[HN Gopher] 10M people watched a YouTuber shim a lock; the lock ...
___________________________________________________________________
10M people watched a YouTuber shim a lock; the lock company sued
him - bad idea
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YjzlmKz_MM8
Author : Brajeshwar
Score : 1507 points
Date : 2025-10-27 12:42 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| I am concerned about the public reacting aggressively agaisnt the
| lock company owner amd his family. The guy is definitely a toxic
| bully, but he was indeed violently harrassed by filing a lawsuit,
| however unjust it was.
|
| The correct support for a just cause must have been constructive:
| providing financial support for the defendant, public
| manifestation campaign, professional lobbying, etc
|
| Although this time I agree with the defendant cause, the response
| by the public was as toxic bullying as the plaintiff, only
| stronger.
| tyleo wrote:
| You're getting downvoted which is unfortunate because I think
| you make a worthwhile point.
|
| Emotionally I disagree with you. It feels like a bully is
| getting what a bully deserves. Logically, I think you are right
| though. Crowds just aren't equipped to handle these situations.
| There are cases where the wisdom of the crowd is correct, but
| there are many more where it multiplies harms.
|
| The underlying problem is that it never feels like justice is
| being served. Another comment mentions that there should be
| harsher punishment for false DMCAs. I don't think the "wisdom
| of the crowd" approach is the best way to write those wrongs
| but I lament that modern justice has not been up to the task.
| mikestew wrote:
| I'm going to border closely to blaming the "victim" here, but
| if the lawsuit had been filed without toxic, threatening, man-
| baby social media posts, we wouldn't be hearing about it.
| Harassed because he filed a lawsuit? C'mon, there's a lot more
| to it than that. When one goes swinging their dick around on
| Twitter in an attempt to garner support (from one's equally
| toxic fans, I presume), one will also likely attract equally
| toxic folks who disagree. Talk enough shit, and you'll
| eventually get a punch to the face. Right or wrong, such is the
| world long before social media.
| MBCook wrote:
| That's the internet these days. It's been going on for decades.
| Game developers got death threats over minor changes to video
| games and nothing happened to them. Is it that surprising that
| tactic has continued?
|
| People can make fun of the company all they want. That's fair
| game. They shouldn't be calling the guy's personal phone or
| harassing his family, that's totally over the line.
|
| But nothing happens. The behavior gets a pass so it continues
| to become more common. That passes for debate now.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Phone numbers are public not personal secrets. If you have a
| number someone can call it.
| MBCook wrote:
| And I can find relatives/friends on Facebook to harass.
| Doesn't make it ok.
|
| Just like the fact we have agreed upon rules against using
| chemical weapons or attacking civilians in war (which some
| violate), the fact something is possible doesn't mean
| society should accept it.
|
| If we don't have even the basic civility of not getting
| death threats over whatever minor thing someone on the
| internet is mad at, even mixing us up with their real
| target sharing our name, what's left?
|
| Everything becomes full force win at all costs, no matter
| how stupid or trivial. Who wants to live like that?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| To be clear, threatening people in person is against the
| law too.
| HelloMcFly wrote:
| Let's all say it together: just because you _can_ doesn 't
| mean you _should_
| greedo wrote:
| This all sounds great in the abstract. But reality is different
| due to the power differential. McNally is just one dude (albeit
| with a huge following). Lee is obviously a toxic jerk and his
| attacks and mockery of McNally triggered both McNally
| repeatedly proving the flaws in Proven's technology.
|
| McNally obviously did the correct thing it seeking counsel and
| basically demolishing Proven's case in court. Too bad the SLAPP
| stuff doesn't work with DMCA takedowns.
|
| And everyone else cheering on the sidelines (who isn't a paid
| shill of Proven's like the guy making the "liberal" comment)?
| Well giving Lee's company shit is fine IMHO. Call up the
| publicly available phone numbers, make service requests to
| flood his business etc. Fine with me. You poke the Internet
| bear, you get some claws.
|
| As to the threats? If they actually occurred (which is
| questionable considering the BS Proven has been saying), then
| let the authorities know about them. That's not on McNally at
| all, it's more Lee being a jerk who doesn't know about the
| Streisand Effect, combined with social media companies that
| allow stuff like that to happen. It's also a good idea to not
| expose too much info about your personal life on social media
| that can be linked to your business, opsec ya know?
| mindslight wrote:
| > _the lock company owner amd his family. The guy is definitely
| a toxic bully, but he was indeed violently harrassed by filing
| a lawsuit_
|
| I think you're confusing who filed the lawsuit here. That was
| also the lock company owner as well (Lee/Proven).
|
| While I agree that flash mob harassment from the Internet is a
| terrible dynamic, filing baseless lawsuits has been a
| longstanding way to predictably summon them. So if the table
| stakes of launching or defending these type of aggressive
| attacks have gone from a significant amount of money for
| attorneys, to a significant amount of money for attorneys plus
| public relations and/or having a large audience, does that
| really actually change much? Either way most people simply
| don't file lawsuits, even if they've been actually wronged, due
| to the extreme personal stress.
|
| The straightforward way of diminishing mob justice is to make
| people believe the system provides justice. If we lived in a
| society where McNally would predictably win the lawsuit [0],
| and be predictably compensated for his
| expenses/time/emotionalDistress for being on the receiving end
| of this baseless SLAPP, then there would be much less mob
| outrage to begin with. As it stands, everyone can imagine
| themselves receiving these types of legal shakedown letters,
| but having much less power to push back.
|
| [0] it sounds like this particular suit was slapped down pretty
| hard and "quick" by the standards of the legal system, but
| there are many similar cases that don't go this way
| zamalek wrote:
| Someone seriously needs to be taken to task for filing a false
| DMCA. DMCA is just another term for SLAPP these days. If anyone
| is a lawyer, they could still be despite retracting the case?
| nerdsniper wrote:
| Anti-SLAPP is a great tool to have, but we do need slightly
| stronger ones. It's a tough balance to find - to minimize the
| potential ways to abuse the system for all different kinds of
| entities/people.
|
| YouTube's TOS would be the most critical place to begin in
| terms of evaluating legal options. To file a "DMCA" (not really
| DMCA but YT's proprietary version of it) claimants generally
| have to create an account and agree to the TOS. So it may bind
| both parties (the YTer and the abusive DMCA claimant). That
| might limit legal options for anti-SLAPP, tortious
| interference, etc.
|
| But without either significant legal expertise or someone
| finding some particularly relevant case law, it seems like a
| nuanced enough domain that no one's lay "legal" opinion would
| be particularly illuminating.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| As the recipient of a SLAPP lawsuit (~decade ago) for truth I
| published online, the biggest problem with Anti-SLAPP
| statutes is that laypeople (particularly poorer ones) have
| limited access to attorney representation... the judicial
| system isn't accessible/friendly to the _pro se_ litigant.
|
| So even if the case is clearly being used to strategicly
| silence you, it'll probably _still work (from plaintiff 's
| POV)_. Same for DMCA.
| jcranmer wrote:
| With a strong Anti-SLAPP statute, the person who files the
| lawsuit is on the hook for the defendant's legal fees,
| which would (in theory) let the defendant hire an attorney
| on contigency fees.
|
| Of course, one of the other issues is there's no federal
| Anti-SLAPP statute, and circuits are split as to whether or
| not state Anti-SLAPP applies to federal lawsuits, so if
| someone can diversity jurisdiction you into a federal SLAPP
| lawsuit, you're kind of stuck.
| pcaharrier wrote:
| "if someone can diversity jurisdiction you into a federal
| SLAPP lawsuit"
|
| Sounds like a CivPro hypothetical exam question that
| would give law students nightmares.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >which would _(in theory)_ let the defendant hire an
| attorney on contigency fees
|
| You'd better have a slam-dunk of a case if you're going
| to easily find contingency lawyers. The worst thing you
| can be is _just "too rich" to qualify for pro bono
| representation_... but even then, you still need a slam-
| dunk case.
|
| I am currently in the process of suing somebody
| (plaintiff), for the first time in my many decades, and
| am a semi-retired electrician of average savings... and
| it is expensive and _probably not worth my time_ but (in
| theory) hopefully worth it _on principle_.
|
| So ready for this to be over with; the lawyers will
| certainly get their$.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| My pitch for an improved system is to give defendants the
| opportunity to file a lawyer-less motion for summary
| dismissal, which is 1) geared towards being filled out by a
| layperson and 2) doesn't disqualify you from a subsequent
| filing for summary dismissal once you get a lawyer.
| Basically, an initial "this is a stupid lawsuit, here's why"
| type deal.
|
| And then fine plaintiffs (and pay the defendants) that lose a
| summary dismissal, because if your case can be thrown out
| before trial, it was a shit case that should have never been
| filed in the first place.
| ledauphin wrote:
| then this will get filed by every corporation against every
| lawsuit
| taneq wrote:
| Is that not an absolute win?
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| The real problem with DMCA is that in theory it's under penalty
| of perjury, but in practice it's completely ignored. What is
| really needs is statutory damages for bogus takedown requests.
| o11c wrote:
| Part of the problem with the DMCA is that the "perjury"
| clause only applies to "claiming that some IP exists", not
| "claiming that this violates the IP".
| mindcrime wrote:
| It's probably a good thing for Proven that they didn't get into
| this dispute the LockPickingLawyer instead. He'd wind up owning
| their company in the counter-suit...
| adolph wrote:
| That'd be an interesting channel, the "LockMakingLawyer" where
| the lock is highly lawsuit resistant, "Press the NDA button to
| always be informed when the next video comes out"
| mothballed wrote:
| This guy shims a $100+ lock in 10 seconds with a liquid death
| can, all without speaking in the video, just replays and then
| destroyed their claims and GTFO. Absolutely masterful.
| viggity wrote:
| These kinds of results seem all too common. Like, why? Are
| companies just too used to using their general business attorneys
| for it, and those attorneys are just ignorant? Hungry for extra
| billable hours?
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| Even if they know they would lose in court, lawsuits are
| expensive enough that threatening to sue or filing a lawsuit is
| often enough to get people without deep pockets to do whatever
| you want.
|
| I don't know if that was the reasoning in this case though,
| considering that they didn't drop the lawsuit once it was clear
| that the youtuber wasn't going to give in to their demands.
| topspin wrote:
| > Like, why?
|
| The answer, as succinctly as possible: cognitive dissonance.
|
| This is exhibited in every human endeavor, but it's
| particularly acute, or at least more apparent to simple
| analysis, in business. In business, anything that diminishes
| the perception of value is a threat to earnings. Business
| people don't tolerate the existence of such perceptions _in
| their minds._ They readily adopt whatever mental state is
| necessary to deny realities that reveal a lack of value in
| whatever work product they sell.
|
| In this case, someone demonstrated a weakness in a lock design.
| In the minds of the business people behind the product, this is
| impossible. Their locks are awesome. Best locks in the world!
| Therefore, the only conceivable possibility permitted, in their
| minds, is fraud or some other actionable offense that can be
| feasibly pursued in court.
|
| The role of lawyers in this is a symptom, not a cause. Lawyers
| are paid to exhibit the necessary cognitive dissonance their
| clients require. Whatever aberrations or iniquities arise from
| this are simply denied by yet more cognitive dissonance.
| walterbell wrote:
| _> Lawyers are paid to exhibit the necessary cognitive
| dissonance their clients require._
|
| Thanks for answering this FAQ.
| dwattttt wrote:
| While IANAL: even people who have done wrong deserve to be
| treated fairly. "Cognitive dissonance" has nothing to do with
| representing someone.
|
| Businesses don't have to delude themselves to succeed either.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Back in 2007, I published the first YouTube bypass of the Master
| Lock #175 (very common 4-digit code lock), using a paperclip.
|
| After the video reached 1.5M views (over a couple years), the
| video was eventually demonetized (no official reason given). I
| suspect there was a similarly-frivolous DMCA / claim, but at that
| point in my life I didn't have any money (was worth _negative_ )
| so I just accepted YouTube's ruling.
|
| Eventually shut down the account, not wanting to help thieves
| bypass one of the most-common utility locks around -- but
| definitely am in a position now where I understand that videos
| like mine and McNally's force manufacturers to actually improve
| their locks' securities/mechanisms.
|
| It is lovely now to see that the tolerances on the #175 have been
| tightened enough that a paperclip no longer defeats the lock (at
| least non-destructively); but thin high-tensile picks still do
| the trick (of bypassing the lock) via the exact same mechanism.
|
| Locks keep honest people honest, but to claim Master's products
| _high security_ is inherently dishonest (e.g. in their
| advertising). Thievery is about ease of opportunity; if I were
| stealing from a jobsite with multiple lockboxes, the ones with
| Master locks would be attacked first (particularly wafer
| cylinders).
| mothballed wrote:
| Actual thieves don't give a shit to learn lock picking, they
| can use a fine toothed sawzall or oxy-acetylene torch and
| defeat any lock just as fast without having to youtube the
| particular brand.
| Ekaros wrote:
| It is actually surprising just how little brute force many
| semi-decent padlocks can handle. A decent mallet and some
| force concentrator and I think good amount of them will fail.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I just need to be able to show the insurance company a
| police report and obvious tampering. On video, someone
| using an aluminum shim looks the same as someone using a
| key, and any evidence would require some decent forensics.
| Same goes for skilled lockpicking and bump-keying. Ideally,
| the weakest link should be the door, the hinges, the
| shackle, etc.
| jorvi wrote:
| Padlocks can be snapped open by angling two wrenches:
| https://youtu.be/dBSSA5ot0tA
|
| This even works with bigger padlocks, you just need two
| really big wrenches and a buddy to help you.
| Phui3ferubus wrote:
| There are diminishing returns. Just look at bike locks.
| Anything higher than trash tier, and the issue is finding a
| dedicated bike stand, since anything else will get
| destroyed by the grinder faster than the lock.
| butlike wrote:
| bike theft should be classified as a felony akin to grand
| theft auto
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| Instead of declaring all bike thieves felons and
| imprisoning the 1% of them we manage to catch, we should
| spend our money on sting operations that catch the 50 or
| so individuals in each city that steal 80% of the bikes,
| and reserve the felony treatment for repeat offenders.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Yea, be rather dumb for someone to grab their red Huffy
| at the park and get a felony charge because they picked
| up a look alike bike.
| acdha wrote:
| I like the bait bike operations some police departments
| do to catch the shops buying stolen bikes. Addicts steal
| things they can fence and cutting into the business side
| means you don't have to catch nearly as many people,
| although Facebook is determined to fill some of the gaps.
| dahart wrote:
| I helped catch one of these repeat offenders when my bike
| was stolen. When it was recovered they told me they had a
| huge warehouse of bikes that nobody would claim, and
| mentioned 90%-ish of all bikes aren't recovered and they
| were having space problems just storing all the unclaimed
| bikes. First thing we actually need to do is get people
| to register their bikes before they're stolen, and then
| report them missing after.
|
| Funny side note, the cops actually offered to let me
| setup the sting, make contact with the thief and pose as
| a buyer. I was sure they'd sternly recommend I do not get
| involved, so I was very surprised, but it was a busy
| night when I called and they had no officers immediately
| available. I did make online contact, but due to delays
| setting up the meet, the cops ended up handling it
| without me, and when I went to pick it up they were
| rightfully very proud of catching the guy and being able
| to return the bike to me.
| hex4def6 wrote:
| You had better luck than me. The San Jose PD only
| begrudgingly gave me a police report weeks after
| reporting it (needed it for insurance purposes), and told
| me a could get a copy of it a month later. I'd have to go
| to the records dept _in person_ between the hours of 10AM
| - 2PM (email a copy? Are you crazy?).
|
| So I did that, showed up. No other people there. Person
| behind the counter told me they were too busy, and I'd
| have to show up some other (unspecified) day.
|
| So yeah, I'd like to trade PDs with ya.
| dahart wrote:
| A bummer, sorry to hear it, that sounds frustrating. The
| big difference might be that I found my bike for sale in
| the local classified ads (a couple weeks after it was
| stolen), and I had the thief's phone number, before I
| called the cops. They recognized the phone number. My PD
| might also do little to nothing if I just report
| something missing. I do think I got lucky, yes. And I was
| extra lucky that the thief listed my bike for a
| completely ridiculous amount of money, more than the
| original purchase price for a bike that was like 15 years
| old and not as well maintained as it should have been.
