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Comment by efficax | Hacker News Reader

It seems like the risk on this one is pretty high, assuming the SpiKey software is available. Say you have a job where you need to be let in and out of a locked area by someone who is trusted with a key. The only thing you need now is a smartphone and to be standing not too far from the person putting the key in the lock and you have access!

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If the area is so high secure that this is a real threat then you should be using nfc tokens and a fingerprint/code scanner. The chance that someone will steal your token and clone your fingerprint before you notice and deactivate the token is nonexistant. And if all that is still not enough security then you need to combine that with a security guard at the door.

Key and lock security is for low security situations where it just has to be more secure than the window.

Even the blog article at the bottom made the more insightful point that just a picture of a key is enough to make a duplicate. It seems a much easier thing to do considering you just need a microcamera pointing sideways at the lock entry.

If you have a smartphone, you can just take a picture of the key.

"If a key is inserted at a nonconstant speed, the analysis can be ruined, but the software can compensate for small speed variations."

(That and noise.) Can we say academic project?

This paper demonstrates the principle. You start with the easier cases, then introduce the complexities. You don't have to wait until you've licked every problem to publish. And when you eventually do solve the problem in the presence of noise and varying insertion speed, you may not publish.

Also, lock picking often damages the lock and is a lot slower than people are giving credit here. This gets you in and out in short order

In which case you need to check out the lockpickinglawyer. Sure, not everyone has that level of skill but it is conceivable to self learn and be competent to a point where lock picking is practical.

That guy picks locks faster than I can find the correct key on a ring.

However, picking a lock still requires a short period of being unobserved. This may not be the case in for example an office building. Taking out a key and unlocking the door is an absolutely normal act and few people would notice. It even adds an air of legitimacy - that person has a key, they’re likely allowed in there.

Or you could just bring some lock picks, and then you don't even need someone with the original key.

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