4 ms·

What’s fascinating is that it doesn’t seem to matter; most thefts in the US appear to be the result of something be completely unsecured, or via brute force. Ch

What’s fascinating is that it doesn’t seem to matter; most thefts in the US appear to be the result of something be completely unsecured, or via brute force. Chances are someone is far more likely to break your window than pick your lock. The only ones that really bother me are the firearm locks. A distressingly large percentage of firearm locks he talks about can be opened in seconds by an untrained teenager, which seems incredibly bad to me.

LeifCarrotson 6y ago
The other distressing problem with lockpicking and especially with firearm locks is that a significant part of their security model relies on obscurity. To be professionally effective, a locksmith must know a lot of trivia about dozens of locks, and you can make that hundreds or thousands if they want to expand to gun safes and bike locks and cars and on and on... For that purpose, the plethora of cheap options is a decent deterrent. No normal burglar is likely to have specialized skills in opening dozens of locks. But in a targeted attack, if you give any teenager a chance to look at the lock, then a few days to go on the Internet and see someone trivially jiggling the wafer core open, maybe buy an identical lock for $10 and practice their skills, none of the basic products are likely to be effective.
- stainforth 6y ago
  Security by obscurity or security by variety better yet?
  - danmur 6y ago
    Obscurity through variety :)
hellbannedguy 6y ago
A center punch to the driver's window welcomed me to San Francisco. I got a $20 radio, and left my truck unlocked, with a sign. The sign read, "Nap in the back of my truck. Use the seat to rest, but please don't break anything else." Never happened again, and for a week someone was leaving a $10 in my glove box. Crazy? I drive an old Toyota Truck, and most of you have nicer cars. Oh yea, I did put a kill switch in the truck.
- jgalt212 6y ago
  very similar to this scenario > George and Kramer begin parking at a discount parking lot. After picking up his car George discovers a condom inside and suspects prostitutes are servicing their clients inside the cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wig_Master https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wig_Master
cosmodisk 6y ago
In my country, the law requires anyone who possesses a gun to buy a proper safe,where It'd be stored when not used. The country is very safe and the likelihood that you'd ever need to use it while at home is close to zero, however situations where a burglar could walk out with a registered gun and potentially cause endless problems for the owner down the line is more probable,so a good safe sounds like a good idea.
- gkop 6y ago
  Just a heads up, but that safe would need to be mighty hard to dislodge and/or be extremely thick. The long gun safes from Costco are easily dislodged and sawn through. My understanding is the safe should be built into the wall, exposing only its toughest, front side.
  - eitland 6y ago
    Around here the rules are: - must be approved by the insurance companies (they have a test procedure that IIRC is to have two experienced persons try to break it using anything up to and including hand held power tools) - must weight 150kgs or - be bolted to the floor from the inside
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  A lot of the wildly insecure locks he reviews came with the guns themselves. Given how many people will go with the default option in any circumstance, this is alarming.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    The only reason people buy "nice" locks is because the cheap ones can be fiddly (and it should be obvious why that might be undesirable). Trigger locks are dumb compliance box checking exercise that provides little security (for mostly the same bunch of reasons anything short of full disk encryption doesn't help you if you lose your device). Of course they're cheap and crappy by default. Anyone who wants security buys a safe.
bdowling 6y ago
> Chances are someone is far more likely to break your window than pick your lock. There are also laws in many states against possession of lockpicks during commission of a crime (esp. burglary). Criminals probably avoid carrying lockpicks because they if they are caught, the lockpicks will cause them to face more jail time. Carrying lockpicks while trespassing might also be used to show intent to commit burglary.

LeifCarrotson 6y ago

The other distressing problem with lockpicking and especially with firearm locks is that a significant part of their security model relies on obscurity. To be professionally effective, a locksmith must know a lot of trivia about dozens of locks, and you can make that hundreds or thousands if they want to expand to gun safes and bike locks and cars and on and on... For that purpose, the plethora of cheap options is a decent deterrent. No normal burglar is likely to have specialized skills in opening dozens of locks. But in a targeted attack, if you give any teenager a chance to look at the lock, then a few days to go on the Internet and see someone trivially jiggling the wafer core open, maybe buy an identical lock for $10 and practice their skills, none of the basic products are likely to be effective.

stainforth 6y ago
Security by obscurity or security by variety better yet?
- danmur 6y ago
  Obscurity through variety :)

hellbannedguy 6y ago

A center punch to the driver's window welcomed me to San Francisco. I got a $20 radio, and left my truck unlocked, with a sign. The sign read, "Nap in the back of my truck. Use the seat to rest, but please don't break anything else." Never happened again, and for a week someone was leaving a $10 in my glove box. Crazy? I drive an old Toyota Truck, and most of you have nicer cars. Oh yea, I did put a kill switch in the truck.

jgalt212 6y ago
very similar to this scenario > George and Kramer begin parking at a discount parking lot. After picking up his car George discovers a condom inside and suspects prostitutes are servicing their clients inside the cars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wig_Master https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wig_Master

cosmodisk 6y ago

In my country, the law requires anyone who possesses a gun to buy a proper safe,where It'd be stored when not used. The country is very safe and the likelihood that you'd ever need to use it while at home is close to zero, however situations where a burglar could walk out with a registered gun and potentially cause endless problems for the owner down the line is more probable,so a good safe sounds like a good idea.

gkop 6y ago
Just a heads up, but that safe would need to be mighty hard to dislodge and/or be extremely thick. The long gun safes from Costco are easily dislodged and sawn through. My understanding is the safe should be built into the wall, exposing only its toughest, front side.
- eitland 6y ago
  Around here the rules are: - must be approved by the insurance companies (they have a test procedure that IIRC is to have two experienced persons try to break it using anything up to and including hand held power tools) - must weight 150kgs or - be bolted to the floor from the inside
ashtonkem 6y ago
A lot of the wildly insecure locks he reviews came with the guns themselves. Given how many people will go with the default option in any circumstance, this is alarming.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  The only reason people buy "nice" locks is because the cheap ones can be fiddly (and it should be obvious why that might be undesirable). Trigger locks are dumb compliance box checking exercise that provides little security (for mostly the same bunch of reasons anything short of full disk encryption doesn't help you if you lose your device). Of course they're cheap and crappy by default. Anyone who wants security buys a safe.

bdowling 6y ago

> Chances are someone is far more likely to break your window than pick your lock. There are also laws in many states against possession of lockpicks during commission of a crime (esp. burglary). Criminals probably avoid carrying lockpicks because they if they are caught, the lockpicks will cause them to face more jail time. Carrying lockpicks while trespassing might also be used to show intent to commit burglary.