| His list price meant nobody else jumped on buying it
| right away. (But I do know now that my chances of
| recovery go way up if I register a bike.)
| tsimionescu wrote:
| I'd bet that if you're stealing a $50-100k bike, it
| already is.
| jorvi wrote:
| Hardened chains of sufficient thickness can stand up to
| an angle grinder pretty well, to the point where thieves
| will rather steal another bike because angle grinding for
| that long will attract attention.
|
| Ring locks suck, a lot of them can be defeated with a
| pair of scissors. Similarly, U-locks suck because they're
| never as strong as the bike frame. You can just pick up
| the bike and use the frame as lever and the streetlight
| pole as fulcrum, twisting the bike around until the
| locking notches of the U-lock snap.
|
| Occasionally, in The Netherlands professional bike
| thieves will drive up with a stolen van at night and load
| up entire bike racks. Not much you can do against that
| except store your bike inside.
| butlike wrote:
| but then it's obvious the locked thing in question had been
| defiled. To exfiltrate without detection is the real skill
| Johnny555 wrote:
| But usually the thing that's locked up can survive even
| less brute force than the lock -- a storage unit near mine
| was broken into, and the unit owner (who was there with the
| police) said the thieves just pried off the storage unit
| lock, the sheet metal door literally tore and the entire
| locking mechanism came out.
|
| This was an outdoor unit, the thieves came in over the
| fence (the barbed wire on the fence didn't slow them), and
| left the same way. If I had anything valuable, I'd keep it
| in an indoor unit where at least there's a locked door in
| the way.
| lisbbb wrote:
| So the whole Breaking Bad cash hoard on pallets thing is
| not a good idea?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Barbed wire is security theater. It was invented for
| cattle, and it does a reasonably good job of keeping
| cattle confined. (It doesn't work well for horses because
| horses are even more stupid than cattle and horses
| repeatedly injure themselves on it and the wounds get
| infected.)
|
| Barbed wire doesn't work for humans, especially humans
| who have some familiarity with it.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| I assume that means humans with adequate tools. If I
| didn't at least have some wire cutters or a carpet I
| don't know how I would get through it without grievous
| injury. (I further assume we're not talking about the
| _serious_ barbed wire from WWI.)
| Johnny555 wrote:
| In this case, they did it with a moving blanket -- just
| folded it over and tossed it over the barbed wire at the
| top of the fence, then scaled the fence. It was still
| laying over the fence then next day.
| austern wrote:
| Barbed wire worked well for human soldiers in WWI. It was
| part of a security system that also included trenches,
| artillery, machine guns, and active counterattacks, but
| it was a crucial part.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Barbed wire only slows you down.
|
| Same with most locking mechanisms.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Oh definitely. That just makes it regular security, not
| security theater. (Again, assuming it's the "good" stuff
| from the military that you can't bypass quite so
| casually.)
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Barbed wire discourages casual trespassers.
| everforward wrote:
| I don't think there's much of a point. If the thief came
| prepared with tools and is willing to make a lot of noise,
| there's not a ton that can be done.
|
| Without even exotic tools, what are the odds the door the
| lock is attached to will withstand a crowbar? Or the same
| mallet and force concentrator applied to the
| door/hinges/where the lock attaches?
| magarnicle wrote:
| I learned this as a kid: that big, chunky padlock on our
| garden shed could be busted open by a 10-year-old with a
| cricket stump and 3 seconds of pulling.
| mindslight wrote:
| A portable plasma cutter? What is this, Star Trek? Are there
| some extremely-high-power-density battery-operated plasma
| cutters available on Aliexpress that I haven't yet run
| across? Or maybe I should locate my safe far away from my
| stove/dryer receptacles?
| mothballed wrote:
| You're right, I've mixed them up with portable oxy-
| acetylene torch, unless they're just backing up to the lock
| in a pick-up.
| mindslight wrote:
| Damn, I was hoping I was wrong. Going to need some kind
| of energy weapon to use against the coming robot armies.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Depends on how portable.
|
| A while back I was making a point about the border wall
| farce--and found everything I would need to do "portable"
| plasma cutting on said wall on Home Depot's website. Not
| pick it up type portable, but put it in a wagon type
| portable. (Generator, not batteries.)
| mindslight wrote:
| I don't know how anybody can look at those rusty metal
| pylons and not think their natural habitat is at home on
| top of a 40 year old white Toyota pickup with a
| suspension that long ago achieved sainthood. Like if I
| were looking to _attract_ illegal immigrants, those
| pylons would be exactly what I would use. But then again
| isn 't this just the standard fascist pattern? Propose a
| comically self-defeating solution to some problem, and
| build a tribal identity around aggressively denying the
| obvious. It's like the social justice preaching to the
| choir writ large.
| lisbbb wrote:
| A plasma cutter needs a pretty decent supply of compressed
| air
| StickTIGLiIon4 wrote:
| A 5lb bottle of Nitrogen would do the trick.
| StickTIGLiIon4 wrote:
| Like muffler fluid, the battery powered welder has gone
| from a joke to reality recently.
|
| Not a plasma cutter, but same power class, and certainly
| able to heat a padlock shank to melting.
| https://www.dewalt.com/product/0447800880/esab-renegade-
| volt...
| olyjohn wrote:
| But people have been welding with batteries for ages. The
| most primitive welder is a car battery and a couple of
| wire leads. Tons of videos of it on YouTube.
| StickTIGLiIon4 wrote:
| Yeah, fair enough. Two car batteries in series is even
| better. Not easy on the batteries, but it will get the
| jeep out of the bush.
|
| You can also make your own stick electrodes from
| coathanger wire tightly wrapped in paper.
|
| I couldn't tell you how many pairs of sunglasses you
| should parallel to protect yourself...
|
| This rig, on the other hand, is something you could pack
| into just about any plant and fix something with without
| raising any eyebrows. If you have $5,000 to spend, that
| is. Super handy for small jobs in hard to access places.
| StickTIGLiIon4 wrote:
| Hearing about it did ruin the "cordless welder" jokes my
| coworkers used to share.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Reminds me how the Sinclair C5 failed because the
| inventor couldn't source a 15 mile long power lead.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Shouldn't the sunglasses be in series?
| StickTIGLiIon4 wrote:
| Batteries in series, typical stick welding voltage is
| ~27v. You might be able to light up on one battery, but
| you will quickly learn why it's called "stick" welding.
|
| I wouldn't arc weld with any number of pairs of
| sunglasses, that was firmly tongue-in-cheek; but yes you
| are right, stacked glasses would be series.
|
| Also, if you try this, before pulling the battery from
| the non-broken jeep, drive it to the top of a hill so you
| can bump start it later when the battery is too dead to
| turn the engine over.
| mindslight wrote:
| Damn, didn't know that existed but it makes sense with
| how much power lithium ion can deliver.
|
| I'll have to keep my eye out for the Home Depot buy a
| battery and get a free tool deal on those.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Matt's Off Road Recovery uses one to stick broken Humvee
| steering rods back together about once every four or five
| episodes.
| StickTIGLiIon4 wrote:
| Heh, I'll have to watch for that sale.
|
| 4x12AH batteries, that's gonna be over $1200.
|
| I doubt you could charge them faster than the welder can
| run them down, so you might want three sets and two gang
| chargers if you want production anything like a plug-in
| machine.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| You can pick up a wholly self-contained plasma cutter in
| Lidl or Hofer in their "cool tools week" for about PS100
| these days.
|
| It wouldn't be beyond the wit of man to hook that up to a
| biggish inverter and 24V worth of deep cycle batteries on a
| small trolley, maybe a wheelie suitcase.
|
| Always be red-teaming.
| polygot wrote:
| It's much more difficult to tell if someone bypassed the lock
| if they picked it (and relocked it), as opposed to cutting it
| off completely
| vkou wrote:
| Which is relevant when you're defending against Ocean's 11
| or the Mossad, but for the other 99.999% of us, the lock is
| there to keep a bored teenager or a meth junkie out.
|
| Or, more realistically, to convince an insurer that we've
| made a token effort to keep them out.
| burkaman wrote:
| That is a subset of thieves. There are still plenty of
| situations where it is beneficial to have a lock that can't
| be opened in 5 seconds with a paperclip, like a school or gym
| locker room for example. Nobody is bringing a sawzall into
| the gym while it's open.
|
| Similarly, I know the lock on my front door is not going to
| stop anyone who really wants to get inside, but it does stop
| drunk people or bored kids from wandering in because it's
| easy.
| jrnng wrote:
| > Nobody is bringing a sawzall into the gym while it's
| open.
|
| They are bringing in bolt cutters to locker rooms. The
| locker metal loop that the lock threads through is easier
| to cut than the lock. I've first hand seen lockers
| destroyed to remove the lock. Not while the break in is
| happening but it's easy piece the crime scene back together
| to understand their tools.
|
| Manual bolt cutters are almost silent except for the
| "thunk" when it breaks the metal, and there are even
| battery operated bolt cutters that are quick and compact.
| rags2riches wrote:
| > I've first hand seen lockers destroyed to remove the
| lock.
|
| A neighbor secured his expensive bike with a hefty lock
| and chain around a tree in our courtyard. Bad guys
| brought a saw. I still miss that tree.
| roncesvalles wrote:
| I'm convinced there is basically no foolproof way to
| secure a bicycle in public.
|
| I've seen everything from braided steel being cut clean
| to combination bike locks getting picked (by the attacker
| actually figuring out the correct combination, not just
| brute-forcing it apart or wangjangling a paperclip).
|
| They just need to steal 1 good bicycle to more than pay
| off the cost of their equipment. One stolen bicycle could
| feed a family for a week. In some place like the Bay Area
| where $1000 bicycles abound, the economics are just too
| appealing.
| user_7832 wrote:
| From what I've heard, the way to go about it is to not
| have a _very_ nice bike, make it identifiable and loud
| (eg ripped up neon tape and graffiti), and then use both
| a chain lock as well as a U lock that 're both thick
| enough. Also perhaps throw on extra locks to make other
| bikes look attractive.
|
| Of course none of these work if the thief is part of a
| ring that is targeting your bike because it's high value.
| Mawr wrote:
| > use both a chain lock as well as a U lock that're both
| thick enough
|
| No, thickness is an irrelevant property to an angle
| grinder. You're adding something like a second of
| grinding per kg of material. Makes no sense. The trick is
| to use grinder-resistant locks. Those extend grinding
| time to minutes.
| Lio wrote:
| Or a tough chain slack enough that it's hard to press the
| grinder against.
| buildsjets wrote:
| Even those are variable in quality. Do you have a lock
| that takes 2 grinding discs to cut through or one that
| takes 26 grinding discs to cut through?
|
| https://thebestbikelock.com/security/angle-grinder-proof-
| bik...
| Lio wrote:
| I think there might be a common myth that having a tatty
| looking bike means it won't get stolen.
|
| Unfortunately I don't think a lot of bike thefts are
| opportunistic and the value of the bike isn't the
| motivating factor.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I think the most stolen cars are Hyundais and Toyotas
| (and maybe F-150s, these days).
|
| They are often stolen for parts.
|
| I don't think bikes are stolen for parts, but commodity
| bikes are probably a big target.
| jansper39 wrote:
| Surely Hyundais (in the US at least) top the list because
| of how easy they've been historically to steal?
| Lio wrote:
| Sorry there's a (hopefully) obvious typo in what I wrote.
|
| I 100% agree with you, most bike thefts _are_
| opportunistic.
|
| I know that high end bikes do get stripped for parts but
| I think that's got to be mostly after they are taken and
| pretty rare.
|
| There's been some raids in London where they found
| scrapyards full of stolen bikes. Most are still whole.
| Even those stolen to order.
| Mawr wrote:
| Sure there is, but you need to understand the variables
| involved. How expensive is the bike, how safe is he area,
| how long are you leaving it there for?
|
| At its worst, people get their fancy bikes robbed as
| they're riding them in big cities like London; at its
| best, nobody in small villages locks their bikes because
| they all know each other.
|
| In terms of locks, general advice is to get an angle-
| grinder resistant U-lock and lock it through the rear
| frame triangle+wheel+some solid object.
|
| Since a U-lock like that is impossible to defeat with
| anything that's not a power tool, and you'd need to spend
| several minutes grinding through it [0] [1], most thieves
| will not bother. If they cut through whatever the bike is
| locked to, they still have a bike that's locked to
| itself.
|
| For extra security you may want to do the same with the
| front wheel using something like a chain lock. Locking
| the saddle is also a good idea. Locks with alarms that
| notify you could be a decent idea too. And/or just get
| bike insurance.
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/v_0DB3gBM3Y?t=475
|
| [1]: https://youtu.be/LD32NMCGDF0?t=2440
| Lio wrote:
| I have a Brompton and no bike lock for this reason. When
| I'm on my Brompton it goes where I go.
|
| Actually I do have a "cafe lock". Its purpose is just to
| slow someone down enough for me to catch them on foot.
| I've once successfully used the strap on my helmet for
| the same purpose in Barcelona too.
|
| The illusion of security is really all you have.
| Theodores wrote:
| In Japan they have bike theft sorted with mandatory
| registration with the local police force. A sticker on
| the bike and a corresponding bit of paper in the wallet
| provides proof of ownership, which may be requested by
| police at any time.
|
| This costs money to administer but it means that nobody
| in Japan needs to overly worry about their bicycle being
| stolen. Huge locks are not needed, nor is GPS tracking or
| third party registration schemes.
|
| The idea of getting a 'hack bike' that looks undesirable
| is often touted as a solution to cycle theft in the West.
| However, thieves just want money, so the 'hack bike' that
| can be easily sold trumps the hard-to-sell expensive bike
| if money is needed now, for tonight's high. More money
| can be tomorrow's problem.
| avn2109 wrote:
| There is a new generation of bike locks which have the
| shackle wrapped in a composite coating that mostly
| destroys angle grinder cutting discs and similar cutting
| tools. This is likely the best current outdoor bike
| locking approach as it requires thieves to have either 1)
| lots of spare discs or 2) a torch or 3) picking skills,
| and very few thieves have any of those.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| My school had bolt cutter just sitting in the locker
| rooms because kids forgot their combinations.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Yeah as long as we don't have unrealistic expectations from
| our $30 deadbolts and our $5 combo locks it's fine. But
| people sometimes buy the cheap thing and expect it to
| perform as well as a really expensive thing.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I suggest watching LPL then to see how often the
| expensive thing fails just as quickly as the cheap thing.
| brazzy wrote:
| That's usually with skills that few have the time to
| acquire. But I also saw on LPL where he tested a cheap
| Chinese lock, where the "hardened steel" had a visible
| groove after just a few strokes of a file, and you could
| use pliers to rip off the plastic cover around the
| keyhole, after which all the little parts of the lock
| mechanism came tumbling out...
| Macha wrote:
| > like a school or gym locker room for example
|
| We broke into our own lockers the whole time with metal
| rulers back when I was in school because of forgotten keys
| or just because it was quicker opening them that way than
| actually unlocking and relocking them. (And of course the
| more students did this, the more worn the metal became and
| made it even easier the next time)
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Most people would be absolutely astounded how bold you can
| get with a safety vest and/or a clipboard, and how passive
| most people are to an obvious suspicious situation.
|
| I have used a grinder to take off a bike lock (I owned the
| bike) in broad daylight in Downtown Denver on a main
| street. A local business even allowed me to use their power
| outlets. Not one person questioned me or asked me to see
| proof of ownership. I was fully prepared to have to deal
| with cops or at least a good samaritan, but nope, plenty of
| people watched me do the exact thing a bike thief would do
| and didn't ask any questions.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > Most people would be absolutely astounded how bold you
| can get with a safety vest and/or a clipboard, and how
| passive most people are to an obvious suspicious
| situation.
|
| I don't think they'd be surprised at all.
|
| What the hell am I supposed to do if I see someone
| stealing a bike or whatever? Stop them? Hell no, if they
| have tools then it's a good bet they have weapons. Call
| the cops? They don't care; recently they don't even
| _pretend_ to care.
|
| Pretty much all you can do is say, "knock it off" and
| maybe they stop (they won't).
