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Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

lockitron.com

211–220 of 222 posts

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why use a car? Relies on: Gas to run You making sure everything is well maintained Expensive vs biking Auto mechanics needed if your car breaks down Anyone in your area could easily steal your car or explode it rendering it useless. Doesn't seem like a very good risk/reward ratio to me. Kidding aside, you must not have read very carefully, since it has NFC and Bluetooth as backups. The DDOS scenario would require a t…

Yes, but what are ways it is possible to break into a car? Break a window (drawback: sets off a car alarm) Duplicate the a key (drawback: requires original key) Steal car when open (drawback: not many people leave there car open) How could you break in a key

Yes, but what are ways it is possible to break into a car?

  Break a window (drawback: sets off a car alarm)
  
  Duplicate or steal the a key (drawback: requires original key)

  Steal car when open (drawback: not many people leave there car open)
How could you break in a Lockitron (or prevent someone from using it)?

  Steal a persons phone (much easier than stealing a key. A phone  is taken out more often than a set of keys)

  Cut telephone wires for wi-fi (a little extreme, but possible)

  Hack there password.
Besides, how much motion does it require to open a lock with a key? I guess it makes sense to use it to unlock or lock your house remotely, but when have you been in that kind of situation? If someone needs a key, just give them a copy.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#212
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is more a business problem for Lockitron than a credible threat to my security as a customer.

99.99% of the time, the only people that touch my front doorknob have keys.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#213
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.

Strangely routing things around the world like this often works better. You get to use an already established communication path that probably already works and is switched on. It also reduces the number of new protocols that would need to be designed and secured.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#214
post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is more a business problem for Lockitron than a credible threat to my security as a customer. 99.99% of the time, the only people that touch my front doorknob have keys.

"99.99%"

I understand the point you are making. But I think the perception here is important as well. And even though the probability of someone opening the door is quite slim people still lock doors anyway. Irrationality plays into this. People lock bathroom doors even though only part of the time they are exposed in any way shape or form. Most of the time they are only sitting down on the toilet seat (or if a many perhaps standing for a brief period).

Personally on the one hand I agree with you and rationally it isn't a credible threat. But what if I am away on vacation and the door is unlocked during that week that I am away and I don't know about it? How comfortable do I feel with my office door being unlocked for a week? It's a small chance of a big thing happening. (Even if 99.99%).

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#215
post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah -- I was even more OCD with my tactical vest, pants, etc. Basically every square inch of MOLLE had a purpose, and needed to work when standing or when prone on the floor (during incoming), etc. And you do weird things like put a first aid kit with standard layout in a standard location (to be used on YOU if injured), and I had my real medical kit in a different position (which I'd use on anyone else, or on mysel…

Ha, the locations of all our equipment was boiled down to a science in my unit. For example, the tourniquet was in the left side because the left was more difficult to access in prone because we cant remove our right hands from the gun and we need the left elbow for stability. (For non-military people, the tourniquet that a person carries is used on him in case of emergency so he himself should rarely need to access…

Yeah, I saw a wide variety of unit effort put into things like that. At one level, standardization is good, but at another level, treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment...

The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight. An 18D would then periodically loosen them, keeping the limb from being lost, and monitoring/timing for sepsis (which is the risk of leaving a tourniquet tight, letting tissue die, and then loosening outside of a hospital setting -- I think it's hyperkalemia and some other stuff too. I think the rule is 30 minutes of blood flow per 2 hours for up to 24h, but this was evolving at the time. It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure (israeli bandage, etc.), since it could be accomplished in 5 seconds directly by the operator (it's hard to even FIND where entrance and exit wounds are under a uniform, and sometimes there are multiple per patient per incident, although usually on the same limb).

It was fine when OCF-I, etc. people did it, but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding (not even infantry, but supply guys going on outside the wire road trips between bases returning from R&R...).

It was a lot like startups -- people learning as they went, in a rapidly evolving environment. The big fail, IMO, was rotating whole units out ever 4, 7, 12, or 15 months to have to re-learn everything again, and then sending them to an entirely different place when they returned. The British Empire system of rotating individual battalions or brigades through a unit which was permanently stationed in the occupied territory made a lot more sense I think.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#216
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I think the traditional wording of the phrase is a tad harsh, but..) I think it is a case of "When you really love your hammer, everything looks like a nail."

I like analogies that aren't necessarily dismissive. How about If you're a carpenter, you tend to make things out of wood." You can make a lot of stuff out of wood, if you're good. You need relatively few general purpose tools. It's not always the best, but in many cases it's good enough. The first Apple had a wooden body. Early cars too. Technology is giving us a lot of stuff which we call "tools" but we might also…

Good call. The feel of that analogy is closer to what I had in mind.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#217
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, the locations of all our equipment was boiled down to a science in my unit. For example, the tourniquet was in the left side because the left was more difficult to access in prone because we cant remove our right hands from the gun and we need the left elbow for stability. (For non-military people, the tourniquet that a person carries is used on him in case of emergency so he himself should rarely need to access…

Yeah, I saw a wide variety of unit effort put into things like that. At one level, standardization is good, but at another level, treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment... The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight. An 18D would then perio…

> treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment...

