Combination locks that use letters/characters/non-numeral-glyphs have been around for an astoundingly long time, what's interesting about the word lock, though, is that they start with words, then make the dials.
The patent goes into detail - and is actually super easy/enjoyable to read - but the goal was to have a letter lock that maximized the number of real words that could be spelled from the available letters provided on the dial rings. So, a wordlist is generated under some parameters (such as word length) and then the rings are generated from that word list.
It's basically exactly what the author is doing, but in reverse.
The goal of the word lock was to increase the available keyspace of real words in a letter lock, thus increasing the security of those users who will buy a letter lock regardless. They do a number of other things right mechanically as well. Whether or not a bike lock is the best medium, I wouldn't say, but wordlock silently improved the security of a specific user base that greatly prefer convenience to security. That's awesome.
Very nice find on the patent, emhart. Thanks! It looks like the patent is the same as my `greedy_lock`, except that at each tumbler "the entire word list is scanned"; this is worse than scanning just the words that make it through the previous tumblers. Also, I was a noob at lock terminology; I should replace "dial" with "tumbler".
Thanks. I hadn't yet arrived at the greedy lock portion when I posted the above, but I finished the article soon after and absolutely loved it. The other thing worth noting is that while it sounds like there was some regional bias toward Fred Buns at your store, they should have different combinations of dials/letters on some of their locks. Also, also, some should be reconfigurable, which leads me to the challenge:
Optimal combination of dials in the circumstance that the dials can be rearranged.
& Don't sweat dial/tumbler, dial is more specific anyway, tumbler is the generic word.
When the lock is open, you can rotate an inner cylinder (not accessible while the lock is clasped) to a position which allows the outer rings of the dials to be moved to change the code.
Bought at a Canadian Tire store in Richmond, British Columbia. (See, even available in Canada.)
So, the best way to use a lock like that would be to pick a non word sequence. And regardless of the combinations these locks and all their derivatives are very easily opened even if you don't know the combination.
I am part way through your trajectory. I was a designer first, fell in love with html/css, eventually gave in and learned js, started to really enjoy that and have now been edging my way to the back end for a while. Now I'm job hunting at the same time and definitely feeling that desert of despair. Was glad to see your post, gives me some hope!
Yeah, southwest of Boston we are getting wrecked. Still coming down hard, hoping it finishes up soon. I'm glad we had the warnings, and I'll be particularly glad if we lose power, which seems pretty likely at this point, since the warning gave me the chance to stock up, charge battery backups, etc.
Hmm, "ad-lib" -- given that slide, what did they plan to say? Anyway, it's interesting to me that the pics of mostly-naked men and ASCII Goatse hardly get mentioned, overshadowed by a verbal remark. Maybe the con has changed its policy in response, but did they preview the slide deck?
I don't know of any security conferences that preview slides. original research is presented regularly which means your hard work might leak by conference organizers who can't keep their mouths shut.
Alsp, many speakers are working on their slides and talk minutes before going on. These talks get finished notoriously late
Yeah, if "got in trouble" == "it was mentioned in a few tweets", but mostly it seems focused on the trans remark. They quite literally assault the eyes of everyone in the room, and it only gets passing mention compared to a non-targeted[0], verbal insult to a certain class of people. Should the severity of an offense really be proportional to the oppression its victims are suffering?
[0] I mean they didn't point to a trans person in the room and say, "You're sticking out!"
"Sticking out like a white guy in a Mayan village" would probably have been non notable so I don't follow how it's offensive by switching the subjects.
Originally because it was fun and helped pay the bills. More and more recently I code to better understand things I'm thinking about or build small tools that are useful to me.
My inspiration for all of my work is a fear that no one else is going to look at the things I'm looking at, think about the things I'm thinking about or discover the answers I'm trying to find. This is less ego-maniacal than it sounds (I think), there just aren't many people pursuing my particular passion, so I genuinely feel like I need to do everything with it I possibly can before I die.
So named for the fabulous film Rififi, in which burglars rented an apartment, then drilled through the ceiling to the floor below. This was a direct reference to the French criminal anarchist Alexandre Marius Jacob who famously carried out just such an attack in the early 20th century. At his trial (for murder, among other things) he uttered one of my favorite quotes. He was asked what had become of him, he had traveled the world as a sailor, he was educated, how had he become a murderous anarchist. To which he replied:
Not a stupid question at all. A dive through the patent record reveals a ton of amazing ideas for locking random objects up. in my conversations with Bob Swartz he has been fond of saying that locks are essentially latches, which is a great way to think of them. Here is a quick rundown of locks that have been patented that cover your examples:
https://www.google.com/patents/US6621405
The patent goes into detail - and is actually super easy/enjoyable to read - but the goal was to have a letter lock that maximized the number of real words that could be spelled from the available letters provided on the dial rings. So, a wordlist is generated under some parameters (such as word length) and then the rings are generated from that word list.
It's basically exactly what the author is doing, but in reverse.
The goal of the word lock was to increase the available keyspace of real words in a letter lock, thus increasing the security of those users who will buy a letter lock regardless. They do a number of other things right mechanically as well. Whether or not a bike lock is the best medium, I wouldn't say, but wordlock silently improved the security of a specific user base that greatly prefer convenience to security. That's awesome.