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| You have to hope a stubborn, but surprisingly fit, 60+
| year old man is nearby to assert himself into the
| situation and tell the thief to bugger off.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Don't do this and don't let anyone else do this.
| Intervening in a crime in progress is likely to lead to
| immediate execution. Even police squads get shot at, and
| they are armed to the teeth and well trained.
| jalapenos wrote:
| That mentality is precisely what lets criminals gain the
| power to commit crime with impunity.
|
| In any shithole society in which that's become the
| attitude, the solution is citizens becoming at least as
| brutal themselves.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| That approach is going to get people killed.
|
| If you're not ready, able and willing to whip out a
| pistol and instantly put two bullets right between the
| eyes of each one of those criminals, you're probably
| better off pulling out your phone and covertly dialing
| 911... _After_ you have gotten as far away from those
| people as possible.
|
| > the solution is citizens becoming at least as brutal
| themselves
|
| Becoming a brutal, violent person capable of ending
| another human being's life is a long process. It's not a
| switch that people just flip. Especially civilized people
| from developed countries where it is likely they will go
| their entire lives without experiencing violence.
|
| Even if they do manage it, they'll have to pay the price.
| There are _professional soldiers_ out there who are
| traumatized by the lives they have taken. Normal citizens
| will have it that much worse... And that 's if they don't
| screw it up and end up going to prison for excessive use
| of force which can easily turn self-defense into cold-
| blooded murder.
|
| > In any shithole society
|
| I'm brazilian. I live in exactly that kind of shithole
| society. You should see the hilariously violent liveleak
| videos this country produces. Way too many of them are
| the result of people trying to fight their way out of a
| robbery, or intervening in a crime in progress. I
| remember this particularly cartoonish video where a
| _child_ is running away from something, pistol in hand,
| and some guy randomly decides to trip him up. He gets up,
| shoots the guy dead and resumes his escape as though
| absolutely nothing had just happened.
|
| This _is_ a country where the population is prone to
| brutally lynching criminals, by the way. Ironically, the
| drug traffickers are the most effective at it. They
| routinely dispense brutal violence against the lesser
| criminals who hurt their drug trade by scaring off
| potential customers. It 's gotten to the point they have
| formed parallel governments, complete with laws,
| tribunals and taxes.
|
| I get it. The sheer audacity of criminals is offensive
| and the impunity is truly soul crushing. This sense of
| impunity permeates the life of every brazilian. It feels
| like there's no justice. I'm just saying that if you aim
| to fight this impunity, you need a far more sophisticated
| approach than telling random bystanders to be "fit" and
| "stubborn". That sort of thing will accomplish nothing
| but the eventual deaths of well meaning people.
| jalapenos wrote:
| Yes I assumed you were Brazilian, which is where most of
| the "off duty cop" shooting videos come from - sounds
| like a Mad Max state. But in other countries, people
| don't get executed for standing up to crooks.
|
| Of course, if you ever get a Bukele in power all the
| leftists will be out in force crying about the poor
| criminal's human rights etc - always a good reminder that
| these situations are intentionally inflicted from above.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > But in other countries, people don't get executed for
| standing up to crooks.
|
| That belief will get people killed. A simple web search
| yields numerous results. For instance:
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/us/home-depot-worker-fatally-
| shot-ca...
|
| > if you ever get a Bukele in power all the leftists will
| be out in force crying about the poor criminal's human
| rights etc
|
| Current president of Brazil literally makes excuses for
| them. "I'm so tired of watching people die just because
| they robbed a phone", he says. "It was just to buy some
| beer", as though crime was an actual legitimate
| profession. That is the absolute state of this country.
| Mad Max would be an _improvement_ over this shithole. In
| the Mad Max universe it 's literally kill or be killed
| but you don't have leftists worshipping the criminals and
| shitting all over the "fascist" police defending them.
|
| Police is powerless to stop it. If they try, they are
| tried and imprisoned by the same government that hired
| them to do it. It is already common knowledge that
| military police is one of the worst career choices you
| can make. The country is losing police officers at a rate
| of thousands per year. Not enough people are signing up
| for this shit. Meanwhile, drug gangs dominate over a
| quarter of our territory. The current speculation is that
| they finance judges and politicians. In other words, it
| is not only possible but probable that this is a _literal
| narcostate_.
|
| At some point, it becomes _war_. The criminals are
| sufficiently organized that they should be treated as
| _enemy combatants_ and gunned down on sight. Trump
| ordering US ships to nuke drug boats out of existence _is
| the correct course of action_. The only problem is the
| "civilized" people who cry about it instead of thanking
| him for his service and thanking god they have people
| willing to commit extreme violence against others in
| order to protect them from the evils of this world. That
| is a luxury I would love to have myself. Instead I live
| in a extremely leftist country where drug traffickers
| spray paint threats on people's homes, giving them 24
| hours to leave on pain of death.
| mothballed wrote:
| Sadly the power of drug gangs in Latin America and Brazil
| can be traced as much to the war on drugs itself as the
| lack of war on drugs.
|
| I do believe your assertion is correct that literal war
| would probably be better than the status quo, but
| regulating powerful drugs as basically "sell to adults
| and it needs to meet some sort of purity standard" would
| bring the drug trafficking portion of gangs into looking
| more like Petrobas than Comando Vermelho.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| As a doctor I can't support full legalization of drugs.
| Nobody who's seen up close what opioid addiction does to
| a person ever could. It's not even a question of allowing
| people to ruin their own lives. The drugs themselves
| absolutely cause crime all on their own. Many violent
| robberies are perpetrated by people whose reward systems
| are so warped by drugs they'd sell their own mother for
| their next dose. I had one such person as one of my
| neighbors for decades.
| mothballed wrote:
| I'll admit I'm unable to fully calculate the total
| devastation between the three of
|
| (1) Absolute war against drug traffickers
|
| (2) Full legalization
|
| (3) status quo
|
| I'd rank (3) as the absolute worst. I don't see (1) nor
| (2) as avoiding crime and infliction upon innocents,
| though, rather choosing which lesser poison to pick.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| I claim (1) is the only _possible_ response. We 're
| already at war, and innocents are already dying.
|
| I claim that the drug gangs have launched a _stealthy
| secession_. They have gotten sufficiently organized that
| they have laws, tribunals, taxes and territory. Is gang
| territory really brazilian territory? I don 't think so.
| In such areas police is executed on sight, _like enemy
| combatants_. The brazilian government is not really there
| guaranteeing any of your so called rights. So are you
| really a brazilian citizen if you live in gang territory?
| Don 't think so. These drug gangs have formed a
| government so barbarous they kill you if you don't pay
| your taxes.
|
| When Sao Paulo tried to secede last century, war was
| declared and they were massacred. So why are these gangs
| tolerated? It's just a completely stupid status quo. This
| government needs to recognize the gravity of the
| situation and react accordingly. Instead the government
| and the gangs are merging into one.
| mothballed wrote:
| I'm intrigued by your take, and it is quite convincing.
|
| What are the effects you predict would happen if drugs
| were legalized, therefore eliminating most of the profits
| of drug traffickers, and simultaneously declaring war on
| the groups controlling seceded territory?
|
| What's your calculus on the over under of fighting a war
| against drug-funded vs non-funded drug traffickers? I'm
| willing to take at face that they are de facto seceded
| and have already started a war, but I don't see how it
| can exclude (2) since even if you defeated them there
| would still be yet the same underlying incentives and the
| seceding drug traffickers could emerge again.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Legalization depends on the drug. We could certainly
| afford to be more lax than we are now. We could legalize
| and control the use of many drugs. _Certainly_ not all.
| Drugs like fentanyl cannot be allowed to circulate
| freely. Even if we completely ignore the safety of the
| individual, the safety of society as a whole is
| threatened by such drugs.
|
| Legalization will wipe out the drug gang operations due
| to simple economics. I don't think criminals can compete
| with actual pharmaceutical laboratories operating in the
| clear. Drugs would be cheaper and higher quality. In fact
| I seriously doubt drug gangs would support legalization
| of drugs. It would destroy their ridiculously high
| profitability. Their prices would be squeezed. They'd
| have to compete on quality and price. They wouldn't be
| able to eliminate the competition, impose cartels and
| control prices. Drug companies get rich due to patents
| which are government-granted monopolies, once they expire
| it's a literal race to the bottom, you actually need
| regulation in order to protect consumers. Some drugs
| actually disappear from the market because they are too
| cheap to be profitable.
|
| Drug gangs are the career path of the _favela_ denizens.
| Drug operations have lots of "employees" and they pay
| ridiculously well. Wiping them out via economic or
| military means will also wipe out all of those "jobs". It
| will do nothing to solve the underlying problem of a poor
| and disenfranchised people forgotten by society. They're
| likely to turn to other forms of crime if society doesn't
| integrate them, and it probably won't.
|
| The hope is that whatever criminal activity they turn to
| will not be as profitable as the drug trade. Robbery
| isn't that big a problem in the grand scheme of things,
| drug gangs moving billions and billions of dollars
| absolutely is. All wars come down to money. Make enough
| money and you can have better equipment than police,
| militaries. You can raise armies, just like the middle
| ages. You can hire _actual professional soldiers_ to
| train your men. Crime that 's too profitable is literally
| a matter of _war_. Common criminals are a thorn on our
| side but in the grand scheme of things they are mere
| nuisances. Well-funded criminals are an existential
| threat for civilized society.
|
| War on these groups would require enormous political
| capital. Television networks would probably have to spend
| years manufacturing consent for it. The fact is left has
| infiltrated the entire country and they practically
| worship these "victims of society". Literally days ago we
| were forced to listen to our president say that drug
| traffickers are _victims of their consumers_. I have no
| idea what it takes to reverse this sort of brainwashing
| but whatever it is we 'll need lots of it.
|
| If by some miracle the military is deployed against the
| drug gangs, the gangs will be routed. It's happened
| before and will happen again. Drug gangs do not have the
| training, the discipline, the sheer organization required
| to stand up to actual armed forces. Even our pathetic
| military has managed to prevail against them. It's the
| politicians who get in the way. There's no point in
| "pacifying" an area and then retreating from it, thereby
| allowing the enemy to occupy it again.
| jalapenos wrote:
| Find a way out then man.
|
| Believe me, there are a large number of countries where,
| if someone was shot for standing up to a crime, it would
| be national news for months. Not in the Americas,
| obviously, but they exist.
|
| The drug war is the stupidest thing humans have ever
| done. It literally fuels the criminals, and even entire
| criminal states like north Korea. State illegalisaion
| (mostly the US) of drugs is to put guns right into the
| hands of gangs and create competing states. Drugs should
| both be 100% legal - so they cost the same as sugar,
| gutting the money that empowers the gangs - and
| simultaneously drug users should be pushed to the edges
| of society with wide open discrimination.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| How did we come to this as a society.
| mothballed wrote:
| Anarcho-tyranny. In places like Brazil or California,
| thief is armed at will with ease, person defending
| themselves instead have to pass licensing and background
| check which is difficult for poor people or those
| convicted of BS crimes like possessing a pot plant 20
| years ago when they lived in Texas.
|
| Thief only faces lukewarm prospects at prosecution, and
| moves around from address to address, and stranger-on-
| stranger homicide conviction rate in places like Chicago
| well below 50%. Honest citizen has mortgage, child in
| school ,and a day job, very easy for police to fuck with
| them if they dare fight back, which makes criminals even
| more violent and bold as they rely on many of them
| overwhelming the tiny minority that will fight back.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| Yeah I know, but how did we collectively decided to be in
| this situation? Aliens didn't impose this bs on us, we
| voted and accepted it somehow.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Lack of violence.
|
| All of civilization exists due to the threat of violence.
| There's no need to negotiate peacefully when you can just
| take what you want. It's the violence that makes it
| happen. Negotiate, because if you don't there's no
| telling who's gonna be left standing.
|
| If people are breaking locks and stealing property in
| plain sight right in front of other people, it's because
| they think society has become so soft they won't do
| anything about it.
|
| And frankly, the average person won't. They'll probably
| just stand there shocked at the event unfolding before
| them. Or they'll try to "stand up" to the criminal, only
| to end up insulting his masculinity or something, thereby
| getting themselves killed for the insult. Yes, criminals
| kill people who disrespect them.
|
| If you're gonna do this, you have to be prepared to use
| lethal force against another human being. The vast
| majority of people are not. They're better off calling
| the cops, whose entire purpose is to be that person.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| > If you're gonna do this, you have to be prepared to use
| lethal force against another human being.
|
| Many people, me included, would gladly do that, if they
| were allowed to. The problem is that when dust settle,
| the criminal will remain a criminal with one more record
| in his file, but the whole legal system will steamroll me
| if I don't precisely calculate force in split second and
| apply 3N more than absolute necessary minimum.
|
| Here in Canada there were cases when people defended
| themselves and ended up in legal kafkaesque hell, imposed
| by country. Even after acquitted of all charges, they
| would spend lifetime savings, lose jobs and actually have
| to rebuilt their lives from almost zero.
|
| We voted for all of this and I don't understand how it
| happened. Aliens dispersed something so we all became
| that stupid?
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > Many people, me included, would gladly do that, if they
| were allowed to.
|
| Doubt. Many people certainly _think_ they would. In a
| real situation, they 'd hesitate.
|
| I don't even mean that in a disrespectful way. Taking
| lives traumatizes _professional soldiers_. It has
| enormous psychological costs. If you do it, you will live
| with it until the end of your days.
|
| I'm not speaking out against guns and self-defense
| either. Better to be traumatized than dead. Weapons are a
| requirement for basic human dignity. Just pointing out
| the fact that it's not that simple.
|
| > Here in Canada there were cases when people defended
| themselves and ended up in legal kafkaesque hell, imposed
| by country.
|
| My country is the same. The absurdities produced by the
| "justice" system are maddening.
|
| I remember one case where a person had his house
| burglarized _dozens_ of times. The "justice" system
| didn't do shit about it. He got so fed up he booby
| trapped his own home and killed the criminal when he
| tried to victimize him again. Suddenly police,
| prosecutors and judges found the will to act and
| vigorously condemned him for cold blooded murder. It's
| the kind of thing that makes me wish a meteor would
| strike this country and reset it back to the stone age.
|
| As for why it happens... I've thought about it for way
| too long and I don't have a definitive answer for you. I
| think it's because people want to prevent the abyss from
| gazing into them as they combat the darkness. My
| conclusion is that we should have some very dark people
| of our own, pointed right at the abyss, perpetually
| staring it down into submission.
| mothballed wrote:
| I fought in the Syrian Civil War (with the YPG) and the
| effects on the ISIS enemy has not bothered me a single
| day of my life. This is over a decade ago and I've never
| lost a single second of sleep over it. In fact I often
| dream about going back and fucking them over even more,
| as it was one of the happiest moments of my life, even
| though like 10%+ of the people I was with ended up dead.
|
| The tracer rounds flying at the enemy at night,
| absolutely exquisite, brings a joy like the 4th of July.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Civilization depends on people like you in order to
| continue existing. It's definitely not a universal trait.
| mothballed wrote:
| Your characterization of Brazil leads me to believe that
| "people like me" would be better off just living in the
| favela and joining a gang, as at least then you could
| have some chance to defend yourself and the government
| would not be able to enforce their anarcho-tyranny. Which
| sucks, but leaves me wondering if they're even acting
| irrationally.
|
| I suspect, somewhere in brazil, there is a group of
| people that have adopted the practices of the drug
| traffickers of soft secession, but actually do it for a
| righteous cause, and are getting away with it, as long as
| they are not too noisy about it. They have learned the
| tactics work, and rather than trying a seemingly futile
| effort to steer the government in their favor they
| ultimately likely came to the same conclusions as the
| drug traffickers as to how to gain control of their
| community and perhaps even their own lives.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Sad part is... You probably would be better off joining a
| gang. We'd all probably be better off. They just keep
| winning. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't tempted to just
| give up and become a criminal myself instead of insisting
| on this upstanding-citizen-in-corrupt-shithole life. My
| father didn't raise me to be a criminal and sometimes I
| curse that fact.
|
| Rio de Janeiro is in a state akin to civil war literally
| right now. Apparently the drug gangs have discovered
| drones. They're using drones to drop grenades on top of
| each other and on top of police. Nearly a hundred dead as
| of right now.
|
| Check out this war zone:
|
| https://www.cnnbrasil.com.br/nacional/sudeste/rj/operacao
| -no...
