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

Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

shloosl.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 84 posts

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#21

Post by ics »

kapilkale wrote: post #17

Someone pitched me this idea a few months ago and I urged him to pursue it. I'm glad to see that it's being done by a super technical team who seem to know what they're doing. Here's why I'm so excited: 1. Shloosl solves a small but acute problem that nearly everyone in the country has. 2. It's a big FU to a fragmented and unevolving couple billion dollar industry. I don't want to find a locksmith or go to Home Depot…

> I certainly hope the security industry responds with something good.

Security industry? As you said, it's unlikely they'll be surprised. I'd say if it catches on then we're much more likely to see legislation against these sorts of services unless they enforce valid IDs– hell, give it a month and I'm sure someone could find a way to spin it as a DMCA issue. That seems a whole lot easier to them than actually trying to solve the problem, which is that the locks we use are fundamentally insecure.

All in all though I do think it's a great idea, and I hope it does happen. I might even give it a try since I just welcomed a new roommate and it turns out I didn't have as many spare keys as I thought I did...

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#22

Post by lucaspiller »

> More convenient than a hardware store

I'm not too convinced by that, the only times I've had to get keys cut in the last year were because:

- I moved into a new apartment and my landlord only had one set of keys. I didn't always want to be home when my housemates wanted to get in so the first thing we did was get new keys cut.

- I lent a key to my landlord to do repairs, and they didn't return it. I borrowed one of my housemate's key and got a copy cut (protip: copying a copy isn't a great idea) straight away.

I guess maybe it's different in the US, but over here I go past at least five locksmiths on my way to work. Other than that, cool idea :)

(My landlord isn't too great BTW)

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#24

Post by Moto7451 »

eps wrote: post #4

Oh, this is so going to be abused for copying other people's keys. You can now even Photoshop the "DONT COPY" embossing away. Very cool.

I've never had a problem having "DO NOT COPY" keys copied. When I was the manager of a store I had to get multiple copies of the door keys and case keys at various times working there. OSH, Home Depot, etc didn't ask me any questions, just made my copies and sent me on my way.

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#25

Post by pseudonym »

I'm actually more worried about this[1]. I don't want my key and associated information stored with bank-grade cryptography, I want it deleted after it's cut and sent out. It's easy enough to change a password if you get hacked, it's slightly more difficult to change a credit or debit card but it's more hassle in "changing all the places it's used" than anything else. But changing locks is a huge pain, and not always possible to do depending on what the key is for. I'd far rather take a picture of a key, save it somewhere secure myself, and send it in when I need a copy made. Having both my shipping address and the key to that address stored on a remote server is particularly worrying to me.

1. http://shloosl.com/#Security

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#26

Post by downandout »

Forgive me if it's already being done, but I would love to see this capability at my local Home Depot or maybe in an app for a locksmith service. Store pics of my keys on a secure server at the provider, and if I ever lose a key, I hit a button and it's made for me. Could be a whole new revenue stream for them.

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#27

Post by nucleardog »

eps wrote: post #4

Oh, this is so going to be abused for copying other people's keys. You can now even Photoshop the "DONT COPY" embossing away. Very cool.

Why bother? Around here places like Home Depot will just generally copy it even if it says "DON'T COPY" right on it.

And the one time I was trying to copy a key which Home Depot didn't have blanks for, it said "DO NOT COPY" on it, and the locksmith I went to only asked me to fill out a slip of paper with my name, the address the key was for, and the type of location it was for (house, garage, etc).

I filled it out with entirely incorrect information.

This service really does not open up many doors that were not already open.

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#29

Post by marvwhere »

sooo now i only need a picture of my nemesis/crush to get in his/her apartment? sounds good...all the fun i can have...

...and totally not crepy...

WHAT THE FUCK?

one more reason to get a $70 lock where the key is not that easy to reproduce! and hopefully they stick to the normal rules and ask for the certificate when u want a copy. that would make it a bit safer.

Re: Duplicate your House Keys with your Phone

#30

Post by wavesounds »

This is a pretty dangerous website, just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

A unscrupulous car mechanic could save up a bunch of pictures of keys then sell them online anonymously to random people with fake credit cards. You wouldn't even need the peoples address just google map the neighborhood and look for their cars.

It'd be a lot harder to sneak off from work to the hardware store then just take a picture of their key.

This isn't even a real problem people have.

Post reply on HN