A "smart" lock without a fallback to a physical key. Uses a 4 digit code and locks you out after 5 tries. This is truly terrible even beyond the usual privacy and security concerns a smart lock introduces. And those concerns are far from trivial, this sounds like a privacy nightmare and also gives far too many people potentially access that shouldn't have.
Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
31–40 of 124 posts
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> our landlord does have a physical copy of the key to our house. I This should only be acceptable in the case where your landlord is also your property manager. If they're not, then your letting agent should have a copy of a key. On the 24 hours note, in 8 years of renting in the UK, I can only remember one instance where I was actually told 24 hours in advance. I was usually emailed at 5pm saying "hey, we have some…
You can legally change the lock if you change it back when you move out.
This: my current lock has been used in three different cities.
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#33Is it impossible to do this safely? Just like with my car, it would be really convenient when holding kids and a load of their stuff to not have to fish out the keys. I suppose there's the issue of your landlord locking you out if they're unhappy with something, but surely that is not purely a technological issue.
Just local RFID tokens without internet connection? If you use a system with properly secure tokens that's probably a relatively safe option. Same with key codes: internet management is not really needed for that. Of course access could be properly secured, but vendors have a really bad record of actually getting that right.
The tokens being secure is not enough. The system also has to check latency etc. to prevent repeater attacks.
Imagine a scenario like that: You leave your car in a parking lot. One attacker follows you with a repeater. Once you're around the corner the second attacker approaches your car and opens it via the repeated radio signal and starts it.
A while ago there had been a small debate on this topic, as attackers actually used such an approach to break into cars (sometimes even stealing them) https://www.wired.com/2017/04/just-pair-11-radio-gadgets-can...
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#34A "smart" lock without a fallback to a physical key. Uses a 4 digit code and locks you out after 5 tries. This is truly terrible even beyond the usual privacy and security concerns a smart lock introduces. And those concerns are far from trivial, this sounds like a privacy nightmare and also gives far too many people potentially access that shouldn't have.
It also locks you out after that neighbor you don’t like intentionally types a wrong code five times, because you where playing loud Music yesterday until 21:00, which isn’t against the rules but he/she doesn’t like it.
Extremely smart.
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#35Is there any secure smart lock? I would want one because I'm away 3 months a year and it would simplify renting my apartment on airbnb when I'm away (especially with the rent I pay in HK) but I'm also rather worried about the security implications. And from my brief research, a lot of vendors have very little documentations about security.
I would obviously only consider one that has a fallback to an actual key.
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#36Realtors and home renting companies use these near me. Signs that say "Let yourself in" and you can get a temporary code to go into a rental and such.
From a privacy stand point there are many concerns but when renting or leasing you are already bound by laws requiring you to admin maintenance and even owners with sufficient notice. Notice timeliness is all based around the nature of the call.
Plus on a safety side, elderly people could have locks opened for emergency persons by a central clearing system similar to how some home security systems are managed.
In the long run, you opt out by living somewhere else or owning your own place. There are both pros and cons and we need to focus on both and not one or the other.
edit: Another service/feature/etc I have seen lately is bundling standard utilities into the lease with surcharges for exceeding caps (electricity, gas, and water). This relieves the landlord of headaches and new residents from having issues getting services started
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
>our landlord does have a physical copy of the key to our house The practice in Turkey is to change the lock as soon as you move to your apartment. And most of the time landlords say "I don't want to be accountable if someone enters to the apartment, thus change the locks as soon as possible". And even though the landlord owns the property he is not allowed to enter to the apartment, there is a specific law for that.
I'm not saying that the landlord has to have the key over here - I could change the locks if I wanted to - I'm just saying that in my experience it was always beneficial - when I locked myself out, or had someone coming over to repair the boiler or something else...the landlord was always happy to come over and unlock the door. For me it's a benefit, not a downside.
It depends on the trust. There are friendly landlords and then there are bad landlords and worse, landlords who are extremely afraid of their property values going down.
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#38Is it impossible to do this safely? Just like with my car, it would be really convenient when holding kids and a load of their stuff to not have to fish out the keys. I suppose there's the issue of your landlord locking you out if they're unhappy with something, but surely that is not purely a technological issue.
In theory, yes, it's possible to do this safely. But offhand I can think of several horror stories about smart locks, and no good stories. The tech just seems absurdly immature at this point. And this product, in particular, is apparently known for glitching and not working, so...
On top of the software aspects many smart locks neglect the actual locking mechanism leaving the lock vulnerable to easy tricks like shimming.
Smart locks also have to consider how they'll function without electricity. An exposed slot for a battery could let an attacker instantly fry the lock from the outside.
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#39Is there any secure smart lock? I would want one because I'm away 3 months a year and it would simplify renting my apartment on airbnb when I'm away (especially with the rent I pay in HK) but I'm also rather worried about the security implications. And from my brief research, a lot of vendors have very little documentations about security. I would obviously only consider one that has a fallback to an actual key.
Not that ai have seen. Check out 'the lockpicking laywer' on youtube for details on many models. He only focuses on physical security however.
Re: Landlords forcing smart locks on tenants
#40Realtors and home renting companies use these near me. Signs that say "Let yourself in" and you can get a temporary code to go into a rental and such. From a privacy stand point there are many concerns but when renting or leasing you are already bound by laws requiring you to admin maintenance and even owners with sufficient notice. Notice timeliness is all based around the nature of the call. Plus on a safety side,…
Sure there are potential positives, but the current state of the art is not ready for this, and if you read the thread, it's clear this particular vendor is absolutely not handling the requisite security concerns in the right way. In any case, there's no good reason not to have a physical key for a fallback. What happens during a power outage and the Internet is down? How is this thing powered anyway? Batteries are a major problem. And again, if it's hardwired, that's also a risk.