|
| I don't even know what to say anymore. I'm just... Tired.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Sure, don't get yourself hurt, but also don't live in
| irrational fear. Intervening in a crime in progress has
| never led to my execution, so it seems that likely is the
| wrong assessment of chance.
|
| I have stopped bike thieves, car break-ins, and
| harassment in multiple cities in North America. I have
| stopped a racist situation escalating into an attack on a
| subway in Rotterdam, and stopped a pickpocket in
| Barcelona. I have shooed away people clearly up to no
| good in Central and South America. Certainly there was
| the possibility of violence, but the worst of it in
| reality was criminals cussing at me as they retreated.
|
| If you don't feel comfortable with direct confrontation,
| something as simple as yelling "I already called the
| cops" has worked, or you know, actually calling the cops
| is an option.
|
| I'm well aware that there are parts of the world where
| intervening _will_ get you into trouble (and have been in
| situations where I have held back), but I also believe
| pretty strongly that doing the right thing is a virtuous
| feedback loop, and the risks do not outweigh the
| benefits.
|
| I don't want to live in a world where good people won't
| do the right thing out of fear. So I choose not to live
| in that world by being a good person that does the right
| thing.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > I'm well aware that there are parts of the world where
| intervening _will_ get you into trouble (and have been in
| situations where I have held back)
|
| You clearly have more street smarts than the average
| person. The average person doesn't know when to hold
| back. They will say and do dumb things, and they _will_
| be killed.
|
| There are examples right there in your comment.
|
| > the worst of it in reality was criminals cussing at me
| as they retreated
|
| You allowed them to leave even though they were insulting
| you, thereby avoiding violence.
|
| Plenty of people out there who would do the opposite of
| what you did: they'd go out of their way to insult and
| humiliate the criminals as they were leaving. "Teach them
| a lesson", as they say. This can easily escalate the
| situation into lethal force.
|
| If you insult a man in front of his peers, tell him he's
| a pussy right in front of his friends, you almost leave
| him no choice but to come back and escalate just to prove
| you wrong. It seems obvious but there's plenty of people
| out there who have died over disrespect.
|
| > something as simple as yelling "I already called the
| cops"
|
| You were smart enough to back up your threat _before_
| confronting the criminals.
|
| Plenty of people out there who threaten the criminal with
| the 911 call itself. "Stop or I'll call the cops". Not
| only is it a direct challenge to the criminal, it also
| provides them with the solution to their problem: kill
| the guy and he won't call the cops.
|
| It all seems obvious when we're academically discussing
| this stuff here but in a rapidly escalating, potentially
| violent situation where emotions and adrenaline are
| running high, people will do and say all kinds of stupid
| shit. And they are going to die for it.
| ticos wrote:
| Used liquid nitrogen to freeze and break a lock off my
| bike once. The one person who saw us was like "Whatcha
| doing? Cool, can I watch?"
| WalterBright wrote:
| I used to rent a storage unit. I lost the key to it, and went
| to the manager. He came back to the unit with a small battery
| powered grinder. Cut the padlock's loop through in a few
| seconds.
|
| Most locks are only good if the attacker doesn't have any
| tools.
| bombcar wrote:
| For surprise of tool used the saw vs safe are the best:
|
| https://youtu.be/2guvwQvElA8
|
| The main thing locks do is make it _noisy_ to get in.
| oniony wrote:
| Unless they have an inductive heater.
| theoreticalmal wrote:
| Powered by what?
| oniony wrote:
| Battery for stealth.
|
| https://youtu.be/VTIWcK14tQE?si=uNNbgWgASpAcgStB
| quickthrowman wrote:
| To be fair to Sentry Safe, this product is designed to be
| resistant to fire. A better name for this product would
| be 'fire resistant box' instead of 'fire safe' but that's
| what they call it for marketing reasons.
|
| A hardened metal safe designed to be resistant to cutting
| can still be cut through, just not in seconds with a
| screamer saw (trade name for a metal cutting circular
| saw)
|
| If you want truly secure, encase your metal box in
| concrete like John Wick. Access is difficult but security
| is high :)
| derefr wrote:
| > encase your metal box in concrete
|
| FYI, most safes already have a decently thick concrete
| layer -- that's most of why safes are heavy! (Or, I guess
| you could say, adding a concrete layer is cheaper than
| making the steel thicker.)
|
| But they _also_ have a rubber or foam (often styrofoam in
| cheaper safes) layer, to "smooth out" the force from a
| sledgehammer, jackhammer, or just dropping the thing out
| the window.
|
| And a layer of compressible wet(!) sand, to spread out
| the point stress from a hammer and chisel, impact gun,
| gunshot, or small explosive configured for concussive
| force. (The goal here is essentially to replicate the
| behavior of a bulletproof vest.)
|
| Plus, they often contain a layer to bind and foul and
| dull (or even break) the teeth of drill bits and
| reciprocating/chain/band saws. This can be any number of
| things -- low-melting-point plastics, recycled broken
| glass, etc -- but look up "proteus" for a fun read.
|
| If the safe's designer is clever, just a few materials
| can serve several of these functions at once. But more is
| always better. Which is why good safes (and vaults) are
| so dang thick. It's not to solve one problem really well;
| it's to mitigate N problems acceptably well, for a
| frighteningly large value of N.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's fun looking at the machinery of old fashioned bank
| vaults. Very impressive.
| isoprophlex wrote:
| so... if i were a suitably evil billionaire, would i be
| able to shop for a safe protected by a layer of
| compressed mustard gas, that is released upon attempted
| breaching?
| adam_hn wrote:
| This would be a Booby Trap and is illegal, so it's not
| worth it for that chance of going to prison no matter the
| value in the safe, if you are a billionaire. It would be
| hard to find someone willing to help you.
| sib wrote:
| That's too bad - life would be better if we had a few
| fewer criminals around.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| Is it still a booby trap if the safe displays a prominent
| warning, "CAUTION: EMITS DEADLY GAS WHEN DAMAGED"?
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Depends on your lawyer.
|
| The law is someone less picky about armed guards, though,
| so you may just want to pay some thugs to watch your
| safe.
| gosub100 wrote:
| So carefully applied thermite to defeat all of them at
| once? Probably not directly down to drip into the
| valuables, but some tangent application.
| jerf wrote:
| Even not dripping directly on to the goods, there's not a
| lot of stuff that you would be interested in getting out
| of a safe, but you will still be interested in even after
| being exposed to thermite. The list is basically
| "precious metals" and not much more, though that is
| admittedly a valid entry on the list.
|
| In an analog to the somewhat frequent observation on HN
| that if you don't care whether the code is correct I can
| make it run arbitrarily quickly, if you don't care if the
| contents of the safe survive there's a lot of high-energy
| ways to blast it to smithereens. This is generally not
| considered a problem to be solved with a safe, though. If
| you want to prevent "being blasted to smithereens" that
| you'll need a completely different approach.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Is it perhaps called after the movie Screemers ? Some of
| the combat robots had circular saws, but they used to to
| cut through people instead of locks.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Aha, a legitimate use for those things!
|
| Saw the same, except it was bolt cutters.
| RajT88 wrote:
| I bought a giant pair of bolt cutters a while back for a
| use case other than bolt cutting (shark fishing; cut the
| big hook instead of putting your hand near the mouth).
|
| I never caught any big sharks like I thought, but now my
| wife runs a restaurant and occasionally employees just
| don't show up to work and leave things in their lockers.
| Once in a while it's clear it's to be annoying (locking
| supplies in their locker).
|
| Never met a padlock or combination lock I couldn't shear
| through easily. Totally has paid for itself.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Now, for a similar price, you can buy a hydraulic cutter
| powered by a hand pump. They also come with replaceable
| jaws so you dont wreck your cutters when attacking a hard
| lock.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Lothee-Hydraulic-Cutting-Portable-
| Han...
|
| And there are powered models too. The 3-foot snippers are
| long out of date for thieves.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Oh this is about double what I paid. But good to know!
| Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe wrote:
| I remember the faghetbouditt of Kryptonite that _broke_
| the blades of that exact hydraulic cutter.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| Generally speaking, the hasps on employee locks aren't
| big enough to hold anything truly sturdy... I doubt even
| the most resistant lock you could put on a typical locker
| hasp would hold up to the giant 3 foot bolt cutters.
| grogenaut wrote:
| There's quite a few, many hardened locks will bend or mar
| bolt cutters... we're not taking bolt cutters off of the
| rigs because they're relatively small but a K12 and a
| pair of pliers is way more reliable.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| To be fair, a lot of people don't have tools.
| cptnapalm wrote:
| Just found out my unit was robbed. The thieves ignored the
| lock and just destroyed the unit's latch which the padlock
| secured.
|
| There went Uncanny X-Men 94 through 300.
| spigottoday wrote:
| A car jack across the door frame at latch height works
| to.
| xarope wrote:
| That's exactly what I've seen too, either a grinder or just
| a crow bar.
| zugi wrote:
| > Most locks are only good if the attacker doesn't have any
| tools.
|
| The Louvre security staff similarly just learned this
| lesson.
| johnisgood wrote:
| With these locks you do not even need a grinder, just some
| really small tools that fits in your pocket, for example a
| "rake".
|
| See
| https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm9K6rby98W8JigLoZOh6FQ
| (LockPickingLawyer).
| ranger_danger wrote:
| Entirely depends on what manner of thief we are talking about
| here, what they're going after, how important it is to them,
| and how much they care about the owner knowing the lock was
| tampered with.
|
| This is why I don't like such black-and-white opinions... I
| think the answer is rarely so simple.
| mothballed wrote:
| I think it's largely a class or educational divide. I come
| from a very hick, redneck, working class area. People use
| black-and-white statements and course language with the
| understanding that corner cases will exist anyway. My use
| of this type of language common in more middle America is
| something I find the more silicon valley or tech centered
| HN constantly finds issue with.
|
| It's common in more upper-crust / educated circles to shit
| on people that use more course, black and white language. I
| believe it has more to do with cultural divide than
| misunderstanding that rare/corner cases exist.
|
| In another recent exchange on HN, I was damned for using
| the word 'never.' They didn't even explain why, just said
| they wouldn't believe people that used it. I was using it
| in the redneck sense "you'll never get that girl" as in
| it's extremely unlikely to the point it's hardly worth even
| considering, rather than the nerded out version that it
| means the chance is literally precisely 0.
| otterley wrote:
| .
| mothballed wrote:
| no, and I don't see how you could possibly deduce that
| from my statement
| otterley wrote:
| .
| mothballed wrote:
| I'm saying that some people don't understand that some
| cultural uses of black-and-white English indicate
| practical precision rather than absolute theoretical
| precision.
| nxor wrote:
| It's not cultural.
| Agingcoder wrote:
| FWIW I come from a non working class background ( but am
| not American ). My friends and I routinely debate in such
| a manner, and don't see any problem with this. If
| confronted with a stranger we might be a bit more
| cautious ( basically we'll state the rules of the
| conversation) but that's about it. If needed, we'll
| sometimes be a bit more accurate.
|
| I understand your statements as you mean them - I default
| to giving you the benefit of the doubt, and automatically
| assume that black and white statements are shortcuts.
| Only, and only if you seem to not understand nuance then
| I will adjust my stance, but I usually assume you do!
| rincebrain wrote:
| I think the problem can be described as assuming good
| faith in the argument - that is, that you're talking with
| someone who you are presuming is attempting to
| communicate, not just "win" the conversation.
|
| The difference becomes clear very quickly - if there's a
| genuine misunderstanding, someone will clarify and move
| on; if someone is trying to rules lawyer the
| conversation, it won't.
| nxor wrote:
| Exaggeration is not 'hick, redneck, working class.'
| president_zippy wrote:
| People from "hick, redneck, working class" areas don't
| say "hick, redneck, working class".
|
| They might say "hick" if they're from rural northern New
| England, the upper midwest, rural Canada, or Cascadia,
| usually with self-deprecating facetiousness. Most of
| these people are smart enough to do whatever they want in
| life, but just choose to live by their standard of
| normalcy and just like their friendly small towns best.
|
| If they are from the lower midwest or south, they will
| sure as hell just say "redneck", and most take it as a
| compliment even though many of them deep down are just
| compensating because they don't have any other options.
|
| But nobody calls themselves "working class". Not in the
| rust belt, not in the rural midwest, and not in the
| south. That's more of a politician's word, and a
| condescending slur from the white collar crowd that
| usually ends in a broken jaw.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I don't think that's what it is.
|
| > Low-intelligence people are masters of black-and-white
| thinking. It's also part of a psychological defense
| mechanism called "splitting."
|
| > They only seem to think in terms of opposites, ignoring
| the grey areas in between. Reality is too complex to be
| interpreted only in opposites.
|
| > As a result, they tend to simplify everything. While
| simplification is useful sometimes, not everything can,
| or should be, simplified. Knowing what does and doesn't
| require simplification signals high intelligence.
|
| The problem is when you speak in absolutes while
| simultaneously "not meaning it" that way, is that this is
| not conveyed to the people you are speaking to, so we can
| only assume that you did mean it, and now we think you're
| being unreasonably generalizing.
|
| And I think it's pretty hard to have a useful
| conversation if we cannot use agreed upon terms to convey
| what we mean. If you know that not everyone will
| understand your intention by saying it that way, then why
| do it?
| MisterTea wrote:
| A battery powered angle grinder with a zip wheel is the best
| lock picking tool out there. Hell, a cordless Dremel with a
| zip wheel might do it.
| lisbbb wrote:
| Yes. I once saw a guy open a bike U-lock using a car scissor
| jack and he was done in about 20 seconds and the bike was
| gone. Nowadays there are very good battery powered grinders
| that can take a cutoff wheel and no padlock is going to
| resist that.
| amluto wrote:
| But there are a handful of new U-locks that are quite
| difficult to cut using angle grinders.
| b00ty4breakfast wrote:
| most thieves don't even go that far. they find stuff that
| isn't locked or they kick in the door.
| slenk wrote:
| No one is doing that in a nice residential neighborhood
| zie wrote:
| That's when people can get away with it in broad daylight
| :) Because everyone thinks like you.
| paradox460 wrote:
| Get a used pickup, get some vinyl letters at home Depot,
| put something like "a+ home services" on the side, and
| you can probably break into a few dozen suburban homes
| without anyone reporting you
| true_religion wrote:
| Walk around in a hi-viz jacket, and you can pretty much
| be ignored by everyone except specialized security.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >except specialized security
|
| That's when you add a clipboard and/or hardhat _to
| increase odds_.
| slenk wrote:
| I also have a few tools from CI so I don't know what that
| makes me
| mk89 wrote:
| It depends on where you live. I guess it's not uncommon to
| hear about someone entering a building "as the delivery guy"
| just to try to pick a lock and see which one opens.
|
| If you make too much noise people will get suspicious and
| might call the police.
| umvi wrote:
| Actual thieves are most interested in low effort/fast methods
| of bypassing locks. Master single pin picking to LPL's level
| and the thief might as well just turn locksmithing into a
| career instead of stealing. Low effort attacks like shimming,
| raking, bumping though might be worth a thief's time to
| learn.
| Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe wrote:
| Some are still resisting this kind of attacks. The hiplok
| D1000 has a thick rubber like abrasive coating that makes it
| super hard to cut through the metal with power tools
| michaelbarton wrote:
| I had one of these for my e-bike in Oakland. The thieves
| used an angle grinder to cut through the bike stand instead
|
| The solution in the east bay seems to be "don't use a
| valuable bike"
| Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe wrote:
| That's why I have a dirty bike with a motorbike's chain
| wrapped around the wheels and stand. So they would have
| to cut through the wheel too.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| These jobsite storage boxes [0] are typically too heavy to
| steal (and can also be anchor-bolted), and the locks are
| highly-recessed within an enclosure... practically the only
| exposure is the keyway... and then there's thousands of
| dollars of tools inside.
|
| Worth it for smarter crooks. I'm a former IBEW electrician,
| and I've seen both stranger and more-miraculous occurrences
| -- but I've seen it all.
|
| [0] https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-10011/Tool-
| Storage/Kn...
| Arrath wrote:
| Oh man, reminds me of one project where theives rolled up
| with a truck, hotwired a forklift and loaded up 3 of these
| boxes.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| The National Guard Depot at Ocean Docks?
| Arrath wrote:
| Nah just an unremarkable subdivision development in
| middle america.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| I trained a few years as an IBEW electrician in large
| government data centers, but have done decades of
| residential side work (mostly 500k-2M suburbia):
|
| The stuff you _actually witnessed_ on both types of
| jobsites often _isn 't believable_. But I've seen [your
| comment] many times, in the middle of nowhere, with
| trailcams rolling and tweekers not giving AF, smiling as
| they roll away with your belongings...
|
| ----
|
| We caught a burglar once in our wire warehouse... huffing
| our marking paint, but on his way to scoring a five-
| figure copper haul. As foreman, I had to pull a few of my
| electricians off of the young man (~20~white~highAF) -- I
| sent my guys to their jobsites, keeping myself and two
| larger others to detain the guy until the police arrived:
| arrested. Drawn out court proceedings 5x. _Dismissed =(
| "Adjudicated"_
|
| That little twerp ended up having already become a career
| criminal, at just two decades on this earth. He needed
| good guys like mine to beat his ass a few times, like his
| family never did the favor of helping him _learn_.
|
| Next time my guys will not be calling the police, with
| blessings.
| dekhn wrote:
| Issues with master locks are hardly new- back in the 1980s, I
| downloaded a file from a BBS explaining how to open a combo
| lock (basically by pulling on the shackle while turning, and a
| few other tricks.
|
| It's still online:
| https://cdn.preterhuman.net/texts/anarchy_and_privacy_contro...
| dimator wrote:
| Oh my god, I remember doing this technique on my lock, I
| remember doing this in the early BBS days, I remember
| learning this from a short text file. I'm 80% sure it was
| this file!
|
| Thanks for unlocking this memory for me!
| astura wrote:
| >if I were stealing from a jobsite with multiple lockboxes, the
| ones with Master locks would be attacked first (particularly
| wafer cylinders).
|
| If you were stealing from a job site you'd just bring bolt
| cutters.
| c420 wrote:
| https://youtu.be/qL_MeobAp5s?t=1487
|
| For those interested in the actual case, here's some deeper
| coverage of this bruhaha including how Lee may have perjured
| himself during deposition.
| hinkley wrote:
| That guy sure isn't in a hurry to get anywhere. Good one to
| watch at 1.25x speed.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Lock-makers should start including RFID and a software key
| checking mechanism, then sharing the key would be illegal
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > sharing the key would be illegal
|
| How so? And what region are you referring to? There are many
| countries in the world with vastly different laws.
