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Here’s a promotional security product designed by someone who knows nothing about security. The USB drive is “protected” by a combination lock. There are only two dials, so there are only 100 possible combinations. And when the drive is “locked” and the connector is retracted, the contact are still accessible.
Maybe it should be given away by companies that sell security theater.
Is this how the al-Mabhouh assassins got in?
Interesting blog post, with video demonstration, about an improved tool to open high security locks with a key that will just “form itself” if you insert it into the lock and wiggle it a little. The basic technique is a few years old, but the improvements discussed here allow the tool to open a wider variety of locks than before.
This is neat:
The Impressioner consists of a sensor that goes into the lock and sends information back to a computer via USB about the location of the lock’s tumblers—a corresponding computer program comes up with the code, depending on the make of car you’ve entered beforehand. Once you know the code, a key-cutting machine can use it to carve up a key.
Right now, it’s a prototype that only works on Ford car locks. The article points out that both locksmiths and thieves can use this device.
Another article.
EDITED TO ADD (2/16): How it likely works.
When he went to court for hearings, he could see the system was flawed. He would arrive on the twelfth floor in handcuffs and attached at the waist to a dozen other inmates. A correction officer would lead them into the bull pen, an area where inmates wait for their lawyers. From the bull pen, the inmates would follow their lawyers or court officials either up a set of back stairs into a courtroom or down a set of stairs.
The more Tackmann went to court, the more he noticed that once the inmate at the head of the line would get uncuffed and turn into the bull pen, he would be out of view of the correction officer at the back of the line. He could then avoid the bull pen and dart down the rear stairs.
[…]
On the morning of September 30, Tackmann prepared for court in Manhattan. He dressed in a light-gray three-piece suit that he thinks was his stepfather’s. He wore two sets of dress socks. One around his feet, the other around the Rikers Island slippers he was ordered to wear (“to make them look like shoes; they looked like suede shoes”).
As he was bussed to the courthouse, he rehearsed the move in his mind.
When you come up to the twelfth floor, you’re handcuffed with like twelve people on a chain. The C.O. is right there with you.You have to be ready, so if the move is there…
That day, the move was there. “I was in the front of the line. The C.O.—it was some new guy. He un-handcuffed us in the hallway, and I was the first one around the corner.”
Tackmann raced down the stairwell and knocked on a courtroom door. A court officer opened it.
Tackmann had the shtick worked out—the lawyer in distress. “You know,” he said, “I was just with a client, and my mother is real sick in Bellevue. Could you tell me how to get to Bellevue? I gotta get over there fast; she is 80 years old.”
He wanted to sprint. The adrenaline was gushing. He calmly walked to the courtroom entrance as the sweat trickled around his neck. He raced down several flights of stairs and tried the door. It was locked. He walked down another flight. Locked. What is going on? Did they find out I was missing already? One more flight down. The door was open. He jumped in an elevator, got out on the ground floor, and walked into the street. Freedom. But not for long.
Door lock that opens if you tap a particular rhythm.
EDITED TO ADD (11/20): Another knock lock.
EDITED TO ADD (12/12): A version for cars.
This is interesting:
Since then, his scams have tended to take place in luxury hotels around the world.
Typically, he would arrive at a hotel, claim to be a guest, and then tell security that he had forgotten the combination code to his safe.
When hotel staff helped him to open the safe, he would pocket the contents and make his escape.
Doesn’t the hotel staff ask for ID before doing something like that?
Reproducing keys from distant and angled photographs:
Abstract:
The access control provided by a physical lock is based on the assumption that the information content of the corresponding key is private—that duplication should require either possession of the key or a priori knowledge of how it was cut. However, the ever-increasing capabilities and prevalence of digital imaging technologies present a fundamental challenge to this privacy assumption. Using modest imaging equipment and standard computer vision algorithms, we demonstrate the effectiveness of physical key teleduplication—extracting a key’s complete and precise bitting code at a distance via optical decoding and then cutting precise duplicates. We describe our prototype system, Sneakey, and evaluate its effectiveness, in both laboratory and real-world settings, using the most popular residential key types in the U.S.
Those of you who carry your keys on a ring dangling from a belt loop, take note.
Using a 3D printer. Impressive.
At the end of the day he talked the officers into trying the key on their handcuffs and … it did work! At least the Dutch Police now knows there is a plastic key on the market that will open their handcuffs. A plastic key undetectable by metal detectors….
EDITED TO ADD (10/12): Additional comments from the author.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.