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Comment by sarchertech | Hacker News Reader

There are already so many ways to defeat locks, that locks are just there to keep honest people honest and to slow down criminals.

The laser in the article took 30 seconds to cut a a tiny disc out of a sheet of steel 100 micrometers thick. That isn’t going to change things on the theft front. There are much more effective methods available today.

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Once my bicycle was such a piece of crap that someone stole the lock and left the bike.

lol, sounds like a Rodney Dangerfield gag

> There are already so many ways to defeat locks, that locks are just there to keep honest people honest and to slow down criminals.

If you live at a lower end apartment complex, you might be shocked at how many doors your key will unlock, if you apply a light turning pressure and thrust the key in and out a few times.

I know I was. But it came in handy when one of my xmas gifts had been delivered to the front office, and I needed to pick it up after hours in order to make a redeye flight the next morning. I just used my own room key to open the office (setting off the alarm!), grabbed the package with my name on it, and closed and relocked the door and was gone before anyone investigated.

sounds like you basically just used your key as a bump key

Yeah, that's exactly it- but the point is I was using an unmodified key.

I've tried this on higher-end tumblers and I could really feel that it wasn't going to work. It's just about the el-cheapo builder-grade locks (which comprise a shocking percentage of home and apartment locks).

The quality of locks has always been measured in time.

When you get down to it, most security measures are ultimately based around creating enough delay that someone can respond with violence.

P.S.: Trying to think of the rare examples that don't qualify, and so far:

1. Direct violent response, e.g. booby-traps.

2. Denial by destroying whatever the attacker wanted, or delaying them enough that time renders it valueless.

3. Denial by making the effort unprofitable, even with no hard time limits.

A dutch women told me once a story, where she but a used bike in Amsterdam and the heroin addict who sold it to her, threaten her to steal it again, if she does not use a heavy lock.

When I moved to the Netherlands my boss told me to never spend more than 20 euro on a bike because it will get stolen. I didn't listen, and lo and behold two weeks in my 75 euro bike and the 35 euro heavy duty lock disappeared

That is rather sad to hear.

I'm skeptical:

* Where do you buy a ≤20 euro bike?

* Most people on the street have bikes that look to be at least 200 euros new, from what I can tell.

They didn't mention the year of the story, it could've happened a couple of decades ago.

I've never done it, but you buy it from the thief (junkie) directly. So it could be that you find them by word of mouth, like you would use to buy drugs when they were illegal. But you can also buy a second hand bike very cheaply, some are even free (just an example: https://www.marktplaats.nl/v/fietsen-en-brommers/fietsen-her...). New bikes are usually more than 200 euros, dutch brands are 500 euros and up

This was 2010-ish and I found one on Marktplaats. Might be going for 40 or 50 now with inflation. People selling them on the street also had for cheap, but these were most definitely stolen.

Last time I bought a bike for £20 even second-hand, the Euro had not yet been introduced.

Even in 2011, when I made the mistake of spending £90 for a new bike… well, the pedals came off while riding it due to metal fatigue.

Adjusting for inflation*, I'd expect similar build quality from a bike that "only" cost €200 today.

* hard to do when there is also a currency switch, especially when the exchange rate has changed so much

Presumably from the bike thieves. There's a glut in the stolen bike market so the price competition is fierce.

It seems like that that point the bike thieves are just a bike rental company.

You get the bike for < 20 Euro and then, presumably, at some point in the future it gets stolen again, but you already got 20 Euros worth of use out of it.

"Discount Variable Duration" rental program.

Efficient market hypothesis proven.

Police unclaimed bike auctions maybe.

Does the Netherlands have a law against knowingly buying stolen property?

Every place in the world does probably. But how would you prove an unmarked, cheap bike was stolen?

You wouldn't but nowadays no bike is unmarked, even the cheap ones.

Can’t you trivially deface an identifier?

In Belgium, it's a hard to remove sticker on a consistent place with a qr code.

It would take work to remove it cleanly and/or cost money/time to paint over it.

So it's less attractive.

Ps. You'll still need to take care of your 10 k. Bike ofc.

Ps. 2 : engraving isn't done anymore since bike frames got smaller.

How would you know a marked bike was stolen? Does the police offer a public listing of all the stolen bikes?

(I do not think so, but this probably would make sense)

If you can't and the owner can and if you are caught then you are liable.

If the seller threatens to "steal it again".

The Netherlands famously has more bicycle thefts per year than citizens. At this point you could almost think of cheap commuter bikes as public property.

People in countries where bicycling is not seen as a personality statement generally ride very cheap city bikes around town. Last time I bought one of those in college it cost about 30eur. Is not like in SF where people ride 3000 dollar bikes to work because omg you’re a cyclist now and this is your whole identity.

Here in the part of Canada I live in, you see some of the $3000 bike identity stuff, but most people ride something in the $500–$750 range. Something practical, comfortable, reliable, etc.

There is also a growing segment of people who use $5,000–$15,000 cargo/kid carrier bikes as replacements for their cars, which is cool. But I do worry about theft of those increasing. Right now I rarely hear of it, but it seems likely to increase. Even the motors and batteries in them cost thousands alone.

> think of cheap commuter bikes as public property.

Didn't Amsterdam try that with 'white bikes' in the 1970s?

> The Netherlands famously has more bicycle thefts per year than citizens.

No, it definitely does not!

750k bike thefts for 17.7m people. So roughly one per 25 people...

It famously has more bicycles than people!

Of course they have more bicycles than people, the bikes keep getting stolen!

I divide locking systems into three classes:

1. Can be opened without tools

2. Can be opened with generic tools (e.g. hammer, hacksaw)

3. Can be opened with specialized tools (e.g. lock picks, liquid nitrogen)

> 100 micrometers thick

1/10 of a millimeter. Thick foil (perhaps 4x generic Al foil).

The battery powered angle grinder was the end of useful bike locks AFAIK.

Pfft. I had a medium-grade bike lock in college, and I once accidentally stole a bike because somebody with the same color/model/lock parked in front of the same building as me. My key was a bit stiff and I kind of had to force it, but it worked fine. I just remember thinking "why does this seat feel different?" Took me a couple of days to figure it out. I put it back- sure hope the original owner came and looked again after his initial disappointment that day.

There are bike locks that do mostly defeat angle grinders. They are not cheap, of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpVOTEOMRuE

https://www.amazon.com/Kryptonite-Evolution-Integrated-Chain...

I don't know why you would link a video instead of saying the sentence "chain locks are hard to cut with an angle grinder because the chains are hard to hold steady"

I forgot to add that clarification, thanks.

Ref: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aBxyaFf379g&t=1m4s

Tl;dr if your lock doesn't double-lock (both sides) and have a cut-resistant core, it's only stopping people who can't afford a Ryobi angle grinder

> There are already so many ways to defeat locks, that locks are just there to keep honest people honest and to slow down criminals.

Yeah, I'm currently waiting on parts to replace my door handle. As far as I can tell, the would-be thieves snapped off the handle to make an opening, and used that to cut/snap the rear part of the lock (which normally can't turn because of the lock cylinder) and then substituted in a screwdriver to convince the car that the lock had turned.

Thankfully--and puzzlingly--they were unprepared for the steering-wheel lock and only managed to mangle and bend it (probably with a small bolt-cutter) before they gave up or were spooked off.

'Course, after that they would have still been unable to start the car for other reasons, but it still saved me the cost of fixing a torn-up ignition.

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