Live data from Hacker News

Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

bbc.co.uk

71–80 of 118 posts

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#71

> "They have no value really, but they are of great interest to us. It gives us a little bit of idea of what the places were like in 1977, '78," said Mr Kibblewhite. This must be the most American thing ever. 40 year old stuff treated like they're ancient.

Who said "ancient" other than you? You have no interest in what things were like 40 years ago?

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#73

If the combination does allow for wiggle room and the 1 in 8000 figure is correct, the code could have been brute forced in a couple hours. Source: my wife has a habit of forgetting the combination to her 3 digit luggage lock and I had to brute force it a few times (it's surprisingly quick, about 15 minutes) :)

Would they have known about the wiggle room without opening the safe, though? I figured they found this out after inspecting the lock once the safe was open. So if they didn't know about this wiggle room -- or know what amount of wiggle was allowed -- could they have benefited in any way?

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#74

If the combination does allow for wiggle room and the 1 in 8000 figure is correct, the code could have been brute forced in a couple hours. Source: my wife has a habit of forgetting the combination to her 3 digit luggage lock and I had to brute force it a few times (it's surprisingly quick, about 15 minutes) :)

I bruteforced a 4-digit 2FA in 2 days, of course with the help of a small script instead of trying it myself. It's always fun to see dumb solutions work.

I brute-forced a 32-bit random number generator in an internet worm, back in the day[1]. Brute force is underrated.

[1] http://www.icir.org/vern/papers/witty-imc05.pdf

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#75

> "They have no value really, but they are of great interest to us. It gives us a little bit of idea of what the places were like in 1977, '78," said Mr Kibblewhite. This must be the most American thing ever. 40 year old stuff treated like they're ancient.

California was Mexico less than 200 years ago

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#76
post #37

1 in 216000... seems like you could build some robotic device to brute force that pretty easily... or you know, introduce it to a thermic lance. EDIT: sorry, my research suggests that safe-cracking with thermic lances is plausible but not practical (source; Mythbusters, of course)

or maybe with a handheld x-ray like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovqJpcaWD7o but not with every safe: "Some modern safe locks are made of lightweight materials such as nylon to inhibit this technique, since most safe exteriors are made of much denser metals" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safe-cracking#Radiological_met...

Not that this was a modern safe (Thought to be bought in 1907)

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bruteforced a 4-digit 2FA in 2 days, of course with the help of a small script instead of trying it myself. It's always fun to see dumb solutions work.

if it works, it's not a dumb solution :)

I took two things away from my AI class.

1) If brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough.

2) Do the stupid thing first.

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#79
post #65

> "They have no value really, but they are of great interest to us. It gives us a little bit of idea of what the places were like in 1977, '78," said Mr Kibblewhite. This must be the most American thing ever. 40 year old stuff treated like they're ancient.

This must be the most HN thing ever. Picking a single thing out of an article and using it to criticize Americans.

Hopefully not. I'd like to think the people here are better than that.

Re: Tourist's lucky guess cracks safe code on first try

#80
post #47

If the combination does allow for wiggle room and the 1 in 8000 figure is correct, the code could have been brute forced in a couple hours. Source: my wife has a habit of forgetting the combination to her 3 digit luggage lock and I had to brute force it a few times (it's surprisingly quick, about 15 minutes) :)

I had this in university - when I started some documents I needed were delivered to my uni mailbox which was guarded by a code, but we weren't due to get our code until we had completely "matriculated" (signed in, got our IDs, etc). So I just sat down with a couple of beers and set out out to try all 9999 combinations (it was thankfully in the 2000s or so). Made me realise that my university mailbox wasn't actually t…

Ok, here’s one for you. This is almost too painful to repeat it’s so bad. When I went to college, the university implemented at 4 digit prefix that students would use when dialing from a campus phone so they could charge long distance calls directly to their university bill. With only 9999 numbers allocated to 6000 students, it was comically simple to use a random number and make that long overdue call to mom.

Right. It lasted a month before it was scrapped.

Post reply on HN