Sunday, February 16, 2003
4:55:28 PM
4:54:12 PM
A fascinating article about 'master key' systems. Schools and college dorms, among other places, use these systems - the student or teacher gets one key that works on their lock but there is a master key that works on all locks. It turns out that it is possible to reverse-engineer a master key given only one 'change' key, without disassembling or breaking the lock, provided that you have the ability to mill your own keys. Turns out that this is also causing a fervor amongst the locksmith community, many of whom would rather sell insecure systems to an ignorant public. (Even though they, and the criminal element, have known about this for over 100 years.) Sounds like Microsoft in a way.
Reminds me of college. One of the kids on my floor managed to get a master key to all the rooms in the house. I thought it was kind of handy because if I locked myself out of my room, I could find him and not have to deal with securiy. He knew he couldn't try anything with us because we'd come after him if we even suspected something was missing in our rooms.
4:53:14 PM
Last Update: 2/22/2003; 9:07:48 AM
