MetaFilter posts tagged with locks

Hallelujah, I adore it!

Dr. Wu — Thu, 09 Mar 2006 19:23:29 -0800

Here are pictures of women with extremely long hair.

Get out your stethoscopes!

painquale — Thu, 27 Jan 2005 03:55:40 -0800

Learn to Safecrack! [pdf] Last year, computer scientist and cryptologist Matt Blaze drew ire from the locksmithing community for publically revealing information on how to create the master key to a lock (previous MetaFilter discussion). He's back with a paper on cracking safes. Once again, locksmiths are up in arms over Blaze's disregard of trade secrets. Apparently, safes adhere to the principle of security through obscurity rather than Kerckhoff's Law. [via]

The pen is mightier than the lock.

normy — Tue, 14 Sep 2004 09:44:48 -0800

Use one of those heavy U-locks to secure your bike? You might want to think again. It seems the barrel style lock mechanisms some of them employ can be opened by a Bic pen [.mov movie].

Master keys easy to make.

found missing — Thu, 23 Jan 2003 17:44:55 -0800

Anyone with access to a lock and key can easily create a master key. An AT&T Labs researcher has discovered that most master-key lock systems are vulnerable. NY Times (reg. req'd) reports that the technique is known, but not widely known. For instance, it does not appear in the ubiquitous document formerly known as the MIT Guide to Lockpicking. The AT&T Labs-Research paper is troubling some security experts, one of whom said that the "technique could open doors worldwide for criminals and terrorists." Because publishing the paper "could lead to an increase in thefts and other crimes, it presented an ethical quandary" for the researcher (Matt Blaze) and AT&T Labs-Research.