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| Unfortunately, the "region" would be the 193 member states of
| WIPO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-circumvention
|
| So, you are right, the laws in Micronesia, Palau and South
| Sudan might be vastly different.
| dcan wrote:
| 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
| butlike wrote:
| plz stop! my hddvds...
| foofoo12 wrote:
| That's an illegal number mate. Straight to the slammer!
|
| (for those missing out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AACS_en
| cryption_key_controvers...)
| dmbche wrote:
| Thabk you so much this is a beautiful rabbit hole to go down
| nomel wrote:
| Could you make access illegal using the DMCA, by putting some
| copyrighted content inside, with the physical key also being
| the license key?
| tofof wrote:
| This is how Nintendo engineered a legal argument disallowing
| 3rd party cartridges original GameBoy. The cartridge needed
| to display the Nintendo logo on startup which was checked
| pixel for pixel, otherwise the GameBoy wouldn't proceed with
| booting. Third party carts couldn't do so without infringing
| trademark.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| Note that the courts ruled this technique invalid in _Sega
| v. Accolade_ :
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
|
| But that was in a pre-DMCA world, before the anti-
| circumvention provisions gave these companies more legal
| weapons to criminalize fair use and competition.
| butlike wrote:
| I don't really "get" locks. If you want something to be closed
| forever, seal it shut. If it should be opened and closed, leave
| a hinge. If it should only be open and closed by a select few,
| leave it in a trusted environment
|
| Don't you live in a good neighborhood?
| avhon1 wrote:
| I've lived in a fair few places, but I've never lived in a
| place where an unlocked bicycle wouldn't be stolen. I'll keep
| using locks, thank you very much.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| I think they were probably making a joke about software
| security.
| 48terry wrote:
| I think the post was just really bad, myself.
| hereme888 wrote:
| A trusted environment, even in a "good neighborhood",
| requires a lock at least to the front door of your house, or
| gate, or w/e.
|
| But where will you park your car when you go to work? You
| have to lock it.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > A trusted environment, even in a "good neighborhood",
| requires a lock at least to the front door of your house,
| or gate, or w/e.
|
| I don't think that's a trusted environment or "good
| neighborhood". But then I basically use "can leave front
| door unlocked with zero worries" as the threshold for
| "trusted environment".
|
| But those environments and neighborhoods definitively
| exists today across the world, although they're probably
| becoming less and less common.
| lexszero_ wrote:
| Here in Finland mechanical locks with electronic keying are
| pretty common in some places. Some of them like iLOQ or Abloy
| eCLIQ are actually pretty clever: electrical bits of the lock
| are powered from mechanical action of inserting and turning the
| key, so you don't have to worry about batteries. In theory,
| they promise significant cost savings in scenarios like rental
| apartment buildings where tenants move in and out, need access
| to common areas, lose keys, etc, without compromising security
| or having to replace or recode locks - they just give you a
| generic key, click some buttons in the admin panel, and your
| key could be provisioned accordingly once you first enter the
| building and interact with one of the "smarter" locks that are
| externally powered and networked to the mothership.
|
| In practice, in addition to the usual bugs you would expect
| from a software-based system managed and maintained by a
| plethora of organizations and contractors, they tend to become
| very annoying as parts wear out, so you have to fiddle with the
| key reinserting it repeatedly trying to find just the right
| angle so it will make a good contact to be recognized by the
| lock (for example the iLOQ system by my landlord communicates
| over a thin contact strip molded into the key opposite of the
| cutting and separated from the rest of the key with a thin
| layer of plastic).
| georgefrowny wrote:
| Sounds about right for Abloy. They own Yale and their app-
| based alarm is subcontracted dogshit (by
| https://mobilepeople.dk) that didn't get updated for years on
| end, logs you out constantly, has less functionally than a
| 90s keypad model and even the hub thing sometimes just falls
| over and needs a power cycle, etc etc etc. Presumably they
| are entirely unable to handle any of it in house and are at
| the mercy of the contractor to fix anything.
| taneq wrote:
| What criminal mastermind could possibly defeat the DMCA? :D
| hinata08 wrote:
| The internet : _sees thoughts challenging facts_
|
| Someone : "Sucks to see how many people take everything they see
| online for face value," one Proven employee wrote. "Sounds like a
| bunch of liberals lol."
|
| The company : Proven also had its lawyers file "multiple" DMCA
| takedown notices against the McNally video, claiming that its use
| of Proven's promo video was copyright infringement.
|
| When did facts and enlightenment started to be for "liberals lol"
| ?
|
| Freedom of speech based on facts should be universal.
| mothballed wrote:
| >Freedom of speech based on facts should be universal.
|
| To be fair that's not what we have in USA. For instance, a
| nurse who never even signed a private privacy agreement with
| anyone (unusual, but could happen) could violate HIPAA if they
| factually tell a patient's spouse the patient is being treated
| for AIDS and they ought to watch out.
| alwa wrote:
| Yes, they could and most definitely would be. The case you
| describe is one of the reasons it's that way.
|
| For what exactly would this fly-by-night nurse be telling me
| to "watch out," in relation to my partner who's living with
| and being treated for HIV?
|
| One hopes this nurse, being medically trained and apparently
| working with vulnerable populations, understands the efficacy
| of the modern HIV therapies the patient is receiving. That,
| when managed, HIV is not transmissible by conventional
| marital means [0]; and that, until recently at least [also
| 0], concerted public health efforts have meant that most
| anyone who seeks medical attention ends up on those modern
| therapies.
|
| That said, I hope said nurse would catch me in a charitable
| mood rather than a litigious one.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/global-hiv-tb/php/our-
| approach/undetecta...
| mothballed wrote:
| This is an entirely different argument than the fact at
| hand, which is making the factual statement is illegal.
|
| You're just explaining why stating the fact should be
| illegal.
|
| >[0] https://www.cdc.gov/global-hiv-tb/php/our-
| approach/undetecta...
|
| I said AIDS, not HIV. I am no AIDS expert but I would be
| shocked if a large portion of people AIDS had no detectable
| viral load, while people with HIV commonly do not have
| detectable one. Wouldn't people with no detectable viral
| load generally not being exhibiting AIDS?
| alwa wrote:
| In that case--and in re-reading the comment you were
| responding to--I think I'm agreeing with you and that I
| should have read more carefully before getting my dander
| up :)
|
| It sounds like we're agreeing that you've given a good
| example of why it both is and should be that way.
|
| And that, in US jurisprudence anyway, speech tends to be
| allowed unless there's a broader social interest that's
| served by protecting the specific categories of facts in
| question.
|
| With the slight caveat that I'm not sure that "should
| watch out" is a fact, it sounds like an opinion to me
| (and one that's potentially unsupported by the facts). In
| fact, don't people governed by HIPAA still have a duty to
| report situations of actual or likely physical harm--for
| example if a minor presents with signs consistent with
| abuse [0]? Or even, in your example, if the provider
| became aware that the HIV-positive patient, out of malice
| or negligence, were declining treatment, exhibiting
| substantial viral load, and asserting that they intended
| to continue with behaviors that put the partner at risk?
|
| [0] https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa/for-
| professionals/faq/2098/if-doct...
| nradov wrote:
| How could that happen exactly? In what circumstances could a
| nurse end up working for (or even volunteering for) a HIPAA
| covered entity without signing a privacy agreement?
| kstrauser wrote:
| And the privacy agreement isn't required anyway. If you're
| a doctor, and you treat your neighbor, you're bound by
| HIPAA laws that cover the arrangement. All a privacy
| agreement really does is give the clinic a hope of being
| found not liable in a lawsuit or government action: "see,
| we have it in writing that the nurse knew this was illegal!
| Blame them, not us." Even without the agreement, the
| practioner is still legally obligated to obey HIPAA.
|
| And as a side note: sue the hell out of the hypothetical
| nurse spilling the beans on a hypothetical AIDE patient.
| Why? Because if you don't, then other people who suspect
| they might have HIV are going to avoid going to the doctor,
| resulting in more deaths for them _and_ their lovers.
| mothballed wrote:
| I'm not sure if it's required, but it's a common retort
| used to argue why someone thinks HIPAA is a private
| contract law rather than regulation of factual speech, so
| I prefer to just nip that scenario in the bud from the
| get go.
|
| In any case I wasn't arguing for or against regulating
| factual speech. Only pointing out that it is done in the
| USA. This seems to get peoples feathers real ruffled, for
| whatever reason.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Hah! Ok, fair, I could see that. There are sooooo many
| misunderstandings about HIPAA that make me cringe every
| time I hear them. "I can't tell you if I'm sick. HIPPA!"
| "It's illegal for you to ask me if I'm vaccinated.
| HIPPA!" "You can't bill me for this. HIPPA!"
|
| It's like the medical version of a sovereign citizen
| legal theory, where it simultaneously applies to
| everything and nothing, depending on what's most
| convenient at the moment.
| mothballed wrote:
| It's partially because it's so complicated.
|
| I was a licensed healthcare professional and even I was
| shocked when my medical information was given to police
| without a warrant, a legal arrest, and without my
| consent. As it turns out, totally legal.
| skopje wrote:
| They're all a tough guys act. It's the type. Many American men
| love playing soldiers. What is Liquid Death? It's water LOL.
| See?
| viridian wrote:
| FWIW in my experience is less the monster energy / black
| rifle coffee audience, it's actually the red bull / white
| claw audience.
|
| It still feels wrong to me, but that's how it is.
| abustamam wrote:
| I like liquid death because their water is delicious and not
| high in sugar. I usually drink a sparkling water with dinner
| and I definitely prefer liquid death over la croix. They are
| technically different products though.
|
| That their marketing is so edgy is just fun. I don't take it
| seriously, and it doesn't seem like they do either.
|
| But Proven is definitely full of toxic masculinity internet
| tough guys.
| yojo wrote:
| "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."[0]
|
| 0: https://youtu.be/IJ-a2KeyCAY?si=cIcawm3U5-55nI2D&t=252
| hinata08 wrote:
| I just saw grokpedia results, which include a gay-free
| description of gay novels (Banana Fish) and forged or curated
| accounts of war on Iraq, Thatcher and Duterte.
|
| So yeah, reality is liberal nowadays
| zahlman wrote:
| > When did facts and enlightenment started to be for "liberals
| lol" ?
|
| It didn't. That's one employee of the company, who has a clear
| bias in the matter, being ridiculous. It has nothing to do with
| liberal ideology, nor critique of liberal ideology, nor
| whatever sort of person that employee thinks should be
| considered a "liberal", nor _their_ ideology. It 's only the
| employee who even suggests that, and probably not even
| seriously.
| jwr wrote:
| If you don't know him already, I highly recommend videos by
| LockPickingLawyer -- he routinely destroys bogus claims of
| various companies within seconds. It's quite entertaining to see
| how little security you actually get from most locks.
|
| I wonder if anybody tried suing him...
| jasoncartwright wrote:
| LPL is superb. He inspired me to get a lock pick kit and a few
| simple padlocks - a cheap and fun hobby during COVID lockdowns.
| diego898 wrote:
| Thinking of doing the same! Which kit did you order? I see a
| FNG, FNG+ Bundle, and "Learn lockpicking bundle". 3rd one
| seems the most likely candidate. Any tips you can share?
| Thanks!
| yoz-y wrote:
| I've got a German practice lock and boy was that a hard
| wake up call. That thing was so hard to pick that I gave
| up. (The keyhole is really slim)
|
| My bad though, LPL did warn about this.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| I did the same (also during COVID, after doing it for a bit
| in my youth). I haven't tried Covert Instruments gear, I
| bought some other pack from China, but whatever pack you
| can find with the basics (and maybe some variety so you can
| try different techniques) plus a training padlock so you
| can see what's going on inside, and it'll be a walk in the
| park.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Start with a cheap kit from e.g. Amazon which includes a
| couple of perspex locks so you can see what you're doing.
| Get a real set of picks for real money once you graduate
| from that.
| jasoncartwright wrote:
| I got a PS50 pick set from https://x.com/martin__newton
|
| https://imgur.com/a/sbXoBCK
| jamie_ca wrote:
| I got the Learn Lockpicking bundle a few years back, it's a
| solid customizable lock - six slots, a few different pin
| styles, and the springs to make it work. I got practiced
| enough to get a 3-pin opened, but I'm definitely out of
| practice now.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| Ditto. I was even able to put my lock picking skills to use
| one fine summer day when the dog park was locked due to "rain
| from yesterday" even though the grass and everything was
| clearly fine. We had a lovely time running around as a
| family, along with a couple other families, for about an hour
| before the groundskeeper came and shooed us away.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| When we moved last time, our "financials" filing cabinet
| accidentally got locked (one of the ones with button lock)
| and I wound up having to pick it. The ability, even at a
| basic level, comes in handy more often then you would
| expect.
| bigiain wrote:
| Picking filing cabinet locks is part of the genesis of
| modern hacker ethos. Feynman would be proud.
| dekhn wrote:
| See also: https://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-
| guide/MITLockGuide.pdf and the book "Hackers".
