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Multicolored Keyless Entry System
mollyhackit writes "Here's a how-to guide for building a keyless entry that uses color identification instead of numbers. All eight buttons are initially blue; as you press the individual buttons they change color. Cycle the colors to your particular pattern, and you're in. This lock obviously wasn't designed for high security use since anyone in the same room would be able to see you and your amazing technicolor dream lock's pattern; it's just a fun project and will keep the youngins out of your workshop (timer prevents brute forcing). The RGB buttons are monome clones from hobby shop Sparkfun."
to make jokes to your color-blind friend: replace his front door lock!
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
It's a fun project and a cool toy, but I hope it would never see serious application.
Considering that between 7% and 10% of men are red-green color blind (other types of color blindness at a few percentage points). This kind of lock could pose serious problems for a significant part of the population.
"What? You set the password to the garage door to Red Green Green Red? Guess I'm walking to work again..."
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorblindness
... I fail to see how a lock which is inferior to existing locks in every possible way AND is not cool, unless you are a four year old who has just learned the word "blue", is in any way interesting. Aside from "count how many extra attacks and failure modes we make possible just by mapping a numeric key to color codes".
Failure mode: You can remember numbers in a sequence much better than you can remember colors, because you've been taught forever that numbers are sequential data and colors have never been taught to you that way aside from the rainbow. (Which you have to remember with a mnemonic anyway, despite it being the ONE color sequence you will ever learn in your life!)
Failure mode: Color blind people, a non-trivial percent of the population. (Folks with generically impaired vision, too, since it is presumably harder to make the order of cycled colors obvious than it is to make the order of cycled numbers obvious.)
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
I think any kid over four could figure it out by watching a couple of times...
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
Well, look out captain obvious.
The whole point of this is that the person putting this together might enjoy the experience of putting it together, get satisfaction from a finished product and have a cool novelty way of opening or closing a door.
Do you think that people making transistor radios do it for fun, or because they think that $20 worth of electronic junk from a electronic junk store will give them better sound than a manufactured stereo system?
I rarely go to this level of pointing out a clear case of "swing and miss" with a reply/post - but wow!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
One reason it's useful - if you have a door lock with a code, you wear the numbers away on the keys that form the code, significantly reducing security. For instance, I have a bank card widget (standard in some parts of Europe) which I need to authenticate with my bank by means of challenge-response; it eventually becomes obvious what your card PIN is because those numbers wear more, and the object itself becomes a security risk. This way, your software can ensure even use of buttons.
Blind people and the colourblind need not apply, however...
How I see it is that the colors change location after each touch. This would be practical for finger-print residual on the screen: The keys pressed are in no relevance to the code. ( As the right 'key' changes ). This also allows the keys to be worn out evenly.
Although... This idea is in no way relevant to color. ( It's just easier to make the display change with a single color than a specific design )
Cycle the colors to your particular pattern, and you're in.
And then of course you'll need one of these to generate a really hairy, secure pattern for yourself.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Maybe I'm just too geeky, but in addition to ROYGBIV, I've also learnt the shorter sequences RGB and CMYK.
Fine. Replace it with LED digits then. Happy? :P
Be careful with this, especially if you live in Boston.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
but after using the sledge hammer, each time I would have to buy a new door. Got expensive. I'd recommend a key
It might be rather a giveaway to anyone in a 20 foot radius unless you cover the thing with a duvet when pushing the buttons!
(the original series, that is)
Would make kind of a fun retro-future thing.
Thank God! Now my dog wont be able to get in.
Why do I feel like this summary was written just for the "amazing technicolor dream lock" pun.
I don't know, but you may be a professional electronic locksmith and for you this might be just a play-thing.
But for me, a programmer, this is interesting and a good introduction to building a small piece of hardware. I know shamefully little about electronics (well, what I can remeber from 1st year uni. physics)
Doesn't stop me being a nerd though.
America, Home of the Brave.
I've always liked the idea of a task based lock.
Not necessarily more secure, though.
A few ideas:
- Play a tune on piano keys (sound off for more security).
- Non trivial math: how many people can integrate sec^3? How many B&E type criminals can?
Any other ideas?In the lucasarts game DIG, the ancient aliens use locks with colored geometric shapes.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Finally, what do you do when one of the lights fail?
