Killer escaped prison after being issued picture of master key

http://mobile.news.com.au/national-news/killer-escaped-prison-after-being-issued-picture-of-master-key-to-all-locks/story-fncynjr2-1226629878591

by emhart • 13 years ago

233 94 13 years ago

mobile.news.com.au

lutusp• 13 years ago

So much for the myth of the stupid criminal being kept in jail by smart authorities.

xntrk• 13 years ago

The couldn't have possibly used someones house keys? lol

betterunix• 13 years ago

Hm...where have I heard this story before...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management

edward• 13 years ago

"The Prison Service has been forced to spend £250,000 on changing every lock and key in Feltham young offenders' institution after a TV news crew filmed a prison key during a media visit last week."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2006/jul/05/broadcasting.you...

JonnieCache• 13 years ago

Diebold voting machine key copied from photo at company's own online store

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4066#more-4066

Drakim• 13 years ago

People need to realize that the shape of your key is pretty much a "password". Letting your keys lay on a table in open view is akin to leaving a piece of paper with your password out in open view.

pixelcort• 13 years ago

With 3D printing coming mainstream in the next decade, combined with high resolution cameras being common on smartphones, it's going to be important to start hiding the teeth of keys.

emhart2• 13 years ago

Already here: http://eclecti.cc/hardware/physical-keygen-now-for-disc-deta... Even higher security locks can be pretty readily replicated.

viraptor• 13 years ago

This could be made much harder both for accidentally seeing the code and for copying if the usual keys got inverted. As in - make them round pipes like the gerda ones, but with holes on the inside instead of outside.

Not only would a photo of it be useless, they'd be also much harder to print (still fairly easy to cut though, but you'd have a hard time doing it manually - it would have to be done by a machine precisely measuring the movements in most cases).

hashmymustache• 13 years ago

This is why keys need foreskin

stesch• 13 years ago

See https://plus.google.com/u/0/111607634508834917317/posts/AM7s...

MikeCapone• 13 years ago

Exactly. Reminds me of this:

http://michaelgr.com/2008/10/29/duplicating-keys-from-photos...

"UC San Diego computer scientists have built a software program that can perform key duplication without having the key. Instead, the computer scientists only need a photograph of the key."

NegativeK• 13 years ago

This is made easier by the fact that key bitting is discrete. The software doesn't have to measure the exact depth of the valleys; it just needs to know which of the seven (or whatever it is for that particular lock) possible heights it's closest to.

eclipticplane• 13 years ago

Research turned commercial: http://shloosl.com/

Copy any key for $5 with a picture from your phone and they'll mail it to you.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

I'm not even sure why you need a computer for this - maybe to print out the picture. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, the heights are discrete, and you could figure out how to reproduce the key with a ruler and a pencil.

GHFigs• 13 years ago

The non-intuitive nature of the distinction between physical artifacts and the information they contain seems to be the source of a lot of different problems.

baddox• 13 years ago

Also, most consumer locks are trivial to quickly pick (after a few days of practice), so the "picture of your key" vulnerability is the least of your concern if you have reason to suspect someone actively desires to circumvent your locks.

bentcorner• 13 years ago

> "Those keys were a dead-set copy of the keys that we had. The key he copied was in the shape of a figure E, which was the master key."

> The officer said it was Heiss's fellow inmate - fellow murderer Shane Baker - who made the key. He said Baker was a jeweller who had jewellery-making equipment in his cell, and used this to work on the key.

This has "I don't know what I expected" written all over it

afreak• 13 years ago

Reminds me of a story about the MTA and their master keys being exposed:

http://www.renderlab.net/advisories/mta-key/

gcb0• 13 years ago

People whose work depends on keys doesn't know their basics working...

If there was a computer and a password printed on those booklets it would have spurred new silly internet laws.

swang• 13 years ago

I remember there was some graduate study done at UCSD where they took a picture of a key from afar, and using a computer, be able to create the exact key that accounted for the angle the picture was shot out. Does anyone remember an article like that?

prawks• 13 years ago

A few comments up from here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5613791

aashaykumar92• 13 years ago

This article made me realize that the whole concept of keys is something that needs to be looked into quite a bit with the rise in 3D printing technology. With an excellent 3D printer, one would hypothetically be able to take a picture of keys and be able to print a copy of them.

emhart2• 13 years ago

competent attackers have been able to sight-read & reproduce keys for literal millennia. What needs to be evaluated is user behavior regarding keys.

jonknee• 13 years ago

> What needs to be evaluated is user behavior regarding keys.

