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Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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and to show that nothing is safe not even your home...
BUMP KEYS
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Quote:
LINK
The majority of the locks in use today have just been rendered obsolete, putting every person and thing once kept safe by those locks at risk, thanks to a controversial trick called "key bumping ." The technique was spotlighted at the 14th annual Defcom hackers convention in Las Vegas on August 6th, when an 11-year-old novice opened a lock with a bump key after only a quick lesson. A panel on key bumping was also held this past July at the HOPE (Hackers On Planet Earth) conference in New York , and a YouTube how-to video has attracted an average of 17,000 views per day--142,000 in the last eight days.
Most key-operated locks work on the pin tumbler system; traditionally thieves break into them with picks and other tools, leaving a big mess behind. But a bump key has its grooves cut or filed all the way down to the lowest groove level; the bump key is slipped into the lock, tapped slightly with a mallet or other tool, twisted, and the pins inside the lock "bump" out of the way. The lock can then be opened and a thief can take whatever the lock has been protecting, leaving behind no sign of a break-in, and making it very difficult for the owner to prove a robbery to his insurance company. In fact, there is virtually no way to tell the difference between a robbery committed with a bump key or a duplicate key.
This problem has already gotten attention in Europe, where Toool, a group of Dutch lock-picking hobbyists, appeared on television with a selection of popular high-security locks, and using bumping techniques, opened 80% of the locks in under three minutes, and 50% in under one minute. While this problem has been on the radar since at least 2005, and is reminiscent of the 2004 controversies that proved kryptonite bike U-Locks could be picked with the casing of a ballpoint pen and that some laptop security locks could be picked with a pen or toilet paper tube, most of the major lock companies deny that there's a problem. Lock manufacturer Medeco, however, has developed a lock to answer the bumping problem, with numerous locking points built in, rather than merely the one point common in most locks.
Should key bumping become commonplace it could adversely affect both crime and insurance rates, as well as undermine society's notions of safety and security. But at the same time, how, in an age of instant and widespread information dissemination, can we keep knowledge of the key bumping technique secret while still maintaining some semblance of free speech?
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__________________
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