I have a college memory that has stuck with me to this day (and probably will for the rest of my life). I had just finished up a class and was walking down a very busy street on campus when I came upon a pedestrian traffic jam. It seems that some unlucky guy had lost the key to his (very expensive) bike’s Kryptonite lock. I’m sure he tried everything he could think of to get the lock off his bike, but had now resigned himself to hacksawing through the hardened steel. It was probably 100+ degrees and this guy was just sawing away, sweating and blocking part of the sidewalk causing everyone to have to step around/over him. This scene has stuck with me so long because at the time I remember thinking “He's probably stealing that bike, and everyone is going to, for at least a second, think that same thought." Then that thought would be followed up by a secondary thought of “…nahh…no one would steal a bike by hacksawing the lock right here in broad daylight!” To this day I still think that guy was stealing the bike.
Then a couple of years ago, it came out that all of those U-Locks were easily defeated. Not with some high-tech device, but by the barrel of a Bic Round Stic™ pen . You know, the $.10 pens that are everywhere? Well apparently if you jam the barrel of one of those pens over the tubular keyhole of the U-lock and twist, it opens just like you had the key. When I found out about that, I immediately flashed back to the guy hacksawing and thought “I bet he’s laughing about that now”.
It was a shock for everyone to find out that the security offered by the “Microsoft” of bike locks, the Kryptonite lock, was a complete illusion. More troubling, It had been an illusion since day one, but no one (or not many) knew it.
Now the facade has been dropped on another ubiquitous piece of security hardware: Your front door lock. Recently a slew of information has been published on the Internet (documents, videos, how-to's, etc) regarding the bump key. What is it you ask? It's a generic key that can be made in about 30 mins by an 11 year old and any old spare key. And with this key, that same 11 year old, with no experience what-so-ever, can open your front door lock (yes, and your deadbolt too) in about 5 seconds. Don't you feel secure now? Here's a video of an 11 year old girl with no locksmithing experience opening a Kwikset lock in about 5 seconds.
Oh, and in case you missed it, Master locks can be defeated with a beer can.
Maybe it's time to bring back the moat.
1 comment:
It's a good thing I own and SUV and not a silly easily stolen bike. I quit using that life threatening device after the guitarist for Stereolab was run down while she was enjoying a nice bike ride. She was probably trying to save gas, or the environment, or just get some exercise on a sunny day.
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