keeping the limb from being lost, and monitoring/timing for sepsis (which is the risk of leaving a tourniquet tight, letting tissue die, and then loosening outside of a hospital setting -- I think it's hyperkalemia and some other stuff too. I think the rule is 30 minutes of blood flow per 2 hours for up to 24h, but this was evolving at the time. It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure (israeli bandage, etc.), since it could be accomplished in 5 seconds directly by the operator (it's hard to even FIND where entrance and exit wounds are under a uniform, and sometimes there are multiple per patient per incident, although usually on the same limb).
It was fine when OCF-I, etc. people did it, but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding (not even infantry, but supply guys going on outside the wire road trips between bases returning from R&R...).
It was a lot like startups -- people learning as they went, in a rapidly evolving environment. The big fail, IMO, was rotating whole units out ever 4, 7, 12, or 15 months to have to re-learn everything again, and then sending them to an entirely different place when they returned. The British Empire system of rotating individual battalions or brigades through a unit which was permanently stationed in the occupied territory made a lot more sense I think.
> treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment...
Well, my situation was a bit different as I was in a special forces unit. For one, we had no women.
>The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight.
We've had this practice, but when you have a tourniquet(properly tied, cutting off all flow) on a limb, you have little to no control over it (to test this, tie a tourniquet just above your bicep and try to open and close your hand when it has no pulse). The only thing you can do is use other limbs to make up for the lost one. Furthermore, if that limb is a leg (the thigh in particular), in order to fully cut off the flow, it is necessary to apply so much pressure so as to break the bone (which sucks, but is better than dying). Lastly, even if the situation were dire enough to warrant these measures, where would you place the tourniquet on the limb? This is a problem for a few reasons. For example, I dont know about your unit but in mine, anything on us gets beaten up a lot for various reasons; damage to the tourniquet would be likely and problematic. Furthermore, during an exercise, the amount of blood that flows through your muscles increases thereby expanding the size of the limb. This would cut off blood flow and inhibit performance if you had a loosely tied tourniquet on it. If you resize it to be larger, then it would slip and fall in times of inactivity. Lastly, and this might also be a difference between units, we arent allowed to wear any bright colors, reflective mattes, sharp contracting colores, or have anything on us which identifiably changes our shape so as to mitigate detection. As I said, when it comes to the equipment (especially the medical equipment) everything is boiled down to a science.
>It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure
This is true, but the problem is the loss of use of the limb. If you are in a situation where you absolutely need to move quickly, a direct pressure solution to slow the bleeding until you are in a relatively safe area where you can then apply a tourniquet is better. A lot of the decisions you have to make are a balancing act of speed versus safety.
>but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding
This is very true. The number one mistake I see people who havent been trained to use a tourniquet make is they tie it (however poorly) on the injury. You are supposed to tie it 4 fingers above the injury because veins are elastic and when severed they jump back into the body, so you need to account for that and tie it higher.
Sorry if I went on too much, I just really like that so much thought has been put into every decision that we take for granted; if only we knew.
(I was just a contractor for a few tiny companies, but got to work closely with people from various units ranging from "other" people to line infantry/MPs to CS/CSS to medical to allies to host nation, so I got to see a wide spectrum of great to defective for everything and then try to do whatever the people I was with did, or what made the most sense for me. I confess to having been one of the "empty plate carrier" wearers on some big bases, but I think it was an educated decision...)
The most interesting thing I saw in 8 years was working with the guys from the Institute for Surgical Research (ISR), making sure they got x-rays and CTs of all injuries, so they could have a team of doctors go through and figure out which equipment and weapons worked, which didn't, and how various pre and in-hospital interventions ended up over a statistically significant number of patients. I'd still rather have USA/USN/USAF trauma surgeons than anything I've seen in the civilian world)
Except for a year in a dorm where I couldn't disable my dorm room door's automatically-lock-when-shut behavior, I've developed a simple habit that's kept me from ever locking myself out of my car or home since: never lock the place/vehicle from the inside, or let it lock itself. I can't lock the deadbolt on my apartment when I leave without the key. And I can't lock my car from outside without the key. It's a way of forcing me to always have my keys.
So while I love the convenience this idea provides for shared access to places, and for frictionless don't-even-have-to-get-out-my-keys access, locking oneself out is a solved problem in my book. (Sure, I could lose my keys, but I could also lose my phone—and the redundancy here is another nice and fun thing provided by this system.)
(This habit was largely inspired by getting a car which refused to let me lock myself out: if I pushed the lock button down on the driver's door while the door was open, and then shut the door, it unlocked itself. Previously I'd had one where you held the handle out to override this behavior, but this one insisted on being locked from the outside. And then I noticed that this was keeping my from locking myself out like I had a few times with the old one.)
The automatically-lock-when-shut behavior of doors is an extremely weak protection anyway, so one should always lock the door with a key anyway (this at least prevents the most trivial circumvention, i.e., open the door with a plastic card).
Interestingly I seem to use more or less the converse of your method, also with great success: Always lock the apartment door from the inside. Whenever I leave the apartment, I therefore am forced to take the keys.
I suppose the most important thing is to be consistent with ones behavior, so that a subconscious habit can develop.
Since all the YC partners are using boosted boards to longboard to the office, I bet this comes in handy. I know I wouldn't want a giant key chain in my pocket while riding.
If your phone is iPhone-ish in size, you may try what I did. After getting a stiff-rubberized phone case (you stretch it around the phone), tape the cards to the case. If you cut a notch in an old card, you can have that be the card against the tape -- the rest of the cards can slide in and out against that card or the phone, and are held in by the force of the tape.
I call it the PhoneWallet. I made one for my droid Incredible.
I'm really interested in seeing a car lock like Lockitron.
"Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys..."
Especially with the PhoneWallet. I have my keycard, ID, and ORCA all conveniently on the back of my phone. The same tap gets me into work and pays bus fares. If I didn't have to carry a car key, I would just carry that 1 item.
You should check out Mavia (mavizon.com). I have worked with these guys as a contractor in the past, and they've got a really cool product for cars. The first version is coming out in the next few months, and doesn't have "car control" yet. It has all kinds of neat location and OBDII diagnostics features right now. Car control (unlock doors, start the car, etc.) is the next big feature.
I've seen and used these as well. They are OK, but you need to still remember to bring the key-fob. Because it does not come out of the pocket/purse nearly as much, makes it (oddly) somewhat of a PITA to keep an eye on. Example: I read one time of a guy having this on his (Ducati?) Moto and after filling up at the petrol, drove back into his hometown to the Local pub. Later, Bike no longer works, has to have the tow truck come to take him home. What happened? He left the fob on top of the petrol dispenser. He was close enough to start and take off, but as he left, he "lost" the key. But never noticed, as bike worked fine (and it was not visible normally unlike a regular key, etc). Ergo, him stranded. Expensive mistake. Moral of the story is if you don't use it, you lose it. =]
My car (a Hyundai) is keyless like that so you just need the key to be on your person. There's no technical reason why this couldn't be done with NFC on a mobile phone, but I think the excuse would be about car thefts. Modern cars all use chipped keys that are really stringently tied to dealers and car thefts have plummeted during recent years.
It's a lot more convenient than I would have guessed though, one of the nice bits that I noticed is my car lights up when I walk up to it at night. Not bright, but the LED under the mirror illuminates the ground around the driver side door. Very neat.
I think all the new Dodge models (even base trim) have keyless these days as well. Hopefully it it catches on for all makes, it's a pretty nice feature.
"Empirically" still implies more formality than the purely anecdotal evidence presented here, unless there's more to it that pg is not sharing with us.
