Build Your Own Electronic Key Card Lock

edBX writes "GideonTech.com has a new guide up on how to make your own electronic lock using a key card. Built using a phototransistor, infrared-emitting diode and a few ICs, they are able to turn on their computer using a punched out phone card."

Comments

Just a thought...

[GMC-jimmy]

Why isn't there a "Build your own" section like "Ask Slashdot" or "Apache" ? Maybe even a "Slashdot How-To Guide" could turn out useful.

Re:Just a thought...

[Computer!]

Best first post ever.

This is a great idea.

Re:Just a thought...

[znode]

Oh yay...

Build your own Space Shuttle
How to make your own space shuttle using only 230 thousand tons of liquid fuel, 23 tons of spacecraft-grade aluminum-titanium-magnesium-iron alloy, and five 1000-cubic-liter combusion chambers. Easy-to-follow blueprints here!
(Read More... | 423 of 756 comments)

Roll your own Lightsaber
Geekandlightsaber.com recently published a guide on producing your own lightsaber with merely 2 hand-held fusion reactors and 2 focusing jewels.
(Read More... | 230 of 1123 comments)

Create your own Universe
Jehovah!God!Heaven has published a guide on making a home-made universe.
(Read More... | 445 of 1022 comments)

Re:Just a thought...

[WegianWarrior]

There is a major difference between makeing something (in this case, a keylock for your PC) as a one off, DIY project and starting a produtionrun of them to use on all the PCs at your workplace.

The first you do not primarely because you need whatever you're making, but becase making it is at least half the point. You draw up plans, fool around, modifies things, tries out new ideas and so on... and by the end of it all you have learnt something new, had the pleasure of making somethign with your hands as well as gotten yourself a new piece of (hopefully usefell) equipment.

But judging from your post, you've never had the pleasure of achiving anything on your own, have you?

Re:Just a thought...

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

Granted, a lot of these projects are designed by amateurs and are drastically unprofessional (this one, for instance, could use a lot of help). But sometimes these "amateurs" also happen to be professionals as well, in which case the plans tend to be solid. Often, the "cheap knockoffs" end up with more features than the commercial products in such cases.

It's also false that it costs more to DIY. Sure, there is an initial investment in tools and equipment. The time required is heavily dependant on the skill of the builder and the quality of the tools. If you happen to have mass production equipment (like I once did), you can make prototypes relatively quickly, and even do small production runs. And so long as you already have the tools required and a few good suppliers, it's often much, much cheaper to make your own.

And besides, you are missing how much *FUN* it is to build stuff. You know how Linux was written by a bunch of people for fun? Hardware is really no different, except that it has some sort of mystique that scares off a lot of people.

Obvious Matrix Quote..

[sinjayde]

But Mr. Anderson, what good is your custom made electronic lock when you can no longer find your card?

Security by Semiobscurity

[the_other_one]

This device will keep the power switch safe
from anybody that does not understand electricity.
Anybody else can bypass the unit with a handy
suitably reshapable piece of conductive material.
Probably a piece of wire would do.
Those whom the computer is protected against
are probably not a threat.

Or you could

[structuredlynx]

Why not just use a BIOS password. There are way more than 255 possible passowrds. If someone can figure out how to open the case and reset the bios, they can figure out how to connect 2 wires to bypass that device. A bios password is cheaper and more reliable.

Re:Or you could

[RonnyJ]

A lot of common BIOSes have backdoor passwords hardcoded, which let an intruder gain access to the BIOS options without having to work out what the user set the password to. This unfortunately means it's not an effective way to safeguard your PC. Even if an intruder isn't able to use one of these backdoor passwords, he can always reset the BIOS by taking the battery backup out. In the end, no matter what precautions you take, with a standard x86-architecture PC, if an intruder has physical access to it, there's nothing much you can do to stop them switching in on somehow, the only effective protection is to securely encrypt any sensitive data.

Re:Or you could

[cybermace5]

Not a problem if you weld the case shut.

Re:Or you could

[jonadab]

BIOS password is no good; all they've got to do is steal the computer, open
the case by whatever means are necessary, and pop the drive into another
system.

If you need to secure against the case where someone gains physical access
to your computer while it is unguarded, I can only think of one way to do it:
encrypted filesystem with a large private key that must be typed in at boot
time and is not stored on disk anywhere (never, for example, in swap space),
just in RAM. This, combined with the usual forms of software security that
prevent the already-running system from being compromised, should at least
make it abnormally difficult for an attacker to get at the data. Difficult
enough that the easiest way would be to obtain the private key (either by
surveillance or by rubber-hose cryptanalysis).

Alternately, you could just never leave the system unguarded. But then you
have to decide how "guarded" is guarded enough. Is it enough to leave a pair
of trained dogs in the room? A security guard with a handgun? A platoon of
goons with assault rifles? A couple of gryphons and a medium-sized dragon?

