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Optical Lock Foils Thieves
opticsorg writes "A UK inventor has come up with a way to make what is thought to be an unpickable lock. The Optilock contains a bundle of up to six input optical fibers on one side of the lock barrel and a corresponding number of fibers on the other side. When a special key is inserted into the lock, it connects the fibers in a unique routing pattern opening the lock in a fraction of a second. Light then flows around the circuit until the key is removed and the circuit is broken."
Accually saying that this is an "unpickable" lock is risky. I mean, look at the efforts by the RIAA to prevent P2P, or the anti-burning CD's with the corrupt files that crash computers, someone fixed that with a sharpie. I think that making statements like that is seriously underestimating human potential.
This is obvious, but the lock isn't unpickable, it's just going to take a while before people figure out how to pick it, and it'll raise the bar on tools needed for picking at most.
Also, while this will be handy for places with cement walls and thick steel doors, places with windows and weak door frames will still be vulnerable. Plus, of course, the social engineering attacks.
That being said, I'm a big fan of new, shiny locks, so hooray for the people who made it.
=Brian
There is nothing so good that someone, somewhere, will not hate it.
picking a lock is just one part of a problem : the other is securing the key. in a bar, one could theoretically press a key into a mold for later duplication (old trick and not very efficient).
however, with an optical key, one merely has to carry around a recepticle that, in turn, flashes a beam through the key's inputs, and record the appropriate output. nothing physical needs to be made. in today's terms, i call in the sequence to a buddy who then lays fiber into a template and uses it. meanwhile, i engage conversation on target, reporting when she's left.
cars? are you kidding? these are even easier, merely get a job as a valet and start your database. since it's all just digital information, you have access to VIN and lock solution, license plate number and home town/state (if not entire address, since most people's cars have it somewhere - like the insurance docs). these databases could be traded online just like anything else.
while i think this is very interesting, it still is no substitute for bio-based locks. however, they have their own problems (seem like every part of the body can be captured/duplicated).
Remove keypad, insert new keypad that looks just like it and has a keypress logger. K?
Not that the pick exists yet of course, but the simple fact that it uses light routes makes it pickable. :) :)
Since the light needs transceivers on either end and a physical interface in between for the key all you need to do is make a key with its own transceivers instead of simple light pipes (you'd probably have light-pipes out to an external device which would house a computer "brain" and the transceivers).
So you simply put the key in (or connect it or whatever the physical interface is) and let the computer start routing the inputs to different combinations of outputs.
It would be like the brute-force picker that Medeco has for their locks only maybe a lot faster!
However, having designed a pick, I can also think of half a dozen ways to slow it down enough to make it unuseable.
(If they're smart enough to figure out how to email me maybe I'll even tell them.