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| At a previous company, a power outage knocked out our
| router, which knocked out the card access system, which
| locked us out of the server room where the router was.
| Good news, there was a physical key bypass. Bad news,
| nobody knew where said key was. Lucky for us, I could pop
| out to my car, grab my picks, and then got the thing open
| in a couple of minutes.
|
| Definitely the most above-the-board use those picks ever
| got (Though obtaining access to my university dorm's AC
| controls definitely made me more popular).
| myself248 wrote:
| Heyyy, guerilla HVAC team!
|
| In high school I didn't even have lockpicks, I just
| carried a super tiny pair of needle-nose pliers along
| with some other tools in my Five-Star zipper binder, and
| the tips of the pliers were fine enough to stab into the
| holes of those stupid snake-bite security screws that
| held down the thermostat covers in the classrooms.
|
| Once teachers realized I could open the thermostat covers
| and adjust their setting in seconds instead of the hours
| it took to go the official route, not only was I very
| popular, they would occasionally _send hall passes to
| summon me from other rooms_ to perform the service. I was
| doing fine in my studies and this was not an academic
| impediment, it was just hilarious. Eventually I just
| started leaving the covers loose, a fig-leaf that the
| custodial staff seemed content to ignore.
|
| ...
|
| Fastforward a few years into my career, still not
| carrying lockpicks, but much more familiar with the art.
| A shipment of cabinetized network hardware arrived, but
| the cabinet keys were not ziptied to the doors as was
| customary. The installers were looking at having to go
| home with a short timesheet because they couldn't work.
|
| I was in the NOC for another reason entirely, but I asked
| the supe to cover me for a minute and trotted out to the
| equipment room. I swiped a couple pins from the corkboard
| (for some reason, the office used dissection T-pins
| instead of regular pushpins), bent the tip of one, used
| the other as a turning tool, and proceeded to rake open
| one of the cabinets. The install crew lead's jaw hit the
| floor. I insisted on teaching him to do the rest, and
| moments later not only had he opened the rest of the
| cabinet doors, he had scared himself with how easy that
| just was, and stood in silence for a minute, shocked by
| his newly-acquired skill.
| Terr_ wrote:
| Very Harry Tuttle, although to be fair everything feels a
| little _Brazil_ these days.
| linsomniac wrote:
| Early in our dating, my (now) wife moved into a new
| apartment and accidentally turned in the key to the back
| patio storage room with the keys to the old place. She
| was embarrassed to ask the old landlord, so she asked me
| to ask him. Instead, I popped home, picked open the patio
| storage lock, and then re-keyed the lock to match the
| front door. When I was a teenager I bought a (apparently
| lifetime) supply of assorted lock pins.
| sambeau wrote:
| Thritto.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| I had to use my lockpicking skills when my grandma moved
| across country to live with my mom. She put her stuff in a
| "Portable On-Demand Storage" container and accidentally put
| the key to the lock with her stuff inside the container.
|
| Luckily, she used the shitty round lock that a lot of
| storage companies recommend. I was able to pick it in just
| a couple minutes. Someone like LPL would have had it open
| in mere seconds.
| 0_____0 wrote:
| Er... that's a crime?
|
| The ethic, IIRC, is that you only pick locks that you own,
| or that you have permission to pick.
|
| Also, maybe the groundskeeper knows things about
| groundskeeping that you don't, on account of how much time
| they spend doing their job, which is keeping the grounds.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I picked up and started practicing with Lishi lock tools, and
| I cannot recommend them enough. Pocket Tool Warehouse out of
| Texas has been good in my experience for sourcing them, no
| affiliation. Like an automatic transmission for lock picking.
|
| https://www.classiclishi.com/about/lishi-history
|
| https://www.originallishi.com/what-are-lishi-tools
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Putting the lock in lockdown I see.
| hamburglar wrote:
| Same here. It also inspired me to teach my kids. Watching my
| nine year old daughter pick a lock warmed my subversive
| little heart.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| LPL owns Covert Instruments, who employs McNally, the YouTuber
| who got sued in this case. Probably not a coincidence that
| Covert Instruments _wasn 't_ named in the lawsuit.
| jonhohle wrote:
| I wonder if McNally knows a lawyer familiar with lock picking
| ;-)
| slenk wrote:
| Oh sweet never knew there was a connection between LPL and
| McNally - I just notice they always cut their shims from cans
| the same way
| SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
| There aren't that many ways to cut a shim from a can that
| work and don't take excessive effort. It's a rounded hook
| shape, with a handle piece trimmed so you don't cut
| yourself.
| slenk wrote:
| Well they make it look easy I always end up cutting
| myself
| johnisgood wrote:
| I think McNally was in at least one of his videos if I
| remember correctly.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| > Probably not a coincidence that Covert Instruments wasn't
| named in the lawsuit
|
| What's the non-coincidence?
| sgerenser wrote:
| That they avoided naming the lawyer or the lawyer's company
| in their bogus lawsuit and instead only named the non-
| lawyer.
| jonny_eh wrote:
| He can still defend his employee, right?
| JonathonW wrote:
| My understanding is that LPL is not still practicing (he
| says he's retired, to focus on security work), but I'd
| guess he knows someone, if McNally didn't already have
| his own lawyer.
| MBCook wrote:
| Even if he was practicing, if he were to take this case
| it would pretty obviously expose who he was.
|
| So no matter what I would expect LPL would get someone he
| knew/equivalent to take the case.
| CSMastermind wrote:
| I mean, it's not exactly a secret. If you really want to
| know you can look it up online. He even has a whole talk
| he gives about why he generally doesn't reveal his
| identity. People send him packages with trackers hidden
| in them, hire private investigators to follow him with
| bogus stories, etc.
| asveikau wrote:
| In addition I've seen LPL refer to "my friend Trevor McNally"
| in a couple of videos.
| hengheng wrote:
| That explains so much. Done to well for a goof channel,
| eclectic assortment of skills ("tactical garden trowel" vs
| fully equipped metal shop vs perfect video production), all
| fat trimmed off the videos.
|
| I kinda want tvtropes to put a name on his slapstick humor.
| It's like looking over the shoulder of that weird uncle that
| seems to live in an entirely different world.
| Kye wrote:
| Opening a padlock by hitting it with another padlock has to be
| one of my favorite bits.
| danudey wrote:
| "This is a Master Lock XYZ. It can be opened with a Master
| Lock XYZ."
| Y_Y wrote:
| Same solid principle as homeopathy
| tejtm wrote:
| this is HN; its a monad.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| If a lock takes more than 20 seconds to break it's basically
| Fort Knox
| azinman2 wrote:
| Are there any that are truly secure?
| lawn wrote:
| Any lock can be forced through given the right tools and
| enough time.
|
| You need to be more specific with what "truly secure"
| means.
| __loam wrote:
| There's a few that are pretty good but at a certain point
| you can just grind off the shackle or blow the door off its
| hinges.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| It's similar to the idea that the only truly secure
| computer is sixty feet underground, encased in concrete,
| turned off, and ground into dust.
| __loam wrote:
| I can't get hacked if I live a self sufficient hermitic
| lifestyle in an off the grid cabin with no electric
| devices.
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Tell that to machete-bear.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| All the digital forensics experts I know suggest the
| bottom of the ocean FYI.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Secure against what? You might be surprised at what a wench
| and a truck can pull / destroy. If that fails, there are
| shotguns and also explosives, jackhammers and the like.
|
| There are always assumptions built into lock design. A
| simple lock is very secure if a fence is jumpable, most
| people will jump the fence rather than mess with a lock.
|
| Even a complex lock will never be secure for national
| secrets (like nuclear missiles), you need to just assign
| guards. Locks exist but are basically a formality (IIRC,
| many tanks and airplanes are left unlocked because all the
| security posture is with the military and the lock itself
| is too much of a hassle for logistics).
|
| ------
|
| Fort Knox itself was designed to be safe from Nazi
| invasion. If the Nazis invaded New York City, they won't
| find any of the governments gold. The 'lock' in this case
| is the miles and miles of geography the Nazis would have to
| navigate before reaching Fort Knox.
| pfdietz wrote:
| "In 1933, the U.S. suspended gold convertibility and gold
| exports. In the following year, the U.S. dollar was
| devalued when the gold price was fixed at $35 per troy
| ounce. After the U.S. dollar devaluation, so much gold
| began to flow into the United States that the country's
| gold reserves quadrupled within eight years. Notice that
| this is several years before the outbreak of World War II
| and predates a large trade surplus in the late 1940s.
| [...] In 1930, the U.S. controlled about 40% of the
| world's gold reserves, but by 1950, the U.S. controlled
| nearly two-thirds of the world's gold reserves."
|
| https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-
| economist/f...
| strbean wrote:
| > what a wench and a truck can pull / destroy.
|
| According to legend, a wench can destroy a whole city
| state (Troy)!
| Terr_ wrote:
| Evil villains trying to destroy the world know it too,
| it's why they hire so many wenchmen.
| taneq wrote:
| > If the Nazis invaded New York City, they won't find any
| of the governments gold.
|
| Is that because it's not actually in Fort Knox? :P
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Certainly not at reasonable prices!
| showerst wrote:
| Not in the sense of "can't be opened without the key".
|
| Good locks buy you two things: Deterrence (maybe), and a
| set minimum of time and noise requirements to bypass them.
| If your lock reputably takes 3 minutes to pick or a Ramset
| gun to blast them open, make sure your guard comes by every
| two minutes, and otherwise stays in earshot.
| strbean wrote:
| Also 3) intrusion detection.
|
| It's obvious to the owner and the whole world that an
| intrusion has occurred if the door is sawed open or the
| lock is cut off. It's nice to know your home has been
| broken into vs. some of your jewelry is gone and you
| don't know whether to blame your teenager, a relative,
| someone who did work on your house since you last
| checked, etc.
| bigiain wrote:
| Photos of your sawed open door will probably help in your
| insurance claim too. Telling your assessor "the cops say
| they might have picked the lock" isn't something I'd want
| to rely on to get my claim approved.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Nothing is secure against an oxyacetylene torch.
|
| But if that's not the threat you are trying to protect
| against, there are locks that are sufficiently secure that
| picking or other "low-impact" defeat attempts are
| considered pretty much pointless. Abloy protec2 comes to
| mind.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| >Nothing is secure against an oxyacetylene torch.
|
| I want to build a front door with reactive-explosive
| armor. The team might get through the door, but not the
| guy with the cutting torch.
| htrp wrote:
| pretty sure trophy systems are generally not legal in any
| jurisdiction
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| If there's a guy trying to go through my door with a
| cutting torch, "legal" is way, way over at that point.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > Nothing is secure against an oxyacetylene torch.
|
| Can't be stuck if it's runny.
| dardeaup wrote:
| Yep! Or a plasma torch!
|
| Many locks fail quickly with just an angle grinder and a
| cut-off wheel. (as you can see on Storage Wars)
| samplatt wrote:
| Doesn't even need to go as far as using power tools.
|
| Every lock I've been unable to pick (usually due to the
| fact that it's a pile of rust) has been susceptible to
| bolt-cutters. Big lock? Bigger cutters. Still cheaper
| than an angle-grinder.
| lytfyre wrote:
| The Canadian Mint in Ottawa has a rather impressive large
| gold bar on display in the gift shop for people to lift
| and take photos with. It's not in a case or anything.
| It's chained down with a Protec padlock - and there's a
| cop a few feet away to deal with you trying something un-
| subtle.
|
| I think it's a pretty good endorsement for Abloy.
| klardotsh wrote:
| To me that sounds more like a good endorsement for having
| a guy legally authorized to use force against you
| standing guard. Any old padlock is probably safe when a
| uniformed agent of the state with weapons of varying
| lethality is standing next to it.
| foobarian wrote:
| Hopefully it's a well paid guy, or I wouldn't be
| surprised if they helped the bar disappear for how much
| gold that is.
| achr2 wrote:
| I had an Abloy Protec2 malfunction while locked (PSA
| don't use them for key-only sashlocks) and the locksmith
| drilled it out in ~10 seconds. That is the last time I
| spend that kind of money on a lock!
| tetha wrote:
| You don't even have to go that far. Firefighters have
| core pulling kits that take care of 90% of all locks in 2
| minutes tops. And for most other locks, the thing holding
| the lock tends to be less of an issue than the lock.
| emmelaich wrote:
| Add metal for extra fun:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_lance
| Larrikin wrote:
| If you want to reply, check this accounts post history
| and decide if you think it worth it.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Huh?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| It depends on what "secure" means. Any lock can be
| destroyed with tools. Most locks can be broken with a big
| pair of bolt cutters, a drill, or, failing that, melting.
|
| If secure means "without leaving evidence of tampering,"
| things get a lot more interesting, but that has narrow
| practical use cases outside of stuff like espionage. Once
| you're in this space, we can start talking about how
| difficult something can be without specialized tools. But
| now we're leaving "I am protecting my stuff" territory and
| entering "this is just a sport and we're agreeing on a
| ruleset" territory.
|
| There are a couple of lock designs out there that I don't
| think anybody's successfully ever picked. The ones that
| first come to mind are a couple of the "smart" electronic
| locks. Many of those are junk, but a few are very well
| thought out.
| kube-system wrote:
| Security is a practice, not a destination.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Assa Abloy's Cliq (electromechanical) keys aren't able to
| be picked as far as I know (I could definitely be wrong!),
| the local international airport uses them to secure doors.
| The keys aren't cheap, we have to put up a several hundred
| dollar deposit when checking them out from airport security
| for projects. These sorts of locks are useful in places
| with 24-hour operations or in public spaces that lead to
| private spaces, an unpickable lock falls to a drill pretty
| quickly if that's an option.
|
| Virtually any lock can be destroyed with tools and most
| doors/walls can be busted through with enough effort and
| equipment. I think the airport police would notice that,
| though ;)
| loodish wrote:
| Folks that really care about security go for tamper
| evidence.
|
| For example you can get a filing cabinet which has a lock
| and a counter that ticks every time it is opened. You pair
| it with a clipboard where you note the counter count, why
| you opened it and sign.
|
| It can be picked, that can't be avoided. But the act of
| opening it creates a trail which can be detected. Adding a
| false clipboard entry is detected by subsequent users,
| there typically aren't many people with access.
|
| Determining that you have a breach allows it to be
| investigated, mitigated. The lock is an important part of
| that, but it isn't perfectly secure so you manage that
| flaw.
|
| Of course filing cabinets are getting rare and replaced by
| digital document stores, with their own auditing and
| issues.
| beAbU wrote:
| At some point something else becomes the weak link, so a
| truly unpickable 100% secure lock is a meaningless concept.
| tshaddox wrote:
| No one would be surprised if you showed that you could cut a
| hole in pretty much any normal door given the right cutting
| tool. Yet people seem to act surprised and betrayed to learn
| that a normal lock can be picked or broken given the right
| tool.
| henry2023 wrote:
| In this case, the right tool is an empty can and scissors
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| > No one would be surprised if you showed that you could
| cut a hole in pretty much any normal door
|
| The definition of "normal" varies by region. In European
| cities, it means a pretty heavy door of multiple layers of
| steel (and pretty unpleasant stuff in the middle) that
| would probably take 15 minutes of deafeningly loud cutting
| with a circular saw. I understand the standard for US
| suburbs is much lower (as it might as well be, given
| windows exist and the walls aren't all that sturdy either).
