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Lock-Picking Robot

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Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#31

Post by 05 »

observationist wrote: post #9
MarkusQ wrote: post #4

Cool idea but I'm not buying the justification. There are many cases where the correct response to "but law enforcement needs a way in" is "we have a system for that, it's called a warrant." Further, while standing somewhere for five minutes may be obvious in some situations, there are many cases in which it wouldn't be obvious at all, or the response time would be great enough that this could still be quite useful t…

Locks are not security, in the sense that you're using. A sledgehammer goes right through 90% of them, or the hasps or latches secured by them. A competent lockpicking enthusiast will take two or three minutes to go through almost any of them. Someone motivated to get in with foreknowledge of the lock type can simply use a $200 camera and photograph your keyring from a couple blocks away, then 3d print all the keys o…

> use a $200 camera and photograph your keyring from a couple blocks away

Rayleigh criterion: to resolve an angle of 4E-6 rad (key bitting step is 0.015inch =~0.4mm , two blocks is 2 * 200ft =~100m), you'd need a ~140mm aperture lens. Can you really buy one (with a camera no less) for $200?

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#32

Post by prmoustache »

Edman274 wrote: post #17
observationist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locks are not security, in the sense that you're using. A sledgehammer goes right through 90% of them, or the hasps or latches secured by them. A competent lockpicking enthusiast will take two or three minutes to go through almost any of them. Someone motivated to get in with foreknowledge of the lock type can simply use a $200 camera and photograph your keyring from a couple blocks away, then 3d print all the keys o…

The thing about a sledgehammer is that if you're asleep in your house, you, your dog, your SO, or your neighbors might be startled awake by the sound of metal splitting and cracking open. Your security system might be designed to alert on something like a window being smashed. The person attempting to enter the house may be trying to enter undetected, because they know that a broken lock and/or a replaced lock will a…

Opening the door, even without the key, would totally trigger my alarm (if I cared enough to activate it) at night.

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#33

Post by prmoustache »

Edman274 wrote: post #21
cush wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine something like industrial espionage.. This isn’t the movies. 99% of the time people need their own lock picked because they lost they key

People don't buy locks so that they can lose their keys and require the lock to be picked. They buy locks to secure access to items or places. The parent I was replying to is saying that locks aren't security because a sledgehammer breaks them. I argue that a sledgehammer is only important for certain threat models. I am quite aware that most lock picking is for lost keys. However, I am describing threat models for w…

Locks are only really here to prevent "opportunistic" theft, not fully motivated ones.

You need more than that to prevent theft. They are like the first layer of an onion.

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#34

Post by kalavan »

IshKebab wrote: post #11

> brute force all possible combinations Somewhat less impressive than I was expecting. The wire idea is neat though.

Human lockpickers use feedback when picking. I'm wondering if a bot could do the same - e.g. measuring the travel distance to find a binding pin, or the resistance to moving the wire?

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#36

Post by pixl97 »

cush wrote: post #23

The number of comments in here slandering the developer’s morality for picking locks is actually pretty surprising for a site literally called Hacker News. Every day there’s a story on the front page of some grey/white-hat showing off an exploit they found to infiltrate a site we all use. It’s an odd double standard.

I mean, you tend to see this everywhere.

Hopefully these people do realize that a lock is a promise saying "you belong to a society, be nice". They do very little beyond that, especially these days with small, powerful powertools.

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#37

Post by nycdatasci »

hvs wrote: post #15

I'm a strong supporter of the "I did it because I wanted to see if I could do it" ethos. So this isn't a criticism of the project itself, but I'm pretty sure a snap gun will beat this almost every time.

I don't think this is a relevant comparison. Snap guns break pins, which isn't the case with this robot.

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#38

Post by pixl97 »

Edman274 wrote: post #17
observationist wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Locks are not security, in the sense that you're using. A sledgehammer goes right through 90% of them, or the hasps or latches secured by them. A competent lockpicking enthusiast will take two or three minutes to go through almost any of them. Someone motivated to get in with foreknowledge of the lock type can simply use a $200 camera and photograph your keyring from a couple blocks away, then 3d print all the keys o…

The thing about a sledgehammer is that if you're asleep in your house, you, your dog, your SO, or your neighbors might be startled awake by the sound of metal splitting and cracking open. Your security system might be designed to alert on something like a window being smashed. The person attempting to enter the house may be trying to enter undetected, because they know that a broken lock and/or a replaced lock will a…

Locks are not security.

They keep honest people honest and give a few moments more work to those that are dishonest. It's a promise to society that you'll act decent. Needless to say they mean nothing to those that break promises.

In almost all cases, with a lock or not, by the time you figure out the lock is broken (10 minutes or 10 days) your shit is long gone and you better have your security onion setup with multiple layers if you want the foggiest idea what happened.

If you have an above average risk of having your shit stole or becoming under attack you better have a whole shit load more layers in your defense or you're screwed.

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#39

Post by pixl97 »

nemomarx wrote: post #27
Edman274 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't buy locks so that they can lose their keys and require the lock to be picked. They buy locks to secure access to items or places. The parent I was replying to is saying that locks aren't security because a sledgehammer breaks them. I argue that a sledgehammer is only important for certain threat models. I am quite aware that most lock picking is for lost keys. However, I am describing threat models for w…

Even without the sledge hammer your locks probably aren't good enough to stop a thief with a set of picks. A robot that brute forces it is more expensive and slower than any of the existing tools, so it shouldn't change your threat model.

"I broke this masterlock with a masterlock"

Lock companies put out a lot of advertising to make it seem like their products work far better than they actually do.

Re: Lock-Picking Robot

#40

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #14
dylan604 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would much rather them do that then break the door down The fact that law enforcement isn't responsible for damages during a search is problematic. When it's done somewhere when they've screwed up the address is even worse. "oops, sorry" should not be enough.

Especially with body cameras becoming ubiquitous, it should be easy enough to distinguish between necessary and excessive damage.

And once the distinction is made?
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