Re:Or you could

[Professor Bluebird]

Also, if one can open the case, many boards have a jumper to reset the BIOS passwords.

I must be a sucker

[jaysones]

Here I am turning my computer on with the power button, like an idiot!

Obligatory Bill Hicks Quote

[edalytical]

GideonTech.com

Who are the fuckin' Gideons? Ever meet one? No. Ever seen one? No. But there all over the fuckin' world puttin' Bibles in hotel rooms.

Listen to it here.

Personally...

[LnxAddct]

This isnt all that great of a security measure, however its good to see slashdot posting home project kind of things again. I dont know if its just me, but there haven't been many lately and I like to see what people are up to and building, its a lot better than all of this legal and corporate stuff thats been taking over my monitor. Not that I dont love my SCO fix, or yey some senator is in favor of open source, but hey even though our interests are getting lots of press now, we can't forget things like this. I don't know if anyone else agrees, but thats how I feel.
Cheers,
Steve

Re:Another idea

[Stephonovich]

BTW, by 4!==24, I mean 4! equals 24, not 4!=24. Although both of those are true...

(-:Stephonovich:-)

DIY Lock

[anubi]

I can't get to the article right now.. it seems to be inaccessable, but the article intro looked kinda cool.

My trick was I found some old optical card scanners which would read the bar-codes printed onto credit-card sized plastic cards. Then I found the local gamery in the mall was using compatible cards, each coded with a different 24-digit number, being passed around to enable the various games as long as there was sufficient funds on account to the number of the card. Neat! I picked several "spent" cards out of the trash can, and went home and read them on my system, then programmed a few little AVR chips to recognize those specific cards. I keep one in my wallet to control the secure/access mode to my house alarm system and car. If it gets lost, its not obvious at all that the card has an alternate use. In the event I want some more cards, add or delete which cards work with the AVR, its not hard to put them back in the programmer and reflash their ROM with the new code list.

Actually, on mine, I never decoded the bar-code digits, I only kept track of whether it was a fat/narrow stripe and fat/narrow space by examining a counter interrupted on each rising and falling edge, and storing the counter state in an array. Upon scan completion, I examine the array and reduce it to 64 bits worth of fat/narrow of the first 32 stripes / spaces I encounter. There is a little start pattern at the beginning that helps a lot to align the data field so you are not shifted a bit or two off. To be on the side of possible error, I allow 8 bits to be bad before I declare the card invalid. This was from trial and error, as I could generate bad reads by not moving the card just right through the reader. I usually got at least one bit that wasn't right every time I scanned. I never did get it working absolutely perfectly. But then I did not really try that much on it after I had it working good enough. I think it was something to do with some focusing, and I could have used the analog side and some DSP to clean it up, I'm sure, but then I would have probably spent a good six months on it.

The only problem is I wish I had bought several dozen of those little optical slot readers when I had the chance. Anybody seen any out there ( dirt cheap ones, I mean - you know those surplus ditties they sell for a buck )? I am looking for some that just have the raw serial bar-code sensor out because I feed it right into the AVR.

USB Keycards?

[theedge318]

Now this may not be more secure ... but I think it may have one up on the geek factor. Use the dandy/cheap little USB keychain devices to act as keycards to allow users to login/logout/freeze session. The cards we have with our Sun's are absolutely awesome, the only problem with it is the Solaris OS. Great for our sysadmin, but for GUI work, makes me wish for Windows (can't get Solaris-Gnome running).

Anyways I think that a standard USB "keycard" would be an awesome Linux project (sorry GNU/Linux) and I am totally suprised that I haven't seen one on SF. It makes me think I must be blind.

Re:USB Keycards?

[dasunt]

Linux Disc Encryption Howto

What it is: A method of encrypting a hard drive, and using a USB key-drive device and passphrase to decrypt the hard drive at boot.

Why: To protect computers (especially laptops) from unauthorized access to the hard disk. Bios passwords, login passwords, and the above slashdot story do not prevent the hard drive from being removed from the machine and the data read in another machine.

How it works: The laptop's drive is AES encrypted. At boot, the computer needs the key drive with the passkey and the matching passphrase to transparently decrypt the drive. It keeps a copy of the passkey and passphrase in memory, so the USB drive may be removed after booting. It only decrypts the files that it is using, so if power is lost at any moment, all data will remain protected.

Why its cool: Its high quality encryption, OS tools, and protects your laptop's files from being accessed if its stolen. What more do you need?

( IMHO, way more deserving of a slashdot story then a simple electronic hack that can be bypassed by anyone with electronics knowledge. )

Must...resists...obvious...joke...

[IversenX]

In soviet russia, key card punches YOU!