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Right - the quality of your locks matter a lot less if
| your average 5-year-old tee-baller can through brick
| through the wind and climb in. One always needs to
| consider their threat model when considering what
| security to invest in getting.
| healsdata wrote:
| Bang on. LPL himself uses a slightly modified Kwikset
| lock. The modification seizes the lock if someone tries
| to pick it. I'm the video, he says it isn't to stop all
| break-ins, but to stop non-destructive break-ins.
| mananaysiempre wrote:
| So a tamper-evident system not a (particularly) tamper-
| resistant one.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| A very long time ago I worked in an office building that
| had several suites of offices. One of them was a
| biotechnics company that did things like genetic analysis
| of farmed fish for selective breeding, massively
| commercially sensitive stuff. They had a "secure document
| store" built within their suite, with a thick door made
| of 19mm ply layers either side of a 6mm steel plate,
| welded to a full-length hinge, which was in turn welded
| to a 25mm steel tubing frame, with big long brackets
| bolted into the brick work of the exterior wall on one
| side and a steel beam on the other. One key in the
| possession of the CIO, one in the possession of the CEO.
| CEO was at a fish farm in Norway. CIO was in the office,
| getting paperwork out of the safe in the secure room, got
| a phone call, stepped out of the room to get a better
| signal, slam <CLICK> <KACHUNK> as six spring-loaded bolts
| about as thick as your thumb pegged the door shut.
|
| Rude words.
|
| Can't get a locksmith that can pick that particular
| Ingersoll lock. Can't get a replacement key because the
| certificate is in the room, and you'd have to drive down
| to England to get it. Can't jemmy the door open, it's too
| strong.
|
| Wait.
|
| There's a guy who parks an old Citroen in the car park, I
| bet he has tools, doesn't he work for that video company
| downstairs? Let's ask him.
|
| So yeah it took about ten seconds to get in to the secure
| room. I cut a hatch through the plasterboard with a
| Stanley knife, recovered the keys, taped the plasterboard
| back in place, and - the time-consuming bit - positioned
| their office fridge so no-one could see it.
|
| A swift appointment with an interior decorator was made
| by a certain C-level exec, and a day or two later there
| was a cooler with about 25kg of assorted kinds of salmon
| and a bottle of whisky left in my edit suite.
| taneq wrote:
| Hah, I love this sort of story. Recently I was on site
| and we needed some electrical as-built drawings. They'd
| been stashed in a tool box, which was locked (and pretty
| well designed to protect the padlock from bolt cutters /
| angle grinders). Unfortunately one of the guys had taken
| the key with him and it was now a two hour plane flight
| away. They already tried and failed to cut the lock, and
| were getting an angle grinder to just cut in through the
| lid (it was ~3mm steel sheet, so hardly impenetrable, but
| destroying the toolbox would not have been ideal) when I
| pulled the pin out of the hinge and recovered the
| drawings that way.
|
| Turns out watching Pirates of the Caribbean wasn't a
| waste of time after all. ;)
| debo_ wrote:
| If you hadn't been there to fish them out of the
| situation, they would have been boned to a scale they
| weren't prepared to deal with. You deserved the reward
| for getting them off the hook.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| drum_sting.wav
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| To think I usually gotta go on reddit to fish for puns.
| andrensairr wrote:
| I know it's OT but I wanna know what your old Citroen
| was. My first car was an S1 BX. Plasticky 80s goodness. I
| know it's not everybody's idea of a classic (at least in
| Australia where Citroens aren't particularly common) but
| I loved it.
| rkomorn wrote:
| Not OP but my dad drove a CX for a while, but the real
| treat was our friend's DS.
| foobarian wrote:
| Our uncle had a CX when we were kids. When he would visit
| we loved waiting in the driveway for him to start it so
| we can watch the air suspension engage and lift the car a
| good foot up.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| Hydropneumatic suspension :-) There's a hydraulic pump
| about the size of a coffee cup driven off the end of the
| camshaft, which provides power to the suspension, braking
| system, and steering.
|
| The suspension has no springs or shock absorbers -
| there's a "sphere" screwed into the end of each
| suspension cylinder with a bubble of nitrogen trapped by
| a rubber sheet that acts as a spring, and a set of
| spring-loaded valves kind of like the ones in a shock
| absorber piston to set the damping rate.
|
| For the brakes, the hydraulic pump fed the ABS block
| through a shuttle valve under the pedal. When you press
| the pedal it does not move! Or, hardly at all. I takes a
| little getting used to and the brakes feel really harsh
| until you realise you don't need to welly it down hard -
| just gently touch it. The back brakes use pressure from
| the rear suspension, so they're more effective the
| heavier the car is.
|
| The steering is amazing. When the engine is running the
| road wheels and steering wheel are not really connected.
| There's a linkage through a shuttle valve and when you
| turn the steering wheel it acts as a servo, with the
| wheels being moved entirely by hydraulic pressure. The
| Danfoss valves in normal power steering systems work a
| bit like this but they use a bendy spring, and the
| hydraulics only "help".
|
| To make it respond properly at speed there was a heart-
| shaped cam in the steering box, with a sprung piston
| pushed into it by hydraulic pressure from a speed
| governor on the gearbox. The faster you go, the more
| pressure on the piston, and the harder the spring presses
| a roller into the cam. At idle with the car stationary
| you can move the steering wheel and it'll spring back to
| the middle by itself, and at 70mph you can barely move
| the steering wheel at all.
|
| It's really sensitive and the first time you drive one
| you find yourself zig-zagging down the road until you get
| used to just leaving your fingertips on the rim of the
| wheel and basically just touching the side you want it to
| turn to.
|
| They're not terribly fast but you can gobble up the miles
| surprisingly quickly, and I've never driven anything
| where you arrived so relaxed.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| At the time I had a 1989 XM 2.0, but at various times
| I've had a couple of CXes, several XMs, a couple of GSAs,
| a BX briefly, and an AX GT.
|
| One of the XMs was the 3-litre 24-valve one which would
| sit comfortably at twice the legal limit, with the only
| real difference being the stereo had to be a couple of
| notches louder and the trees and road signs came up twice
| as fast. Oh, and the trip computer showed an astounding
| 8MPG - you wouldn't be doing 147mph for long because
| you've got less than an hour of fuel in the tank at that
| speed.
|
| The AX GT was the carby one, basically their 950cc
| hatchback with the 1.4 out of a BX dropped in and a lumpy
| cam and twin-choke 2x32mm Weber carb. It was a little
| pocket-size tin of hooliganism.
|
| The CXes were probably the most refined of the lot. Look
| up DIRAVI steering - fully powered, no mechanical
| connection between the steering wheel and road wheels
| when it's working normally.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > They had a "secure document store" built within their
| suite, with a thick door made of 19mm ply layers either
| side of a 6mm steel plate, welded to a full-length hinge,
| which was in turn welded to a 25mm steel tubing frame,
| with big long brackets bolted into the brick work of the
| exterior wall on one side and a steel beam on the other.
|
| Wow, that sounds like a pretty secure entry! I wonder how
| they secured the walls, that's a lot of steel plate,
| enough to require structural reinforc--
|
| > So yeah it took about ten seconds to get in to the
| secure room. I cut a hatch through the plasterboard with
| a Stanley knife, recovered the keys, taped the
| plasterboard back in place, and - the time-consuming bit
| - positioned their office fridge so no-one could see it.
|
| Haha, that was my guess. This is like constructing a safe
| with a super heavy reinforced steel door on the front and
| construction paper on the sides and top! He could've
| kicked his way through 5/8" (prolly 16mm to you lot)
| drywall ;) Your solution was a lot cleaner and you earned
| that tasty reward!
| myself248 wrote:
| Ahh, the classic Kool-Aid Man attack.
| MattSayar wrote:
| It's like we forget rocks can easily go through windows.
| jopsen wrote:
| And if you try to put bars in the window; you'll have a
| really bad day if your house catches fire!
|
| Same with a moad full of piranhas, it's not fun to fall
| in by accident :)
|
| Best and cheapest option is a dog, or simply giving up.
| bigiain wrote:
| Best and cheapest option is a dog, decent insurance, and
| off site backups that regularly get restores tested.
|
| And maybe a little bit of not getting too attached to
| "stuff" - there's very little stuff that's truly
| irreplaceable. I'd miss my first guitar if my house was
| robbed and they took it or if my place burnt down. I'd
| miss the HiFi gear I bought in 1988 and still use, and
| maybe my modded espresso machine. But I'd get over that
| loss and my sentimental attraction to those things just
| fine, especially after I'd replaced then with my
| insurance settlement.
| cheema33 wrote:
| Dog is not the cheapest option. The amount of work that
| goes into taking care of a dog is quite substantial. I
| know from experience. While many/most people do not mind
| doing the work/expense, some of us prefer cats because
| they are _a lot_ less work, among other reasons. I do
| however admit that cats suck at scaring away intruders.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| A large dog is one of the few things that can actually
| prevent most break-ins.
|
| Story time: There was a serial killer in CA a few decades
| ago. The police mentioned he doesn't attack homes with
| dogs, next victim had a small dog. Next the police
| mentioned he doesn't attack homes with medium or large
| dogs, next victim had a 30lb dog. Next the police
| mentioned he doesn't attack homes with large dogs. His
| next victim didn't have a dog. If its 80+lbs, very few
| people will mess with them and they will love you
| forever.
| sally_glance wrote:
| Or "diversify", basically don't put all of your eggs in
| one basket. Can be done at any scale too, from storing
| backup copies of important documents at your parents
| house to buying a few apartments in Indonesia.
| beAbU wrote:
| Most of the world don't construct their homes out of
| flammable materials, so the risk of the entire place
| going up in flames is quite low. In some places your home
| is uninsurable if you dont have burglar bars on all
| windows.
|
| Regarding dogs: some organophosphate mixed into minced
| meat and lobbed through your fence/gate/open window is an
| instant and quiet way to get rid of a dog - personal
| experience taught me this lesson.
| marklubi wrote:
| Bought my teenage son a couple lock picking kits, he's
| picked almost every single lock we have in our house.
|
| I then picked up a sizable rock, and told him I could get
| into the house faster than he could. He didn't understand
| for a few moments, but the lesson was learned.
| taneq wrote:
| Reminds me of high school when people were buying
| expensive locks for their lockers. These locks, no matter
| how tough, all still locked onto a flimsy 1.5mm steel
| hasp that you could bend with your fingers.
| kstrauser wrote:
| And that's fair and reasonable. Of course you can cut a
| hole in a door. Everyone capable of forming thoughts on the
| subject has seen someone use a saw at some point in their
| life. However, locks greatly exaggerate their abilities, to
| the point you can forgive someone for believing that they
| actually mean them.
|
| I just now went to masterlock.com, clicked HOME & PERSONAL
| > View All Products, and picked the very first product[0].
| It says:
|
| > The 4-pin cylinder prevents picking and the dual locking
| levers provide resistance against prying and hammering.
|
| The very first thing it says is that it _prevents picking_.
| To someone who isn 't familiar with LPL, and who doesn't
| want to have someone pick their lock, this seems like a
| great product. It prevents picking! And it must, because
| otherwise it would be illegal to say that, right? But alas,
| it does not, in fact, prevent picking.
|
| Compare that to a random product page for a household front
| door[1] that says "Steel security plate in the frame helps
| to resist forced entry" and "Reinforced lock area provides
| strength and security for door hardware", which indicates
| that this might be a strong door, but doesn't claim that it
| "prevents someone kicking it in". It _helps_ to resist
| forced entry, but doesn 't say that it _prevents_ it.
|
| [0]https://www.masterlock.com/products/product/130D
|
| [1]https://www.homedepot.com/p/Masonite-36-in-x-80-in-
| Premium-6...
| BobbyTables2 wrote:
| Very good points. Nobody can even legally claim Vitamin
| XYZ prevents cancer/etc even if the lack of it causes
| such.
|
| Big Lock needs to be taken to task...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The difference here is that cutting a hole in a door is a
| destructive operation, like applying bolt cutters to a
| padlock. Lockpicking just operates the lock as designed.
|
| The analogy is probably closer to someone entering your
| home by pushing the doorframe open so that the door opens
| without unlocking the lock, or that many automatic doors
| can be opened by spraying some compressed air through a
| thin sliver, triggering the internal door sensors. Both are
| feasible in practice, leave little evidence behind if done
| well, and do actually surprise a lot of people.
| koolba wrote:
| > It's quite entertaining to see how little security you
| actually get from most locks.
|
| Physical locks are for honest people. They signify that
| something is not meant to be accessed and at best slow down
| someone actively trying to access the other side of the lock.
| amarant wrote:
| They're also effective against incompetent thieves.
| Anecdotally that's a pretty high percentage of thieves you'll
| ward off that way.
| svachalek wrote:
| Exactly. There's a lot of strongly worded stuff in here
| about how easy locks are to defeat, but that's only against
| someone who's practiced the art, which is a very small
| percentage of the population. And in my experience they're
| mostly honest people interested in the technical challenge,
| rather than criminal exploitation. A typical modern lock is
| going to massively slow down or outright stop nearly
| everyone who comes up against it.
| jopsen wrote:
| Yeah, moar burglars aren't the kind who spend 10000 hours
| honing their skills.
|
| People with that kind of dedication can often find
| gainful employment :)
| mrweasel wrote:
| I recall either "The lock picking lawyer" or McNally explains
| that only in 3% of cases are locks picked during a burglary.
| In all other cases windows or doors are simply forced open.
| So at best locks are meant to prevent of crimes of
| opportunities.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Yeah my understanding of burgling is it's all about speed.
| One of the best deterrents you can have is I think called
| "laminate glass,"that doesn't shatter into a bunch of
| pieces when it's hit. It has a tendency to hold together so
| they have to spend precious seconds knocking out more of it
| which almost always makes them run away rather than risk
| it.
|
| If I can go out on a limb here, I also think I recall that
| they have very specific things they look for. For instance
| they will often run straight for the master bedroom and
| start pulling out drawers/checking closets because people
| tend to keep jewelry in there. They want small items.
|
| Anything that slows them down tends to deter them even if
| they make an initial attempt
| eurleif wrote:
| Impact glass is one option. Another option is to have
| security film installed on your existing windows:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_APQ3CzQno
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| Security film! That's the one I was trying to find it
| first but then I found laminate glass and assumed I was
| mistaken.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| You know those super secure double-glazed front doors, with
| the kind of hook things that engage when you push the
| handle up?
|
| You can spudger one of the glass units out and back in from
| the outside, without leaving a mark.
|
| They look better than they are.
| georgefrowny wrote:
| Most uPVC windows and doors should have the beads on the
| inside and a solid profile on the outside.
|
| I have heard of someone cutting through all the plastic
| and pulling the glass out that way, though.
|
| Both rather more obvious that surreptitiously jiggling
| the obscenely crappy Eurocylinder that the door came
| with.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > at best locks are meant to prevent of crimes of
| opportunities
|
| A lock forces the thief to either spend time defeating it
| or physically break something. Even if it doesn't slow him
| down it should hopefully make it visibly obvious that he's
| doing something illicit.
| drew870mitchell wrote:
| IIRC there's a legal distinction between mere
| unauthorized entry and unauthorized entry that involves
| circumventing any kind of lock
| paradox460 wrote:
| This is why the complaint about smart locks being hacked is
| so utterly ridiculous to me. A thief isn't going to hack
| your lock, they're going to bash a window in
| TylerE wrote:
| Smart locks potentially give access to things that
| windows don't, like upper floor apartments.
| upboundspiral wrote:
| Even if I can unlock a hypothetical 90% of physical
| locks, I still need to go in person to every house that
| has one. On the other hand, if I crack one smart lock I
| now have remote access to every home that has one, and I
| can operate on all of them simultaneously. Anything
| internet-connected makes doing damaging things at scale
| much easier.
| linsomniac wrote:
| One day I came into the office and noticed that one of our
| neighbors doors had a triangular hole cut into it near the
| door handle. It was a solid core door on an interior
| hallway. One of our cameras picked up the sound, someone
| brought a chainsaw and in about 30 seconds cut a hole in
| the door so they could reach through and open it from the
| inside. They took the safe, but I was told the safe was
| empty.
|
| Oddly, this is a case where they would have had plenty of
| time to pick the lock as well, and it would have been much
| quieter.
| FridayoLeary wrote:
| Don't know why you are being downvoted because it's true.
| Lots of people wouldn't try to break past a lock but if you
| leave a door open many people would fall for the temptation.
| tim333 wrote:
| It requires a fair amount of skill to pick a lock quickly.
| Someone capable could probably make more money doing
| something legit.
| georgefrowny wrote:
| Having heard of a typical locksmith's rates, if you can
| pick locks well then you really, really do not need to
| resort to burglary.
| sgerenser wrote:
| Yeah, like running a Youtube channel on lock picking.
| taneq wrote:
| Or like being a lawyer?
| rererereferred wrote:
| Or both :)
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Depends, do you count wave-raking as picking? I bought a
| cheap lock-picking set, takes me about 5 minutes to get
| their basic perspex lock open. "Masterlock", wave rake
| opens it in a few seconds -- even my then 10yo could open
| it in <30s.
| dgacmu wrote:
| I think that it's more useful to think of all defenses
| against physical intrusion as increasing the cost of
| intrusion in some way, be that time, skill, risk of being
| caught, access to specialized devices, etc.
|
| Most "normal" locks don't increase the cost too much but they
| do raise it - perhaps enough for a thief to pick another
| target, or perhaps enough for the thief to choose another
| method of entry such as kicking in the door (which itself
| comes with additional risk of detection).
| LogicHound wrote:
| Exactly it is about layers. It is the same with computer
| security. Is my network "unhackable" no. But I've put up
| enough layers of basic security that script kiddies and the
| like won't be able to get in.
| LogicHound wrote:
| Security is about layers. If I have a basic lock, all I want
| to do is stop an opportunist.
|
| I have a vehicle that is extremely simple to steal (you can
| unlock everything with a screwdriver), to protect it I use
| both a pedal lock, a secret second key and a steering wheel
| lock.
|
| Will it defeat a determined thief or a team of thieves? No
| way. However it will put off most opportunists and slow down
| a more experienced thief enough that they may choose another
| target.
| taneq wrote:
| Apparently these days it's sufficient car security simply
| to have a manual transmission. :D
| LogicHound wrote:
| I live in the UK. Almost anyone that can drive a vehicle
| knows how to change gears.
| sct202 wrote:
| And even still, whenever I or a friend has hired a locksmith,
| they try for 5-10 minutes with no success and drill thru the
| lock destroying it.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is to make it look like the job is hard
| RandomBacon wrote:
| Or to sell you an overpriced lock they conveniently have
| for sale and in stock in their vehicle.
| bluGill wrote:
| > overpriced lock they conveniently have for sale and in
| stock in their vehicle
|
| I object to the word overpriced in this context. It costs
| a lot of money to keep locks, tools, and other spare
| parts in a vehicle (including the cost of the vehicle).
| If you need a lock now and they have one it should cost a
| lot more than if you need a lock in 6 months and can wait
| for the factory to get around to making it. When you call
| their locks overpriced you are failing to understand the
| costs and value of having a part on hand.
| jihadjihad wrote:
| LPL is a crown jewel of YouTube. His April Fools' Day videos
| are hilarious, too, like the one where he gets into his wife's
| beaver [0] (SFW).
|
| 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRozAbaKs9M
| bouke wrote:
| The Dutch translation is NSFW though as it translates
| "beaver" as suggested.
| slumberlust wrote:
| Does the Dutch word for beaver also act as a euphemism for
| the body part in Dutch?
| jachee wrote:
| More explicitly so. The Dutch go rodent where Americans
| go feline.
| bouke wrote:
| ~No it sadly doesn't, so the double meaning will be lost
| in translation. If the lock depicted a pussy it would've
| worked though.~
|
| After going over https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seksuele_v
| olkstaal_en_eufemism... it seems that "bever" is
| apparently also used as euphemism. As is "floppy drive"
| TIL!
