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> It may be time to upgrade your garage door opener. If you're worried about this, make sure your garage door can't be opened with a coat hanger as well: http

> It may be time to upgrade your garage door opener. If you're worried about this, make sure your garage door can't be opened with a coat hanger as well: http://lifehacker.com/5549366/how-to-unlock-your-garage-door-from-the-outside-and-how-to-prevent-it http://lifehacker.com/5549366/how-to-unlock-your-garage-door... Also most of your door locks can probably be opened in a few seconds with the right tools+experience: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_bumping#Use_by_criminals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_bumping#Use_by_criminals http://www.carkeywholesale.com/wholesale/new-cordless-electric-pick-gun.html http://www.carkeywholesale.com/wholesale/new-cordless-electr... Of course someone could always just throw a brick through a window.

kbenson 11y ago
Exactly like computer security, it's not about making it impossible to gain entrance[1], it's about making it both inconvenient enough and require enough skill that it takes longer or is more noticeable, making it more likely the intruder will be noticed, thus raising the likelihood they will be caught. That said, a few seconds is a pretty low bar. Commodity locks should be better than this, for all our sakes. 1: This applies to anything where someone has access. It's trivial to come up with ways to secure things that need no ingress/egress whatsoever.
- bduerst 11y ago
  Exactly. Lots of people don't realize that most of their door locks are there to keep "normal" people out, because dedicated criminals are typically going to find a way in.
  - malnourish 11y ago
    Locks keep honest people honest.
    - kbenson 11y ago
      Locks reduce the instances where dishonest people can exercise dishonestly without repercussions. But that's what much of life is about, reducing the occurrences of negative outcomes. Elimination often isn't possible or feasible.
      - stealthyb 11y ago
        This is a much more accurate than the old "Locks keep honest people honest" saying. If you consider yourself an honest person, ask yourself how many times you've tried to open doors to random houses as you walk down the street. If you found it unlocked, do you rob the place? If you need a lock to keep you honest, you may want to reevaluate your values.
        derefr 11y ago
        The phrase is rooted in a very old memeplex, the part where religious morality and sociopathy overlap. Most ideas revolving around the concept of "putting the fear of God into someone" aren't actually for regular people with empathy. They're for sociopaths. It seems that sociopaths used to be seen as just completely normal people, undifferentiable from everyone else—and much of "morality" is actually an attempt to create extrinsic incentive systems to replace the thing that sociopaths lack, so they can seemingly function normally. That's all to say, by analogy: locks are to keep honest-acting sociopathic opportunists honest-acting.
        fapjacks 11y ago
        Right, you're exactly right, but you also seem to know a bit about sociopaths, and so it surprises me that you are implying that we don't see sociopaths as normal people these days. I've had very personal run-ins with real, genuine sociopaths in my life, and most people just have no idea that there are these people just totally walking around being treated like normal human beings. Sociopaths are not human beings, I say, because what is humanity but our empathy? And sociopaths do not have it, ergo...
    - logfromblammo 11y ago
      ...and dishonest people untempted.
- greggman 11y ago
  I don't know what's normal now but a long time ago, 1997, I moved with a complex with 300 garages each with a remote. I opened the remote to change the battery and noticed only 8 switches for the code. 256 codes, 300 garages, drove around the complex opened 2 other garages. Even at 12 bits with 300 garages the odds are very high of a match http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
  - fapjacks 11y ago
    Weird. I did something very similar in the same year.
- mattmaroon 11y ago
  While locks don't keep skilled criminals out, you'd be shocked how many unskilled ones there are. Meth/crackheads routinely go around twisting doorknobs in apartment complexes or pulling on car handles just hoping to find something unlocked so they can steal whatever is there. They (usually) don't break and enter, but if they happen upon an unlocked door they'll walk in and steal anything.
  - __z 11y ago
    Most (?) robberies are not sophisticated attacks but are simply crimes of opportunity.
  - vacri 11y ago
    Not that this is a common attack, but to add to the stew - I knew a guy who left his leather jacket in his car, which was a soft-top convertable. The jacket thief simply sliced open the top and took the jacket. These days I just tell people to consider the inside of their car a public place, and never to leave anything in there that you wouldn't leave lying on your front fence or similar. There are simply too many ways for people to get into cars to win that game, and ultimately, few things will stop a thief who's willing to damage the car (hammer through a window, or knife through a soft-top, for example).
    - sgustard 11y ago
      A car is like a glass vault on wheels. That's at least two weaknesses right there.
- imaginenore 11y ago
  That's not exactly like computer security. With computer security you plan for the worst, not the average. That's why even a skilled hacker/coder can't break into banks or major websites on a daily basis.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    A bank is not equivalent to your home. You may note that banks generally lock up their physical money behind very sophisticated security systems (relative to other homes/businesses). They deal with a different level of threat, and respond accordingly. Even then, they don't try to safeguard against someone physically demolishing the building, because there's only so much they can do, and at the point someone is willing to go that far, the chance they will complete the theft without being noticed and tracked is virtually non-existent.
tomsaffell 11y ago
The counter-coat-hanger-ziptie method is great, and I use it. But for the sake of safety, I recommend a thin ziptie - something that would break under the weight of an adult. It's still plenty strong enough to prevent the door being un-coupled by a coat hanger, but weak enough that an adult (inside the garage) could make an emergency exit.
mattmaroon 11y ago
Wow. That's hilarious. The vast majority of all garage door openers now sold are rolling code, but I bet almost all of them will fall to the coat hanger method.
746F7475 11y ago
Bumping always mystified me, in a sense that as I've understood it its for pin tumbler locks, so why do people use them? Every place I've lived has had Abloy locks (which no doubt have their own problems), but as far as I know they at least can't be bumped.
- runjake 11y ago
  Most people in the US have Schlage or Kiwkset deadbolt locks, or something similar to that. Bump keying them is trivial.
  - secabeen 11y ago
    Kwikset has almost completely gone to their new SmartKey system, which uses wafers, and is harder to bump. It has other vulnerabilities, but bumping isn't one of them.

