4 ms·
An observation about 4 digit PIN's. They're even weaker than you might think just from "doing the math" at least in some cases. Sure, there's 10000 combination
by mindcrime 2y ago
An observation about 4 digit PIN's. They're even weaker than you might think just from "doing the math" at least in some cases. Sure, there's 10000 combinations to search through if you're trying to brute force one, but I'd bet money that in most cases you don't need to search anywhere near that many.
Case in point: I had a unit at a mini-storage place once. And you needed a 4 digit PIN to get through the gate. And I forgot the PIN I used. I was sitting at the gate for a minute, staring at the keypad and realized "wait... hundreds of people have PINs in this system and the system doesn't care which one you use". So I just needed a PIN that somebody used. So I started with years that would have been reasonable birth years for an average adult at that time and starting going up. I think it took about 6 tries to find a valid PIN.
Now granted, this is different than trying to brute force a specific person's PIN. But even then, I expect that in many cases an informed search will crack it a lot faster than a purely sequential search or a random search. Using common birth years, well known numbers like "5150", "1234", "4321", etc. is probably going to work a lot of times.
- ndr 2y agoWhat is "5150" well known for?
- marxisttemp 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman%E2%80%93Petris%E2%80%93Short_Act?wprov=sfti1# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterman%E2%80%93Petris%E2%80...
- PopAlongKid 2y agoI had the same question. It is the title of a Van Halen record album, also a section of the California legal code related to mental health, according to a simple search.
- belter 2y agoOne of the best Van Halen albums?
- TheBozzCL 2y agoAnd Eddie’s amp model, the Peavey 5150. It’s become the de-facto standard for the more extreme metal bands. When Eddie took the rights with him to Fender and they made the EVH 5150 (another fantastic amp), Peavey renamed this line to the 6505 series, so there you have another four-digit code to use.
- belter 2y agoWell the 5150 was Eddie’s Studio Postal Code, but if we are going down this road :-) I would like to point out at some point in time they run out of Sylvania 6L6 Power Tubes... then Peavey started with Chinese Ruby 6L6 Power Tubes for the EVH5150 and they dont sound the same...
- OJFord 2y agoIt's apparently the California law section number for restraining a mentally unwell person or something, so has law enforcement and slang usage, and there's a 1986 chart-topping song named after it. (I'd never heard of it either, but I'm not Californian.)
- kgwgk 2y agoThis is one of the first results a search provided. I skipped Wikipedia which was first but it was actually informative as well. https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/5150/ https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/5150/
- zoeysmithe 2y agoIts the famous law for involuntary mental lockup in California, then referenced a lot in pop culture, probably most notably with a Van Halen album named after it. Its used in a lot of jokes, but also oppressively. I think we've seen some divorce court releases and such on how to "5150 my wife," how cops abuse it, etc.
- AutistiCoder 2y agoAround these parts, we call it an "M1 hold" M1 is - I think - the form they have to fill out to put you on a temporary hold.
- seryoiupfurds 2y agoThis being HN, my mind went immediately to the IBM 5150... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5150 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_5150
- kps 2y agoThis being HN, there's only a few of us left.
- 98codes 2y agoIn my GenX brain, a Van Halen album* comes to mind. * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFxg1nB9yQ8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFxg1nB9yQ8
- mindcrime 2y agoAs a Van Halen fan, I think of it because of the album titled "5150". But it has other well known uses as well.
- eej71 2y agoColor me a bit sad to not see 2112 make the list.
- beej71 2y agoBased on the legal code, around here it's slang for "crazy". Poster: "I was ripping my dirt bike out in the snow and got pulled over!" Commenter 1: "What for?" Commenter 2: "5150." Barcroft Station in California (elevation 3800 m) has house number 5150 over the door. You'd have to be crazy to want to work there.
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- billpg 2y ago"You need to choose an access PIN." "How about (digits)?" "You can't use that one. Someone else has already chosen that." "Wait, now I know someone else's PIN code. I could use that and it'd be logged under their name."
- echoangle 2y agoSo the system allowed multiple users to chose their own Pin and didn’t ask for a user ID when authenticating? That’s just stupid design.