Or just smarter keys like cars have these days (which have pretty much stopped non flat-bed car theft).

TheCowboy• 13 years ago

I think you'll have better luck adapting lock technology to user behavior than changing every user's behavior.

Good password selection thinking should be commonsense by now to people who post here, but it seems like there's still a lot of work to be done educating the general (less geeky) public.

romaniv• 13 years ago

I don't see why this would invalidate the concept of physical keys.

The problem of visual key copying can be easily solved by either making keys in a shape that doesn't allow to see the ridges easily (something like 'E' with middle bar being the actual key) or by making a "dynamic" key that changes shape after you insert it into the lock.

InclinedPlane2• 13 years ago

Physical locks are not that resistant to attack to start with. A $20 lockpick set in the hands of someone who has put in less than 100 hours of training can open up almost any door or padlock in a matter of seconds.

legitsource2• 13 years ago

Have you seen how fast and easy it can be with bumpkeys? It isn't nearly as versatile, but a ring of properly made bumpkeys can open the majority of locks.

fnordfnordfnord4• 13 years ago

Here is a typical TDCJ key for reference, These are available on Ebay BTW. http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mir8l4p7ugK0Tt6QMd5Da...

shaddyz• 13 years ago

I had a hard time understanding the article. Can someone explain why putting an image of the prison's master key on an inmate pamphlet makes any sense? Someone went through the trouble of putting that exact key on the cover--it wasn't coincidental. Did the designer think it was a way of teasing the inmates with the key to their freedom?

unreal372• 13 years ago

This is a good point. No one seems to be able to answer why that picture was taken and then chosen as the cover of the welcome to prison booklet.

I bet somebody originally wanted an aerial shot of the prison, but someone else wisely objected because that would be bad security move - giving prisoners a map of the area...

mikeash3• 13 years ago

At first blush, I think one could easily have the attitude that a picture of a key is no more dangerous than a picture of a gun. The vulnerability is clear but not completely obvious. Especially when prisoners can also see the real keys, as guards no doubt have to use them near prisoners from time to time.

ttrreeww• 13 years ago

Looks like one of them is released in 2011!

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/infamous-nt-k...

downandout3• 13 years ago

I heard about a similar incident in the Santa Clara county jail. In that case, the inmate, ironically facing a federal counterfeiting currency charge, managed to make a skeleton key to the jail by cutting plastic from a jail-supplied Rubbermaid bin that was supposed to be used for storing personal property. The inmate got the general shape of the key by looking at it as guards passed by, then perfected it over a period of weeks by sticking it in the lock and attempting to turn it. The lock made marks on the plastic where the teeth were supposed to go. The inmate was caught and all plastic bins removed from the jail after the key was finally good enough to open the lock, which set off an alarm.

pestaa• 13 years ago

Why did the alarm was set off? Do these locks work only with a key that passes through electricity or have some other built-in secondary check? Really curious.

downandout3• 13 years ago

Apparently there are parts of the Santa Clara County jail that are very old. This occurred in a dorm-style housing unit, and the key he made opened a stairwell door (the door to the stairwell being inside the housing unit, which is how he was able to repeatedly test without scrutiny). The door was alarmed and went off when it opened. Most modern jails don't use skeleton-style keys, and the doors are opened and closed electronically, but the part of the jail he was in was decades old.

codeulike• 13 years ago

Bear in mind: It was over 20 years ago, and they caught him again with 12 days.

jasoncartwright• 13 years ago

Reminds me of this...

http://boingboing.net/2007/01/25/diebold-voting-machi.html

"someone has made a copy of the key which opens ALL Diebold e-voting machines from a picture on the company's own website"

hiroprot• 13 years ago

So, they essentially handed each inmate a key to their freedom (in the form of the handbook) upon arrival?

Am I the only one who thinks that's somewhat philosophical? :)

px43• 13 years ago

Reminds me of this story:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/daniel-ferraris-new...

loceng• 13 years ago

Security 101? :)

mark_lee• 13 years ago

Is this an example that a man can be smart and stupid at the same time? paid a lot of effort to get out for 12 days , then got several more years in jail for that,maybe,wow.

hexonexxon• 13 years ago

People often sell master keys on ebay and other sites and upload photos of the key. http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/10/master_keys.ht...

Killer escaped prison after being issued picture of master key

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