7 ms·
A fairly lame response from Level considering the price tag of this lock. My guess is they simply outsourced making this to cheapest vendor they cut find and n
by elmerfud 4y ago
A fairly lame response from Level considering the price tag of this lock. My guess is they simply outsourced making this to cheapest vendor they cut find and never talked to a engineer familiar with actual locks. The inclusion of various security pins would have defeated these simple attacks and not really increased their cost.
Having your lock defeated by the LPL is just normal as he's an expert at doing in. Many skilled locksmiths cannot open locks he able to do. Not guarding against raking and bumping, that's shameful for an exterior door lock. Then doubling down on their failure, that's Baghdad Bob level of PR right there.
- BenjiWiebe 4y agoMy thoughts exactly. Some minor changes could make it bump and rake resistant and only a tiny (if any) increase in price.
- Justin_K 4y agoThe cost difference is cents, so it's a wonder if the company is cheap or ignorant.
- lazide 4y agoSeems like both.
- JauntyHatAngle 4y agoOriginally arrogant or ignorant t, I'd say, and now damage control for their stock already out in the wild. I would reckon they would change it for a v2 but they need to recoup costs first, but I could be wrong.
- andreareina 4y agoAbsolutely arrogant. Either they're producing a lock without doing the least bit of research to uncover the easiest, most basic attacks, or they know about them and don't care.
- public_defender 4y agoThere would have been engineering cost to designing a better lock. Also, that's not their product concept. These are not locks for people who care about security, they are for people who care about iphone ecosystem synergy. If you look at it a certain way, this isn't really a defect: when this lock gets bricked by a firmware update or recruited into a botnet, you won't be trapped on your porch for too long before your neighbor's kid can let you in. But also, full agree on "our goal is to be better than an open window." I hope they don't extend a job offer to that marketing intern.
- davidbanham 4y agoNo, better locks are already invented and will fit that standardised barrel just fine. This is either someone minmaxing the BOM or just not knowing much about what they were specifying.
- public_defender 4y agoYes, this is more accurate. They would need to spend fractionally more on the tumbler, which I really think they have no incentive to do because the target customer will not know or care about the physical security upgrade.
- epmaybe 4y agoThe incentive is not being ridiculed and belittled and being taken through the media circuit for a minor loss in profit margin? But then again, all press is good press
- ceejayoz 4y ago> There would have been engineering cost to designing a better lock. And a reputation cost for not.
- edmundsauto 4y agoAnd a marketing benefit from the controversy.
- twarge 4y agoYou can use it with most any lock set. You’re paying for the bolt, not the lock.
- superchroma 4y agofor the price it should be perfect.
- runlevel1 4y agoAt that price, I would hope I was paying for both.
- azinman2 4y agoMeaning you can change out the mechanism that is easy to pick, but keep the smarts and motor?
- Godel_unicode 4y agoThat’s correct, they sell (sold?) a model hitch doesn’t even include the lockset.
- stouset 4y agoThe bolt itself is hollow and contains the battery. So… a fail there as well.
- lazide 4y agoOn the plus side - if someone tries to kick it in hard enough to damage it, free pyrotechnic alarm!
- superchroma 4y agoFor the price point it's all embarrassing. I purchased Avocet locks after I saw they gave LPL trouble and a set for my entire house didn't cost as much as this horrible, shitty thing would. This is literally a scam product.
- wffurr 4y agoNot to defend this product, but what’s the threat model for a pick resistant lock? I assume, but don’t actually know, that my biggest risk is having my rear door window smashed and the door opened from inside while I am not home. Lock picking (even raking or bumping) seems like the kind of thing that someone smart enough to figure out how to do is also smart enough not to engage in home burglary. So unless your threat model is the three letter agencies entering and bugging your house, I assume other physical security upgrades should come first.
- bombcar 4y agoI think the idea is if the lock makers won't bother protecting from simple attacks, what else have they skimped out on? It's not like the pick-resistant locks are exceptionally more expensive.
- tartoran 4y agoThats what Im thinking too, it shows carelessness and unprofessionalism from the lock makers. And the high pricepoint is justified even less.
- hinoki 4y agoHouse insurance will cover the robbery if they break the back window to get in. It might be more difficult to file a claim if they rake the lock and don’t leave any trace beyond your missing valuables.