- koolba 2y ago“What’s the password?” “Which password?” “Any password.” “Hunter2” “Welcome!”
- ElectroNeutrino 2y agoWhy did you put just asterisks?
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoThis is an asterisk * As a memory rule, astrisk looks like a star, asteriskos means ”little star” in greek and is related to asterology.
- tialaramex 2y agoI think what's happened here is that you didn't get the joke. https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2 https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/hunter2
- bdhcuidbebe 2y agoI did not get that, lol
- belter 2y agoIn my case I see just #######
- high_na_euv 2y agoIs it? it is just a gate
- dfxm12 2y agoThe lock on your front door is more secure than the lock on your bedroom door. This tradeoff is for convenience, of course. A entrance to a mini-storage place is probably OK to be weak. Presumably, you are required to have a proper lock on your own unit. Likewise, the PIN is generally the 2nd factor (along with "something you have") for important things. I'm OK with the convenience of having only a 4 digit PIN on my ATM card since I can reasonably protect & deactivate the card. If someone forces me to enter my pin under duress, it doesn't really matter how many digits it is.
- taeric 2y agoProbably worth noting that using another PIN like that to enter a storage facility is almost certainly a breach of terms of use. Such that, if you did anything in there that is not ok with everyone, they have easy legal recourse against you.
- toast0 2y ago> A entrance to a mini-storage place is probably OK to be weak. Presumably, you are required to have a proper lock on your own unit. You'd like the entrance to be strong, because access to the entrance grants you secluded access to all the units, and angle grinders beat locks in seconds, proper locks in just a few more seconds. Of course, cars beat entrance gates pretty easily too.
- amanaplanacanal 2y ago
- Toutouxc 2y agoMy mini storage place issued me a code that was just the number of my box and the year I was born. Knowing this, I could probably brute force someone else’s code in 30 seconds.
- culi 2y agoI'm sure they have cameras that could trace things back to you. In my mother tongue there's a saying that that roughly translates to "The lock on the door isn't there to keep you out. It's there to communicate that you're not wanted there." But this is coming from a culture that's rather communal where shared property is often the default.
- Vampiero 2y agoThat's called a dictionary attack and it's one rung above bruteforcing
- nyjah 2y agoThis reminds me of when I was in HS. There was a auto car wash that would print a number on a receipt for one to enter and get a carwash with. One day for whatever reason I just punched in 12 random numbers and it worked. And thats how I got free car washes all through high school...
- aeturnum 2y agoOfc whenever I need a insecure four-digit pin I use 2501 - so people will know me when they meet me again.
- kazinator 2y ago> in most cases you don't need to search anywhere near that many If the pin is chosen randomly with a uniform distribution over the 0000 to 9999 range, then the average brute force search will probe 5000.5 combinations.
- yencabulator 2y agoThe biggest job of the front entrance gate at a mini-storage business is to keep random people from loitering in the area, so the cameras(/hypothetical people watching the feeds) have an easier time witnessing a break-in.
- kqr 2y agoAnd even if the number is randomly generated, many devices accept any string of digits that end with the correct four digits. Pressing "12345" actually tests both codes "1234" and "2345". I'm sure there's an optimal sequence of keypresses that tests all 10000 codes in something like 30,000 keypresses rather than the naive 40,000.
- quesera 2y agoAlso true of those old "lockbox" key lockers that real estate agents use to "protect" the keys to your house. This made me uncomfortable when I was selling a house, so naturally I wrote some code to generate a string of digits that would cover the full solution space most efficiently. Armed with this "master key", I had the lockbox open in negligible time. Honestly I think it was just a few minutes, and I was about halfway through the string. This let me put the key out only when a showing was happening, and I brought the lockbox to the closing, which baffled the real estate agent.
- speq 2y agoYes, there's some solid theory behind it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bruijn_sequence It seems that you can do it in 10003 key presses. Calculation for this this exact example is in the Wikipedia page.
- geo255 2y agoYes! Back in the 1980s when long distance telephone was a thing, I used to dial (301) 737-2051 followed by a 5 digit pin to get access to a service that the let me enter a long distance call. It only took about 20-30 manual attempts for me to guess a valid 5 digit PIN! I'd just increment my guesses by 1 each time.