Avoid.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Now the life-art circle is complete. LEGO Star Wars has a light based lock as one of it's puzzles, too. Took my color blind brother a while to get into Jabba's skiff, but hey, it was a fun level.
If you were color blind, you could make this easy for you (and similar color blind people) to open, but hard for "normals". The colors of the buttons are completely configurable, because they are generated by a tri-color LED. So all you have to do is choose a palette of colors that appear the same to you, and use them for the decoy keys. You would also choose a color that you can distinguish for the hot key. That way, us "normals" would see a bunch of random colored buttons, but you would see a bunch of brown buttons and one blue one (as an example).
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
This reminds me of numerous puzzles in the Legend of Zelda series of games. What next? Targets obscured by spinning disks that you have to hit with arrows three times?
Actually that'd be great for nerd kudos
A normal keypad will set high 2 lines in a known configuration that a programmer could check. A quick skim on sparkfun yielded no schematic that would tell me how to program this thing. I wonder how you know what color is currently activated?
What would be interesting would be a numeric keypad that displayed the numbers on random buttons after every keypress, thus making it even more difficult for someone to gain unauthorized access by lifting fingerprints or using heat sensing technology.
Now it's ROYGBIV!
Yep. A financial institution I used to work for had access to the area behind the tellers secured by a mechanical code lock with some silly code like 321 or 123. Guess which buttons had all the paint worn away? :)
Let me know when some one makes a scramble pad consumer door lock.
If I read this right, you have to hit a button multiple times to change the color (yuk, this is why I finally replaced my old cell with a blackberry to talk to a txt-addicted g/f). What is the implication of this, if any? Ie, your combo would be something like: 3322241116777
My kids were never able to defeat Tot Lok.
They are a pain in the rear to install, but once installed properly, your kid is not going to get that cabinet or drawer open before you figure out what's going on.
That's the whole idea, really--to slow them down. Just make sure you put the key someplace that the kid can't get to without constructing some serious access ramp.
You want the parental, "Just what do you think your doing?" to refer to constructing a ramp rather than you kid spraying her little brother with Raid because "he was bugging her".
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Why do we not see many wireless locks such as a bluetooth lock? Why can't I pair my device with my door and send a code to open it? Thats what I'd like to see.
I do security
Fortunately, I've learned you can bypass the lock pretty easily by clipping the red wire.
This is an interesting project, if not a little nerdy. Topics like this seem to pop up once in a while here and it's starting to become more interesting each time I see one.
I did a little bit of basic (very basic) circuit design in school, but I've since forgotten everything and no longer have any books or notes. It would be fun to play around with stuff like this, but since I know virtually nothing about circuitry I'm really not sure where to start or how committed I'd have to be to tinker with projects of this scale.
Is this a hobby that requires an immense amount of time or could I just devote a couple hours a week to it and be able to do some basic stuff within a month or two? Can anyone recommend any books? Also, where would I get some of the beginner testing equipment, such as the breadboard and different kinds of chips, from?
Here's a subject I know a little about. This is a real cool soldering project, it's cute, but if security is a prime consideration keypads, either using colors or numbers or some other code to enter is a bad way to do security. The codes are so easily transferred from person to person. I once worked at the TWA terminal at LAX and the keypad code was scrawled on the wall next to the keypad. The door led to the baggage handling, ops center, and runway. If it's your office or lab you're trying to secure, an old-fashioned mechanical key is probably a better solution. If you could rig some kind of token, maybe a USB key and the keypad, for a two-factor authentication, that would be better. Of course there are numerous commercial products that can be used that solve these problems. Lastly a word about locking hardware. Frequently interior doors in commercial buildings use cylindrical locks; the Schlage D style is popular. When these locks are used with the standard strike and the door and frame are properly adjusted, it's pretty hard to jimmy the lock at the strike. Of course it will fail from a lever attack, a large screwdriver will easily pop the door, but when that's done, it's usually evident. When the standard strike is replaced by an electric strike, there's a lot space opened up around the latch. It's fairly trivial to jimmy the door open without leaving marks. A better solution is to use an electrified cylindrical lock.
wait, there are ads? O.O
all purple.
"If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster." --Isaac Asimov