- mhitza 4y agoThere's an interesting DEFCON presentation on lock picking forensics[1]. I don't know if there's any certified agency that can do a forensics report which an insurance company would accept, but if there is such a thing, most (all?) lock picking techniques leave marks. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVZzBjK1kmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVZzBjK1kmI
- Syzygies 4y agoYes, I'd take this as Level arrogance. For another data point, I never managed to pick locks in my twenties, but something aligned for me in an evening lock picking course in my sixties, and I picked everything in the room. One wants a training set of locks to learn on, one pin, two pins, three pins, ... then one learns easily. It also helps that with age one's brain quiets down. To pick a lock, you need to listen to it. I asked the organizers, surely they had something that would stump me. They handed me an American padlock identical to one I'd been buying for years. It stumped me. It took LPL more than one pass to pick a basic American. He made it look easy, still reassuring me there was some skill involved: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaP1nFZ9AXE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaP1nFZ9AXE Videos by others describe more advanced American locks that took several months to overcome. American takes basic countermeasures, that Level could have easily adopted.
- Spark_Ed 4y agoLPL opened it via raking. That alone means there are no security pins. A serrated pin and a couple spool pins isn't expensive and is standard for locks that aren't budget or master locks.
- suzumer 4y agoIt doesn't necessarily mean there are no security pins. I can easily rake open a Master Lock 140D, despite those having spool pins.
- freeqaz 4y agoSpool pins actually can make picking easier by providing you with more feedback about the pins vs normal pics. (A lockpicking friend explained this to me once) I don't know about serrated pins though!
- pclmulqdq 4y agoI have found that serrated pins are pretty easy to defeat by manipulating the torque you apply a little bit. I actually have a slightly harder time with spool pins although they do give you nice feedback about when they are set (and false set).
- judge2020 4y agoI wonder if Schlag's Encode Plus, which is designed to work with Apple Home Key as well, is also at all vulnerable. Schlage seems to have a fine record[0] but you never know what corners might be cut to get a product like this to market. https://www.schlage.com/en/home/smart-locks/encode-plus.html https://www.schlage.com/en/home/smart-locks/encode-plus.html 0: video https://youtu.be/WpbKOL1cM34 https://youtu.be/WpbKOL1cM34
- HWR_14 4y agoThere are issues with the physical lock, nothing to do with the electronics. So it's likely a real lock company like Schlage should be more resilient.
- dmitriid 4y agoThere are multiple videos where LockPickingLawyer opens electronic locks from various companies using a simple magnet. Even "real lock companies" are not immune from selling shiny gadgetry with misleading marketing
- snoopy_telex 4y agoI’m a very low skilled picker, but I did try racking and bumping my Encode Plus before installing it and didn’t get it open. That said, I do intend to re-core and re-key it someday.
- kodah 4y agoI was curious what 4% of the homes in the US is. 5.6 Million. Pretty wild. I would not trust my front door to these people. It's silly simple to make a presence system for your house. Assuredly cheaper than the price of this lock.
- ec109685 4y ago4% of broken into homes use lock picking.
- paulgb 4y agoI know they framed the statistic as “only 4%” but that’s higher than I would have guessed, given that modern locks (should) have anti-picking security features. If we could calculate the fraction of break-ins by the picking where the lock was vulnerable to raking or bumping, we should expect it to be higher.
- fbdab103 4y agoThe way I am reading the link, it was 4% of all 3.7 million household burglaries or 148,000 subject to raking. Regardless, if someone is intent on breaking into a house, I doubt a locked door is going to do anything. Not only are windows abundant, but even exterior doors seem to have gotten cheaper and thinner than days of yore.
- kodah 4y agoAh, you're right
- P5fRxh5kUvp2th 4y agoThe worst part about their response is they're basically admitting that any $10 lock would be roughly as effective and the $330 price tag is for unlocking via the app.
- pauljurczak 4y ago> any $10 lock would be roughly as effective No, $10 lock would not be as effective as $330 lock in displaying someone's vanity and Apple cult membership.
- Godel_unicode 4y agoInterestingly, one of the big selling points for Level is that it looks virtually identical to a normal lock unless you look closely and know what to look for.
- deaddodo 4y agoA $10 lock would be better; because at least then it would have a solid locking bolt.
- AlotOfReading 4y agoI've been told they've had internal discussions around having LPL test their products, but they never went anywhere. Level was pretty dismissive when I brought it up as a suggestion in one of their many recruiting attempts.
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
- smsm42 4y agoI love how their response to "your lock is bad" is "you don't really need a good one". I guess that's supposed to convince me that spending over $300 on a lock is what I need.