Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 122 posts

Re: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

#101

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

robk wrote: post #79
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most regular houses I've lived in (in Australia) could be trivially and discretely broken in to with a jemmy bar (crowbar). My neighbour had his two jet skis stolen from his carport on a weekday, they were chained to a post. The auto shop across from my work had their delivery ute stolen from inside the building while six staff were an open door way away. I caught someone sitting in my car trying to start it with a s…

Is Tasmania that bad? This sounds like Detroit

That encouraged me to take a peek, turns out Launceston was the the worst place in Tasmania for home burglary in 2014/15[1], but still not as bad as other areas around the country.

1. https://www.canstar.com.au/home-insurance/state-hotspots-for...

Re: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

#102

Post by rdl »

dmix wrote: post #71
donavanm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on where you are. UL ratings are used in north america. There are similar EU ratings that I dont recall of hand. TL ratings are for theft/entry resistance. There are other modifiers for fire, water, chemical, etc resistance. Unrated "safes", and even some that are said to be rated, are junk. In NA you want to get in touch with a local safe dealer/specialist. Most of their business is commercial, and they are…

That video was much dirtier and louder than I expected. Lots of brute force still involved. Not quite the domain of out of shape hackers. But I guess that's why we build robots. For anyone who wants a good safe cracking story, this book is excellent: https://www.amazon.com/Flawless-Inside-Largest-Diamond-Histo... A group of Italians went to Belgium's diamond district and bypassed an very expensive vault door. The bes…

30x6 means 30 min on all 6 sides. Normally safes are installed bolted to concrete and sometimes positioned in a building so only the front or possibly sides are easily accessible to attack, so often the door is far more attack resistant than the rest of the safe. This saves money and mass.

Re: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

#103

Post by babuskov »

AYBABTME wrote: post #82
agumonkey wrote: post #56

Last month I had the disappointing surprise of finding a lock on my bike. I forgot I put it (it's been years since I last used it). And it's not a key lock.. so I'm screwed. Not willing to cut the cable.. I decided to brute force it. 999 space is fun. Luckily you quickly find similar tips than the alignment one to speed up the process. And since it's not a full rotary lock, I could also "DDR" the tests by testing whe…

For 1000 possible combinations, wouldn't you expect to have to try ~500 combinations on average to find solutions? Since you found it in 800 attempts, this suggests that whatever method you used may have actually made your odds of success worst.

> on average

You can "expect" but if you only have one lock to unlock, it can be anything from 1 to 1000 attempts.

If you had 1000 locks, you can expect that the average would be 500 (if the numbers were truly random), but it still means that you might need one try for some locks, and 999 tries for some other lock.

Re: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

#104

Post by closeparen »

sargun wrote: post #100
DiabloD3 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cut communications hardlines to the building, and also use a cell scrambler.

If a building has that level of protection, I'd hope its fail closed not open.

That, and the overall physical security standards require the communication lines to be buried in concrete.

Ross Anderson's Security Engineering has a fun chapter on this topic.

Re: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

#108

Post by DrScump »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #57
DrScump wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind that local governments view property crime as a form of economic stimulus. You'll be spending money to replace the stolen items, presumably some of that locally, and on repairs, presumably all locally. Meanwhile, whatever money the criminals get back in selling the stolen items (and subsequent profits by their fences) will also presumably be spent locally.

I mildly subscribe to this believe too, however it's more likely the police in (highly populated?) areas don't have the time / budget to thoroughly investigate everything . Properly crime + little evidence = contact you're insurer thanks have a nice day.

  little evidence
No evidence collected != little evidence present.

I bet pretty much every thief leaves fingerprints now; police haven't taken prints for pure property crimes in years. (In contrast, SJPD did take prints for a car break-in in 1986).

Every week, you hear of a neighborhood getting hit by a gang, with 30+ vehicles affected -- total losses well into the felony range.

A gang could be shut down in a month if bait cars with GPS-tracked bags were used. Same with front-porch package thefts (always rampant).

Re: Robot cracks open safe live on Def Con's stage

#110

Post by A_Person »

unkown-unknowns wrote: post #46
A_Person wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does it matter if I don't bolt it to the floor? It depends on the type of safe. I'm not a locksmith, but I have researched this, and this is how I understand it. There are "security" safes (aka "burglar" safes), and "fireproof" safes. A security safe should be bolted to the floor, to stop the bad guys ripping it out. It comes with pre-drilled holes for that purpose. However, a fireproof safe should not have any thr…

But for his own sake wouldn't it be better you told him so that he can either get a burglar proof safe if that's what he wants or get a new fireproof safe that he then doesn't destroy by drilling through it? I know that a lot of people don't appreciate advice though, but still if this relative respects you they should listen.

> wouldn't it be better you told [your relative] so that he can either get a burglar proof safe if that's what he wants or get a new fireproof safe that he then doesn't destroy by drilling through it?

Fair comment. But I guessed that all he wanted was something that would stop a burglar from bashing it open in 5 minutes. It's probably fine for that purpose. But I might say something to him next time.

Post reply on HN