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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.
But if they did pick it, at least they wouldn't be circumventing copyright restrictions. Because that would be terrible.
/obligatory slashdot DMCA reference
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).
This isn't true the only lock currently approved for DoD Spin locks is self powered it uses a LCD that indicated the current number being pointed to rather than a marked dial. You have to spin the lock a few time to generate enough power for it to work and then you dial in the combination. Batteries are a big no no in any sort of lock. If people are behind the door a mechanical override is given, the deadbolt or other locking mechanism is mechanical and as long as all mechanical items are internal it is allowed. The old drill throigh the locking bars is always a possibility but as with encyption its no really unbreakable just unbreakable in a reasonable period of time.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Back in the day, Cadillac built a show car with no lock. There was a Cadillac emblem etched into the door glass, and a Cadillac emblem on the key fob. You held the key fob up to the etched emblem and the door unlocked. Pretty cool, except they put the car on the trailer and moved it from show to show, never actually driving it. Yep, the battery ran down, and without any other lock, they couldn't get in. Of course, the hood release was on the inside, so they couldn't jump the battery, either!
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
1. We had to physically check and make sure that no-one was in the vault (stray teller, somebody left their kid, etc) before we closed it.
2. There was an O2 tank & mask in the vault in case someone *did* get locked in.
3. Be really, really careful at setting the timers correctly because if it wasn't open in time for the next business day, we were screwed (no, this wasn't a three-day weekend...)
Do any of you remember the old (and surprisingly realistic compared to newer crap) hacker movie "Sneakers"? When they are trying to break into the office to steal the chip, Redford comes to a door with an electronic lock. After getting an earful of explanation (which we don't hear) from his partner back in the van about how the military deals with that kind of lock, he agrees to try a new lockpicking method. He kicks the door, and the bolt pops out of the doorjam...
Remove keypad, insert new keypad that looks just like it and has a keypress logger. K?
"Optical sledgehammer opens optical lock."
Cloud City Digital: DVD Production at its cheapest/finest
Otherwise you might stumble across this information:
Rice says that the only way someone could pick the lock is to duplicate the key. "You could potentially have as many different points as you want on the lock barrel as inputs and outputs," he explained. "Because it is a 3D pathway you are dealing with, you have potentially billions or trillions of combinations depending on how the lock is made. The probability of duplicating the path is very small."
That said, a lot of these fancy locks seem like overkill, especially since in very high security systems, you'd tend to want some kind of human oversight in the loop.
What were you expecting?
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.
Without RTFA, I think I can explain why 6 inputs can create more than 720 combinations...
You're counting the possible pathways. You've forgotten to count the positionings! Two keys with the same routing pattern with only one input off by a fraction of a millimeter would not open the same lock.