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Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

lockitron.com

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Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#171

Post by larrys »

run4yourlives wrote: post #151
urza wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My problem with solution like this is the centralization. I dont want to give power over my door to any one commercial entity. I am sure people behind this project are all nice and likable. And it looks like really neat solution feature-wise. But I dont like the principle. Centralization is never good. You dont know the future of the companny, but your doors depend on it to certain degree. Plus it is a single point o…

Come on, there are probably hundreds of locksmiths in your city right now that could gain access to your front door in a matter of seconds. Given the portability of the device, it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking at any given time.

"it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking"

What about if they have a security breach and a command is issued to unlock all locks (or a large number of locks) not a specific target.

Then you have a bunch of doors that are open and the chance certainly exists that random people will enter those doors because they are unlocked.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#172

Post by larrys »

bdunbar wrote: post #169
mbreese wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While a trained locksmith could probably get past my deadbolt, a random hacker from $current_unpopular_country can't. (Note: this isn't counting non-locksmiths that can also pick a lock). So, using something like this does carry a bigger (if slight) risk. I'm not sure if I'd necessarily trust a relatively new company with controlling my deadbolt. Then again, I also have a similar setup using an HID tag reader/arduino…

I might be missing something. J. Random Hacker from Waziristan hacks your account at the lock company. So? He is _there_ and you are _here_. Annoying but not fatal. Unless you're worried that he has a cousin in town?

He does it just for kicks. And he does it for multiple targets. The more targets, the more chance he gets to read about his success in the news.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#174

Post by com2kid »

It all sounded good until the "SMS" part. SMS messages are not encrypted and it is possible to sniff them (albeit it is not the simplest thing to do, but it is possible). Of course no one will have your actual house address, unless they cross reference your cell phone number with Facebook!

Granted the risk there seems small, basically limited to people without a smart phone who are also in the market for a smart gadget like this.

It is good to see that this is disabled by default, but it seems like a really unnecessary security hole.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#175

Post by modeless »

urza wrote: post #143
pg wrote: post #10

We use Lockitron on our offices and it has saved us a lot of trouble. Empirically people are a lot less likely to forget their phone than to forget keys, presumably because you use your phone for so many other things whereas most keys do nothing but get you into a single building.

My problem with solution like this is the centralization. I dont want to give power over my door to any one commercial entity. I am sure people behind this project are all nice and likable. And it looks like really neat solution feature-wise. But I dont like the principle. Centralization is never good. You dont know the future of the companny, but your doors depend on it to certain degree. Plus it is a single point o…

From their FAQ: "if you would like to access Lockitron only via your local network, then we welcome you to flash your base-station with a new image that gives you full access to develop as you see fit"

So you can still use the hardware even if you don't like their software.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#176

Post by akavi »

Is this their official launch? The company I've worked for has had one for a while...

Regardless, I'm a fan. The fact that granting and revoking access is so trivial meant that when I was an intern I still had full ability to come and go regardless of the presence of a fulltimer (contrasting with other internships, where hesitance to give interns keys meant if I showed up too early I had to sit on my butt till someone arrived to let me in).

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#179

Post by tedunangst »

larrys wrote: post #171
run4yourlives wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, there are probably hundreds of locksmiths in your city right now that could gain access to your front door in a matter of seconds. Given the portability of the device, it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking at any given time.

"it's doubtful that lockitron even knows what it's unlocking" What about if they have a security breach and a command is issued to unlock all locks (or a large number of locks) not a specific target. Then you have a bunch of doors that are open and the chance certainly exists that random people will enter those doors because they are unlocked.

While I have seen people walking around and trying doors, it's rare and it attracts a lot of attention. There's something of a herd immunity effect from door locking. As long as most doors are locked, a couple unlocked doors don't matter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/garden/14nolock.html?_r=0

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#180

Post by SoftwareMaven »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #144
trotsky wrote: post #21

relies on your phone working 2.4 Ghz your internet connection your power their datacenter their website software to avoid carrying a key? anyone in the area could easily ddos off your wireless more or less permanently by spamming disconnect. doesn't seem like a very good risk/reward ratio to me. whats the problem with a more traditional (read local) keyless approach? door too thick?

> relies on > (...) > their datacenter > their website software This is a thing I find increasingly bewildering/disturbing about new hacks like that. Why do we route signals around the whole world to communicate two devices that are few meters apart? Also, having to go through third party's computer infrastructure sounds like a huge waste of resources. Bluetooth, NFC or WLANs are the tools we should be using.

How do I tell it to let my cousin Bob in who just texted me saying he's in town for a conference and wants to meet while I'm at work?

The device has BT4, but that doesn't mean there is no value in the wifi.

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