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Duplicating Your Housekeys, From a Distance
Roland Piquepaille writes "Some clever computer scientists at UC San Diego (UCSD) have developed a software that can perform key duplication with just a picture of the key — taken from up to 200 feet. One of the researchers said 'we built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret.' He added that on sites like Flickr, you can find many photos of people's keys that can be used to easily make duplicates. Apparently, some people are blurring 'numbers on their credit cards and driver's licenses before putting those photos on-line,' but not their keys. This software project is quite interesting, but don't be too afraid. I don't think that many of you put a photo of their keys online — with their addresses." I wonder when I'll be able to order more ordinary duplicate keys by emailing in a couple of photos.
Keys only serve to keep honest people honest. A lock pick and torsion bar can mimic any (average) key anyways.
The story is interesting (on the subject of computer vision) but shouldn't scare anyone.
The keys in the pic seem to be the crappy "2-D" sort that are vulnerable to "bump keys".
It'll be much easier to just make a bump key and use it to break in covertly, than to bother making the "same key". Google for bump key videos.
You'd probably need better pics to make duplicates of those "3-D" keys - those with wedges and so on.