kbenson 11y ago

Exactly like computer security, it's not about making it impossible to gain entrance[1], it's about making it both inconvenient enough and require enough skill that it takes longer or is more noticeable, making it more likely the intruder will be noticed, thus raising the likelihood they will be caught. That said, a few seconds is a pretty low bar. Commodity locks should be better than this, for all our sakes. 1: This applies to anything where someone has access. It's trivial to come up with ways to secure things that need no ingress/egress whatsoever.

bduerst 11y ago
Exactly. Lots of people don't realize that most of their door locks are there to keep "normal" people out, because dedicated criminals are typically going to find a way in.
- malnourish 11y ago
  Locks keep honest people honest.
  - kbenson 11y ago
    Locks reduce the instances where dishonest people can exercise dishonestly without repercussions. But that's what much of life is about, reducing the occurrences of negative outcomes. Elimination often isn't possible or feasible.
    - stealthyb 11y ago
      This is a much more accurate than the old "Locks keep honest people honest" saying. If you consider yourself an honest person, ask yourself how many times you've tried to open doors to random houses as you walk down the street. If you found it unlocked, do you rob the place? If you need a lock to keep you honest, you may want to reevaluate your values.
      - derefr 11y ago
        The phrase is rooted in a very old memeplex, the part where religious morality and sociopathy overlap. Most ideas revolving around the concept of "putting the fear of God into someone" aren't actually for regular people with empathy. They're for sociopaths. It seems that sociopaths used to be seen as just completely normal people, undifferentiable from everyone else—and much of "morality" is actually an attempt to create extrinsic incentive systems to replace the thing that sociopaths lack, so they can seemingly function normally. That's all to say, by analogy: locks are to keep honest-acting sociopathic opportunists honest-acting.
        fapjacks 11y ago
        Right, you're exactly right, but you also seem to know a bit about sociopaths, and so it surprises me that you are implying that we don't see sociopaths as normal people these days. I've had very personal run-ins with real, genuine sociopaths in my life, and most people just have no idea that there are these people just totally walking around being treated like normal human beings. Sociopaths are not human beings, I say, because what is humanity but our empathy? And sociopaths do not have it, ergo...
  - logfromblammo 11y ago
    ...and dishonest people untempted.
greggman 11y ago
I don't know what's normal now but a long time ago, 1997, I moved with a complex with 300 garages each with a remote. I opened the remote to change the battery and noticed only 8 switches for the code. 256 codes, 300 garages, drove around the complex opened 2 other garages. Even at 12 bits with 300 garages the odds are very high of a match http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
- fapjacks 11y ago
  Weird. I did something very similar in the same year.
mattmaroon 11y ago
While locks don't keep skilled criminals out, you'd be shocked how many unskilled ones there are. Meth/crackheads routinely go around twisting doorknobs in apartment complexes or pulling on car handles just hoping to find something unlocked so they can steal whatever is there. They (usually) don't break and enter, but if they happen upon an unlocked door they'll walk in and steal anything.
- __z 11y ago
  Most (?) robberies are not sophisticated attacks but are simply crimes of opportunity.
- vacri 11y ago
  Not that this is a common attack, but to add to the stew - I knew a guy who left his leather jacket in his car, which was a soft-top convertable. The jacket thief simply sliced open the top and took the jacket. These days I just tell people to consider the inside of their car a public place, and never to leave anything in there that you wouldn't leave lying on your front fence or similar. There are simply too many ways for people to get into cars to win that game, and ultimately, few things will stop a thief who's willing to damage the car (hammer through a window, or knife through a soft-top, for example).
  - sgustard 11y ago
    A car is like a glass vault on wheels. That's at least two weaknesses right there.
imaginenore 11y ago
That's not exactly like computer security. With computer security you plan for the worst, not the average. That's why even a skilled hacker/coder can't break into banks or major websites on a daily basis.
- kbenson 11y ago
  A bank is not equivalent to your home. You may note that banks generally lock up their physical money behind very sophisticated security systems (relative to other homes/businesses). They deal with a different level of threat, and respond accordingly. Even then, they don't try to safeguard against someone physically demolishing the building, because there's only so much they can do, and at the point someone is willing to go that far, the chance they will complete the theft without being noticed and tracked is virtually non-existent.

tomsaffell 11y ago

The counter-coat-hanger-ziptie method is great, and I use it. But for the sake of safety, I recommend a thin ziptie - something that would break under the weight of an adult. It's still plenty strong enough to prevent the door being un-coupled by a coat hanger, but weak enough that an adult (inside the garage) could make an emergency exit.

mattmaroon 11y ago

Wow. That's hilarious. The vast majority of all garage door openers now sold are rolling code, but I bet almost all of them will fall to the coat hanger method.

746F7475 11y ago

Bumping always mystified me, in a sense that as I've understood it its for pin tumbler locks, so why do people use them? Every place I've lived has had Abloy locks (which no doubt have their own problems), but as far as I know they at least can't be bumped.

runjake 11y ago
Most people in the US have Schlage or Kiwkset deadbolt locks, or something similar to that. Bump keying them is trivial.
- secabeen 11y ago
  Kwikset has almost completely gone to their new SmartKey system, which uses wafers, and is harder to bump. It has other vulnerabilities, but bumping isn't one of them.