This "$5 wrench" XKCD always come up but... Plausible deniability ain't the only way around it. For example there are safes that, no matter what you do, are o

This "$5 wrench" XKCD always come up but... Plausible deniability ain't the only way around it. For example there are safes that, no matter what you do, are only ever going to open on, say, wednesday morning at 10am. Or a safe that shall only open if, one hour previous to that, you entered your own personal code + a rolling code. You enter the rolling code and the one-hour countdown starts. Now... If you can only get the rolling code by calling someone (for example a security company) and if that person accepts two words, one being the real one, the other the "I'm under duress" one, now suddenly the "$5 wrench attack" doesn't look that great anymore. BTW my home alarm has something similar: they'll came me after either a break-in or if I push the button "I'm under attack"... Then through the speakers they'll ask me "the" word. No matter if I say "banana" or "potato", they'll answer: all is fine, good night. But... "banana" means "everything is cool" while "potato" means "I'm under duress". Cops show up in 120 seconds where I live. The $5 wrench dudes better make very good use of that $5 wrench that'll, for sure, bring them billions of $$$ (such intelligent human beings btw: they figured out that a $5 wrench shall bring them riches) because in 120 seconds the cops are going to be there. Back to the safe: the countdown starts and the attacker has no clue if the police has been contacted. They have to wait one hour. Oh and both codes starts the countdown. But the "I'm under duress one" will lead to some failure message on the safe "Error: mechanism locked" or "Bug 2134978" (whatever fancy you can come up with). A $5 wrench attack is one thing. Kidnapping someone for days is another thing. Waiting for a safe to open for one hour without knowing if the cops are on their way (and have one hour to be there) is yet another thing. My point is: I'm a bit fed up by people who have the victim mentality and think nothing can be done versus attackers. If attackers were that smart, they wouldn't be doing $5 wrench attacks in the first place. Use your intelligence to come up with schemes that a $5 wrench attack cannot break. Another good one: a safe which only opens after a countdown of one-hour, no other way round. But as soon as you enter the code (and the countdown starts), a video feed of the room where the safe is located is sent to a security company. Someone at the security company checks the feed: he sees the $5 wrench (or he sees two people in the room, which is forbidden)... He calls the police and the police has one room to get the dude with the $5 wrench. I much prefer people who think not just about how to resist $5 wrench attack but who thinks about ways to maximize the chance the one holding the $5 wrench ends up where he belongs. So yup: I'm a bit pissed by that $5 wrench XKCD. So pissed I may actually one day join forces with company working on solutions to fight against that.