Well, my situation was a bit different as I was in a special forces unit. For one, we had no women.

>The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight.

We've had this practice, but when you have a tourniquet(properly tied, cutting off all flow) on a limb, you have little to no control over it (to test this, tie a tourniquet just above your bicep and try to open and close your hand when it has no pulse). The only thing you can do is use other limbs to make up for the lost one. Furthermore, if that limb is a leg (the thigh in particular), in order to fully cut off the flow, it is necessary to apply so much pressure so as to break the bone (which sucks, but is better than dying). Lastly, even if the situation were dire enough to warrant these measures, where would you place the tourniquet on the limb? This is a problem for a few reasons. For example, I dont know about your unit but in mine, anything on us gets beaten up a lot for various reasons; damage to the tourniquet would be likely and problematic. Furthermore, during an exercise, the amount of blood that flows through your muscles increases thereby expanding the size of the limb. This would cut off blood flow and inhibit performance if you had a loosely tied tourniquet on it. If you resize it to be larger, then it would slip and fall in times of inactivity. Lastly, and this might also be a difference between units, we arent allowed to wear any bright colors, reflective mattes, sharp contracting colores, or have anything on us which identifiably changes our shape so as to mitigate detection. As I said, when it comes to the equipment (especially the medical equipment) everything is boiled down to a science.

>It worked better for immediate response than relying just on direct pressure

This is true, but the problem is the loss of use of the limb. If you are in a situation where you absolutely need to move quickly, a direct pressure solution to slow the bleeding until you are in a relatively safe area where you can then apply a tourniquet is better. A lot of the decisions you have to make are a balancing act of speed versus safety.

>but then utterly hilarious when random people copied them without understanding

This is very true. The number one mistake I see people who havent been trained to use a tourniquet make is they tie it (however poorly) on the injury. You are supposed to tie it 4 fingers above the injury because veins are elastic and when severed they jump back into the body, so you need to account for that and tie it higher.

Sorry if I went on too much, I just really like that so much thought has been put into every decision that we take for granted; if only we knew.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#218
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I saw a wide variety of unit effort put into things like that. At one level, standardization is good, but at another level, treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment... The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight. An 18D would then perio…

> treating a 6'7 300# Samoan guy the same as a 5'3" female might not make sense for layout of equipment... Well, my situation was a bit different as I was in a special forces unit. For one, we had no women. >The ultra-badass thing to do was to pre-apply CAT tourniquets (loose) to all 4 limbs, so the operator could then tighten them when hit and continue in the fight. We've had this practice, but when you have a tourn…

(I was just a contractor for a few tiny companies, but got to work closely with people from various units ranging from "other" people to line infantry/MPs to CS/CSS to medical to allies to host nation, so I got to see a wide spectrum of great to defective for everything and then try to do whatever the people I was with did, or what made the most sense for me. I confess to having been one of the "empty plate carrier" wearers on some big bases, but I think it was an educated decision...)

The most interesting thing I saw in 8 years was working with the guys from the Institute for Surgical Research (ISR), making sure they got x-rays and CTs of all injuries, so they could have a team of doctors go through and figure out which equipment and weapons worked, which didn't, and how various pre and in-hospital interventions ended up over a statistically significant number of patients. I'd still rather have USA/USN/USAF trauma surgeons than anything I've seen in the civilian world)

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I find it simple enough to add/remove codes as needed. I can see how punching ~15 buttons can be a pain, but I don't find it so.

I think the main benefit here is that it works with your existing lock, so it could work on apartments, dorm rooms, office doors, etc. Those key code deadlocks have always existed, but never very popular.

In the US, maybe. Here in Seoul it's everywhere. Practically all apartment units come with them pre-installed.

Re: Lockitron: Keyless entry using your phone

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Personally I'd feel more in control if I could text him a special code to get in, than by remotely locking or unlocking my doors. Remotely unlocking my doors? I feel unsafe already from the mere idea :) :) It'd be different for an office but there's an emotional thing with my home, I'd just be worried. If I lock it again, maybe the door was ajar and it couldn't lock? But I can't see because I'm not there!

You are giving Bob the ability to unlock it himself. You temporarily add him to "the group that can enter my house" and then, without you being involved, Bob can get in or, more importantly, lock the door if he leaves when you aren't there.

My dad has a casita on his house that he frequently lets people use. Dealing with the key is always annoying, though. With this, he could say "My son will be here on the 10th-14th, my nephew will be here the 21st and 22nd, etc" and never have to worry that the key gets lost or copied.

Now they just need to tie in with alarm systems so it will deactivate the alarm at the same time it unlocks it (or at least provide a temporary code that the guest can use).

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