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Master Keys
- jgrahamc 14y agoIf you follow through to the story that shows a picture of the keys two things are notable: these are pretty easy keys to duplicate (especially given the nice clear photograph of them) and it was the New York Post who both broke the original story and posted a picture of the keys (face palm).
- finnw 14y agoI was slightly surprised that they just look like regular keys. I was half expecting them to have special grooves, or protrusions, or magnets or something.
- btilly 14y agoNope. Just a regular key that hits a specific set of pins that are required to be there. If you think about it, designing a lock that takes 2 completely different types of keys would be very difficult. If you don't fit the grooves that a regular key does, you don't fit. So you have to use the same blank. After that it is just the set of grooves that matters.
- paulgerhardt 14y ago>designing a lock that takes 2 completely different types of keys would be very difficult This is actually fairly common in commercial buildings. The keys have a channel running down the side (the 'grooves' you speak of). The grooves determine what kind of keyway the key can fit into. You can can configure your locks so a certain groove pattern will only fit a subset of your locks, while another kind of groove will fit into all of them. Schlage for instance makes a series of keyways (A, C, D, E, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, XP etc.) that are specified to do exactly this. I always forget which, but I believe it's the L keys that will fit into most of the other keyways. You can consult Schlage's own books to learn more: http://professional.schlage.com/pdfs/sss/Schlage_Key_Systems_Answer_Book.pdf http://professional.schlage.com/pdfs/sss/Schlage_Key_Systems... (scroll to the end.)
- jes5199 14y agoSome of those keys look ancient! I don't see how a lock keyed to those could possibly hold up to even an amateur lockpick.
- lifeisstillgood 14y agoAncient is the point - at some point after the twenties, it became less and less cost effective to have someone at the building 24/7 - and the rise of electronic security (alarms basically) provided everyone with a two-factor reassurance that the system was still secure even with distributed master keys. As long as no-one sold them to the public ...
- nnnnni 14y agoUgh, the NY Post is nothing but a tabloid -- from Fox, no less.
- MattRogish 14y agoMaster keys are the very definition of "security through obscurity". As Bruce says, this is a very hard problem and one that has been reasonably solved for a long time. However, thinking that sophisticated terrorists or criminals have been unable to exploit this merely because they haven't been to eBay is naïve to the extreme.
- nathan_long 14y ago>> Master keys are the very definition of "security through obscurity". Not really. A key is like a physical password. Security by obscurity is "I'm betting you don't know what kind of lock/encryption I'm using." Legitimate security is "I won't give you my key/reveal my password." Just because there's a secret doesn't mean you're Doing it Wrong. "Something you know" is a valid authentication factor.
- mikeash 14y agoSecurity through obscurity is, ultimately, betting your system on something you can't ever change. A key that you give out to thousands of people and cannot be changed afterwards ceases to be a key and becomes an intrinsic part of the system. With a real key, when a leak like this happens, you invalidate the leaked key and issue a new one. In this particular case, they're basically stuck hoping that nobody does anything nefarious with this key. The mere existence of a physical key does not make it security through obscurity. It's the fact that the same physical key is distributed to thousands of people with no good way to control them all or compensate for a leak that makes it security through obscurity.
- TeMPOraL 14y ago> The mere existence of a physical key does not make it security through obscurity. It's the fact that the same physical key is distributed to thousands of people with no good way to control them all or compensate for a leak that makes it security through obscurity. Semantic nitpick, but how does that make this security through obscurity? S.T.O. is not betting your system on something you can't ever change, it's betting your system on hoping the attacker won't guess how the lock works. I think we should be careful not to use inappropriate labels, as this dilutes the language and makes it more difficult to communicate.
- precisioncoder 14y agoI feel like if this were to be replaced by a digital solution it would be essential that multiple vendors would be used. There was a big vulnerability that occurred with hotel locks that seems like it would have been mitigated by multiple vendors. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/hotel_door_lock.html http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/08/hotel_door_loc...
- buro9 14y agoGiven when such keys need to be used, a digital solution would also need to work in emergencies such as flooding, fire, and partial destruction (door and lock internals fine, outer lock and door severely damaged). I imagine that it's easier just to stick with the good old master keys. I've long believed that most locks are not there to stop professionals, they're just there to stop the opportunist. If you're at peace with this then there's little advantage spending an extremely large amount of money putting in place a sub-standard digital solution. The existing system is good enough.
