It is for a house in a residential area, and I don’t keep a lot of valuables in the house. I wish I knew who the attacker would be, so I can catch them with pre-crime.
Comment on Are smart door locks more or less secure than traditional door locks?
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Against what sort of attack? Who’s the attacker? What capabilities do they have? What do they want?
There’s a saying, “locks are to keep your friends out.” If someone really means you harm, a lock is not going to keep them out: they can smash a window, break down the door, or hit you with a rubber hose until you give them your keys or passwords. This applies no matter what kind of lock you have.
But a lock represents a social barrier: everyone knows that trying to defeat someone else’s lock is a hostile act. The law recognizes this in many places: breaking-and-entering is a more severe crime than trespassing.
A lock may slow down an attacker. It may redirect an attacker to go after your neighbor’s stuff instead of your stuff — but not if everyone has locks.
A password lock has some advantages over a key lock. You don’t have to issue physical keys to everyone you want to allow in. Many allow you to create and revoke passwords separately — so you can grant a friend access to your house while you’re away, and then revoke it when they no longer need it.
However, a password lock also has some disadvantages. If you give a password to one person, that person can easily give it to everyone. That’s a lot harder with a physical key, because they’d have to go make a lot of copies of that key — which, if nothing else, costs money and time.
A computerized lock can create an audit trail: it can record when it was opened, and even which credentials (passwords, keys, …) were used to unlock it.
Any lock can have vulnerabilities — most common key locks can be picked; computerized locks can be attacked through their computer hardware or software.
cloudless@feddit.uk 1 year ago
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
If you’re concerned about burglars, one problem is that if they decide to hit your house, they can just break a window.
Where I live, burglars often hit cars rather than houses; and they’re very willing to break windows to get in, especially if they see something valuable in the car. They spend no time trying to defeat the locks — hell, some don’t even check if the car is locked.
A lot of the loss due to burglary is the damage the burglar does on the way in, rather than the value of the things stolen. And upgrading locks does nothing to reduce this.
Maybe instead of upgrading your locks, you might be better off spending the same amount of money upgrading your insurance?
SlightlyMad@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Are you an insurance salesman? Because this script probably would have worked on me!
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Here’s a sillier economic take on it:
Locks should be difficult enough to break that if you can develop the skills to break them, you’re smart enough to get a real job and not be a burglar.
bluGill@kbin.social 1 year ago
Cars have historically been broken into and stolen a lot. Thus auto makers have put extra effort into good locks. Some hardware store deadbolts are so bad you anyone can pick them with lock picks - no instructions needed. Only the best deadbolts are equal what a car has. Likewise breaking a car window is typically harder than breaking a house window.
MelodiousFunk@kbin.social 1 year ago
Likewise breaking a car window is typically harder than breaking a house window.
All it takes to break a car window is a single tap. There's specific tools available, or someone can just use a shard of ceramic. Shatters completely and instantly.
dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I love my August smart lock. It auto-unlocks my door when I get home, so I never need keys or to reach for my phone. It also has a key pad to unlock if I dont have my phone. It has alerts and reports status on an app. I can unlock or lock the door remotely for people to check in on things for me while Im away.
Yes, it has issues and eats batteries, but its so convenient.
agent_flounder@lemmy.one 1 year ago
If you’re not in infosec you should be. (Source: am in infosec)
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Oh, I did that for a while. 2001 was a mess of a year … right after the planes started flying again after 9/11, the Nimda worm came out.
agent_flounder@lemmy.one 1 year ago
Yeah that was a rough time indeed. I recall getting hit with a couple of those big worms back to back.
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
2002 was a blur, and then in 2003 came SQL Slammer.
Late2TheParty@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Thanks for reminding me of this XKCD gem!
xkcd.com/538/
fubo@lemmy.world 1 year ago
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber-hose_cryptanalysis
gregorum@lemm.ee 1 year ago
There’s also just the social engineering side of it. I guessed my father’s door code just because I know his birthdate.
HidingCat@kbin.social 1 year ago
Beat me to it! Locks are just but one part of securing your home.