3 ms·
The problem with any lock is that, fundamentally, it is made to be opened when certain conditions are met. And that's putting aside any sort of brute force appr
by ineedasername 5y ago
The problem with any lock is that, fundamentally, it is made to be opened when certain conditions are met. And that's putting aside any sort of brute force approach.
Good security design is as much about asking, from first principles, "what conditions need to be met to open this?" as about considering how it might be attacked.
For example, the condition to be met for a pad lock to open is not "when the proper key is inserted" or "the key pins are raised to the appropriate level". It's something more basic-- like "when the locking bar no longer blocks the shackle from rising."
From that perspective, attacking the key hole and pins is only one of multiple vectors.
- amelius 5y agoOr you just open the lock with a bolt cutter.
- ineedasername 5y agoThumbprint locks on a laptop won't usefully respond to a bolt cutter. A padlock was just a convenient example. Even then, bolt cutters don't work in the strongest of them: angle grinders are a popular choice in that case, but are a lot more obvious. You can't hide a small angle grind up your coat sleeve and quickly snap the hasp on a bike lock. In any case, the bolt cutters approach is also why I stipulated "putting aside brute force". Because in the context of computer security as with this article, something a bit more subtle seems to be effective more often, especially against higher end security.