- bjxrn 14y agoI've heard it before: "Locks are there to keep honest people honest." The lock on your front door won't stop someone breaking into your house. Or rather: your lock likely isn't the weakest point when it comes to keeping people out. However, with the master keys it's not just about getting into places where you shouldn't be able to go, it's also about more or less locking a whole place down by disabling elevators. I can imagine you could put something a bit more complex to disable something which already requires electronics to function.
- precisioncoder 14y agoYeah, I guess master key usage is just a little too broad. Opening doors doesn't seem like a huge issue, but I would at least require a supplementary password entry for crucial functionality like disabling elevators.
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- jasonkolb 14y agoI assume the lock industry will be added to the list of industries that will lobby like hell against 3D printer technology. I'm putting the over/under on a 3D model of these keys showing up on the Net at about a day.
- CaptainZapp 14y agoI was wondering about the same thing regarding those TSA locks. My fancy new luggage comes with combination locks and in addition with one of those TSA locks. The thing is, how many different lock combinations are they? (My guess: less then a dozen) How widely must the master keys be distributed? Well, in multiple instance to every airport in the US and then some How long until a bunch of dodgy luggage handlers own a set of those locks? While the consideration not having to break your luggage is nice the implementation seems not very secure to begin with (yeah: I know: neither are luggage locks, but still)
- jgrahamc 14y agoDetails analysis of the TSA locks: http://download.security.org/tsa_luggage_locks_report.pdf http://download.security.org/tsa_luggage_locks_report.pdf
- smackfu 14y agoThat's depressing. Especially the part about how you can just bust open the zipper on a locked bag anyways.
- nathan_long 14y agoThat's an excellent starting point to explain why we shouldn't accept encryption that has backdoors.
- andrewingram 14y agoI basically use luggage padlocks as an over-the-top way of making sure the zipper doesn't come undone accidentally. Of course, I could achieve the same thing with a paperclip.
- ezpassmac 14y agoI think that this article represents the need for digital locks. So far, no one has disrupted this space and there is a HUGE market. Think of everyone who lives in an apartment/house in the world. Now take only 1% of 1% of 1% and that's going to be a very large number of people who would signup.
- morsch 14y agoThere are digital locks, e.g. unlocked using RFID tokens. Carrying around a token is not much more convenient than carrying around a physical key, although it does come with other benefits (e.g. easier revocation). Using something like NFC and unlocking a door using your phone would be nice, but on the other hand I don't want to be locked out just because my phone ran out of power. Anyway, it's not a trivial modification, ie. just replacing the lock, because the digital lock needs power to process the key and unlock the door. As long as that's necessary, the initial investment and the increased complexity make the benefits moot to me personally. If you have some sort of door knob action maybe you could harness that to generate a small amount of power sufficient to unlock the door?
- cerebrum 14y agoWhat if there is a power outage? You say battery? What if the battery fails? And you would still have the problem of keeping thousands of batteries and electronics running, those fail too. In the end you are adding complexity to the system, so physical locks still have advantages.
- xyzzy123 14y agoI know this is uncharitable, but after reading your post, I immediately envisaged a future where locks are web controlled, and the security of people's front doors relies on a shiny Web 2.0 site not having an XSS or CSRF somewhere. Uh oh. That said, I would be really interested to see a shot at something new in this area. Most of the current companies follow the OEM -> reseller model. Their customer is actually building and access maintenance companies, not the end user.
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- jgrahamc 14y agoAlso, if you are interested in actual master keys, Matt Blaze's paper on the subject is a classic: http://www.crypto.com/masterkey.html http://www.crypto.com/masterkey.html "n a recent research paper, we describe weaknesses in most master-keyed lock systems, such as those used by offices, schools, and businesses as well as by some residential facilities (particularly apartment complexes, dormitories, and condominiums). These weaknesses allow anyone with access to the key to a single lock to create easily the "master" key that opens every lock in the entire system. Creating such a key requires little skill, leaves behind no evidence, and does not entail engaging in recognizably suspicious behavior. The only materials required are a metal file and a small number of blank keys, which for many locks are readily available."
- rikf 14y agoLike a smart terrorist/activist/pranker couldnt learn how to pick locks.
- jdechko 14y agoMichael Brady, commenting on the original article, said it best. "Master keys are a convenience, not a security measure."