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| > he routinely destroys bogus claims of various companies
| within seconds
|
| I watched his video on high-security shipping container locks.
| Jeez, two minutes long? They must be tough!
|
| No, it was two minutes long because he bypassed ten of them,
| one after the other.
| masklinn wrote:
| That's McNally rather than LPL.
| LoganDark wrote:
| You are using a Master Lock model 606. It can be opened
| with a Master Lock model 606.
| xnzakg wrote:
| This one? https://youtu.be/_goIYP3FfO8
| QuercusMax wrote:
| My impression of most locks now is that they're really just
| to stop something from being casually broken into or even
| just falling open by accident.
| rolph wrote:
| you are adjacent to the concept that locks are an honest
| persons way of communicating to other honest people that an
| invitation is required.
| bravoetch wrote:
| My dad's wisdom as he cut my bike lock off when I lost the
| key in middle school: "locks keep honest people out."
| MarsIronPI wrote:
| Your dad sounds like a very wise man.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I have a friend who says "gun control keeps law-abiding
| people unarmed."
| smt88 wrote:
| Your friend should look at almost any other Western,
| developed nation for counterexamples
| Grimblewald wrote:
| Gun control gives cause for arresting any law breaking
| people. See how such parables go both ways?
|
| Point is, gun control has led to a reduction in gun crime
| in every country I know of. Thats hard evidence against
| your qippy one-liner.
| db48x wrote:
| Crime had already been falling consistently for several
| hundred years throughout Europe when the first gun-
| licensing and gun-control laws were being passed in the
| Wiemar Republic. You don't need control over weapons to
| reduce crime, you just reduce crime.
|
| Incidentally, a few years later a certain political party
| got their candidate elected Chancellor. He more or less
| immediately ordered the police to use the gun-licensing
| records to identify Jews who owned guns and had them
| arrested. It's actually pretty hilarious, in a very dark
| way, to read some of the arrest reports. When Jews were
| ordered to surrender their weapons to the police, many of
| them brought the weapons to a police station as
| instructed. They politely stood in line while the officer
| at the desk wrote out arrest warrants for them one after
| the other. The crime? Carrying an unlicensed weapon. The
| location? The police station in such-and-such precinct.
| The witness? The officer at the desk. The prisoner?
| Turned over to the SS.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| People who think it's a good idea to walk around with
| weapons should be arrested.
| johnisgood wrote:
| Yeah, but criminals do not care, law-abiding citizens
| do... so who ends up being the victim in such scenarios?
| Typically the law-abiding citizen.
| Grimblewald wrote:
| Not in any civilised country. Criminals do have guns in
| my country but firearm use is incredibly rare and use is
| restricted to crim V cop and crim v crim because police
| response and enforcement are so harsh for gun crime it
| isnt worth it unless it quite literally becomes life or
| death.
|
| So then non criminals, while not armed with guns, face no
| real gun violence because even getting access to guns
| requires critical thinking and intelligence at least
| sufficient to understand risk vs reward well enough to
| understand civilian pop isn't a reasonable use case for
| firearms. Any firearm related incident here is a multi
| week news item. Stuff thats everyday in the USA and
| doesnt even make local news.
|
| So, our cops and our criminals are armed, and i can trust
| my kids wont get shot up in school, i wont get shot in a
| store robbery, or by a disgruntled coworker etc.
|
| You dont quite understand how bad it is I think, USA
| americans who move here have an adjustment period and
| usually need mental health support coping with leaving a
| country where getting shot in a road rage incident, for
| example, is a real risk. I had a colleague driving break
| down after cutting someone off accidentally, the cut off
| swerved ahead of us aggressivly stopped traffic got out
| and started shouting. Eventually wore themsleves out, as
| they do, got vack in car and kept driving. Didnt stress
| me too bad but my coworker driving totally shut down.
| Why? A year earlier a coworker in the USA did something
| similar and the person with road rage got out and started
| shooting at their car.
|
| That's not normal. Not even close.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > police response and enforcement are so harsh for gun
| crime it isnt worth it
|
| That's the key right there. USA enforcement is far less
| than what it needs to be, especially in (dare I say it)
| Democrat-controlled local districts.
|
| The number of soft-on-crime DAs elected has increased
| significantly in the last 30 years, and the fraction of
| violent crime cases that are left unsolved has also
| increased significantly.
|
| It's gotten so bad that a lot of conspiracy theories are
| circulating, like "Davos people want to destabilize the
| US, so George Soros is donating millions through his Open
| Foundation to soft-on-crime DA local election campaigns."
| Grimblewald wrote:
| USA has no gun control and has just had a similar
| political upheaval, with zero armed resistence.
|
| lets not pretend.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Gun control gives cause for arresting people who are
| armed
|
| FTFY
| Grimblewald wrote:
| Yup. I think that is a neat and internally consistent
| statement that doesnt omit facts. One can do with that
| statement what one wants, but if carrying arms becomes
| extremely risky, if using arms carries an burden akin to
| dying, you can bet that criminals who are quite good at
| weighing risk v reward will not be running amok.
| president_zippy wrote:
| I like my 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendment rights.
|
| I don't want to live in a world where cops can stop
| people for speeding and use it as probable cause to
| search my car.
|
| I also don't want to live in an environment where when
| I'm seconds away from danger, my only protection is
| minutes away.
|
| _Warren v. DC_ also clearly established that police
| departments cannot be held civilly liable for even gross
| negligence of duty.
|
| "You can all go to hell. I'm going to Texas."
|
| -Davy Crockett
| Grimblewald wrote:
| With guns being uncontrolled police have plausible
| deniability on demand to gun down anyone they like. No
| free unrestricted gun access means gunning down people as
| they please isnt justifiable anymore.
|
| so if its about safety, in a country actively descended
| into facism, aren't you worried about freedom of
| political expression given you can just be gunned down at
| a moments notice and it gets brushed away?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Point is, gun control has led to a reduction in gun
| crime in every country I know of. Thats hard evidence
| against your qippy one-liner.
|
| That's a tautology - of course it did. The real questions
| are - what percentage of violent crimes were committed
| with guns after after gun control, how much did overall
| violent crime decrease after gun control, and to what
| extent was gun control provably responsible for the
| reduction of violent crime (when statistically
| controlling for other factors that reduce violent crime)?
|
| The overall slope of the violent crime curve has been
| negative, but the value may have been _more_ negative if
| it were not for gun control.
|
| Also, I think history will bear this out in the coming
| centuries -- totalitarianism and terrorism can flourish
| far better when citizens are unarmed.
| Grimblewald wrote:
| Youre missing an important detail - how many deaths /
| maimings per violent offense. If violent offences dont
| drop but those do, worth no? How about school shooters -
| will people no longer crash out and attack their
| classmates? No. We havent solved the underlying issue,
| however, such a crashout sans guns seems siginificantly
| more preferable to me.
|
| besides, the usa has proven that freedom to access guns
| doesnt protect you from dictatorships / authoritarian
| governments. That was the main stated constitutional
| reason for having that right.
|
| So the USA hasn't seen any benefits from free gun access
| ans has lost uncountbaly many lives to death and trauma.
| How is it still justified?
| tenuousemphasis wrote:
| I assume your friend never bothers to lock their door?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Locking doors makes legal follow-up easier: "The deceased
| - do you know if he broke and entered?" "Yes, your honor.
| I always lock my doors at night. Exhibit A is a video of
| him busting the door down after trying the doorknob."
| president_zippy wrote:
| Your friend sounds like a good guy. Hopefully you're with
| him when you're out in public, and some sicko goes postal
| or some bum with a drug addiction starts waving a knife
| at you.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I definitely feel safer when I'm around him :)
|
| He has very carefully rehearsed a lot of situations in
| his mind, and I'm confident he would only draw his weapon
| when actual lives are in imminent danger (like an active
| armed assailant situation).
| president_zippy wrote:
| I used to be a competitive marksman through JROTC, and
| the FUD around firearms is so overblown compared to the
| fear most people should have while driving their car or
| doing certain jobs.
|
| A chem lab staffed only by trained professionals is still
| a lot more dangerous than an indoor range in a red state.
| A firearm in Cletus' hands is a lot safer than a beaker
| of sulfuric acid in anybody's hands, let alone piranha
| solution.
|
| And all of that is nothing compared to the danger of
| being on a road with other cars, many of which are
| operated by people who simply do not give a f***.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| 100% agree. But - firearms (combined with training and
| skill) carry far more risk asymmetry compared to cars,
| sulfuric acid beakers, or even explosives. I think that's
| why there's more fear around letting people carry them.
| The potential damage to personal risk ratio is higher
| with firearms.
|
| But the root public policy problem is the same no matter
| what the weapon is: violent criminals will harm people,
| others generally won't. So the most effective policies
| have to lean heavily on good police and DA behavior, to
| make sure violent criminals aren't able to keep harming
| people. Going after the weapons criminals use is
| effectively a red herring if known violent criminals are
| still generally at large. Any policy intended to reduce
| violent crime will fail insofar as cases continue to go
| unsolved, and police, DAs, and courts don't enforce the
| law when the identities of violent criminals are known.
| adonese wrote:
| That's a really well put. We are expecting a son soon and
| as I was reading this read and your comment, I couldn't
| help but asking myself will I ever say anything that my
| son will remember for years. And how can I be prepared.
| pdonis wrote:
| Or to make it clear that if someone _does_ break the lock,
| they didn 't have your permission to get at whatever it was
| protecting.
| taneq wrote:
| Yep, it's like those security screws, they're not used to
| stop you opening the box, they're used to prove that you
| knew you shouldn't be opening the box.
| db48x wrote:
| Most of the time they're just there to make you _think_
| that you shouldn't be opening the box. In the US the
| Magnusen-Moss Warranty Act of 1977 explicitly prohibits
| companies from voiding any warranty merely because the
| owner opened up the device, repaired it, or had it
| repaired.
| MarkMarine wrote:
| I've watched LPL videos and practiced on regular locks, I
| can pick something that is about 10$ or less, but these
| expensive locks with good tolerances (Abus) or disc
| detainer cores (kryptonite locks,) no amount of practice
| and fiddling with the correct tools has ever opened one of
| these. I lack the skill or touch.
|
| I can hold a 18v grinder with a cutoff wheel just fine
| though, I lost the keys to one of those kryptonite locks on
| my bike and I was riding my bike again 30 seconds later.
| plumeria wrote:
| Can he pick an Assa Abloy lock though?
| Intermernet wrote:
| Many, often, quickly.
| JCM9 wrote:
| Great channel, and yes the ineffectiveness of nearly all
| commercially available locks is depressing. At best it would
| briefly slow down a skilled picker.
| legitster wrote:
| > It's quite entertaining to see how little security you
| actually get from most locks.
|
| Yeah, one of my conclusions after years of watching LPL is
| ironically to start buying cheaper locks.
|
| The difference between a $3 and a $300 lock is just about a
| minute of time for an experienced lockpick. No lock is capable
| of dissuading a determined thief, but any lock is equally
| capable of dissuading a lazy one.
| jaggederest wrote:
| The best policy is to have a lock that is resistant to
| cutting and destruction, with a trivial key. Nobody tries to
| pick a lock, and if they do, they're winning. Most or all
| breakins happen through brute force not technical
| sophistication, so a decent chunk of metal is a fine
| adaptation.
| dfltr wrote:
| Good old "sketch-resistant materials". If a tweaker can't
| get through your lock/chain before the cops (might) show
| up, you're probably fine.
|
| When all else fails, drummers are the best security anyway:
| https://loudwire.com/sleeping-drummer-stops-band-trailer-
| the...
| briHass wrote:
| About the only thing I've seen that qualifies is the no-
| car, metal gates to walking/camping trails in State Parks
| (PA, anyway.) The key-lock is surrounded by a 1/2" steel
| can, with only the bottom open and some distance to the
| lock itself. Attempting to pick that would mean being
| upside down 2 feet off the ground. The steel shroud would
| thwart a casual angle-grinder for long enough not to
| bother.
|
| Most other security for locks I've seen could be defeated
| with 60 seconds and a 3" cutoff tool that fits in a pocket.
| kraussvonespy wrote:
| Yep. The low hanging fruit principle in action. You can't
| make anything completely secure so you put up more obstacles
| than your neighbor so the attackers go visit the neighbor
| instead.
|
| Or in the case of targets with no neighbors like missile
| bases, you know approximately how long it might take an
| attacker to succeed, then put big guys with guns within that
| distance measured by time.
| themafia wrote:
| Unless you're a retail jewelry store. Then you are
| absolutely the main target in your area.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| I came to the same conclusion with my bike. What's the point
| of an expensive and heavy chain lock, when the thief will
| break or bypass it anyway.
|
| So I just fot a cheap wire combination lock, just so you
| can't just jump in the bike and ride away.
| drdo wrote:
| It's completely different to snip a cheap wire lock or even
| just pull hard on it and have the lock break versus pulling
| out the angle grinder and making a huge racket for a
| minute.
| jwr wrote:
| Oh, this is where I disagree. A wire can be quietly and
| discreetly cut with wire cutters in seconds. This is no
| protection at all. It's just inconvenience for you.
|
| What I've been using for years is a heavy chain with a lock
| (disc-detainer style). The chain weighs around 3.5kg. You
| can of course cut it with an angle grinder, but have you
| ever tried cutting a chain with an angle grinder without a
| vise? The chain slips away and it's really difficult to
| hold it in place for the cutting, which would take more
| than a minute.
|
| All those Kryptonite-style U-locks have the disadvantage of
| being easily fixed in place for the cutting. They are also
| useless for attaching your bike to large trees, street
| lights, etc.
|
| Remember that if a bear is chasing you, you don't have to
| outrun the bear, you only have to outrun your friends. If
| there are 4 bikes and my bike is the most difficult to
| steal, I'm fine.
| themafia wrote:
| I use the locks my insurance company recommends. That's who
| it's there for anyways.
|
| The other side is "career" thieves will know how to pop-can
| shim a lock but most of them are not going to use or break
| out a set of picks. One main reason it's an additional felony
| charge if you get caught using them. So a _slightly_ better
| lock is sometimes warranted for outdoor applications.
|
| The final piece is they'll just steal a car and then drive
| that car through your shop front to get what they want. Up
| here in Northern California a gang pulled off the same heist
| as the movie "Casino." They drove a van up to a wall and then
| knocked out a small segment of the wall to gain entry.
| mrheosuper wrote:
| >The difference between a $3 and a $300 lock is just about a
| minute of time for an experienced lockpick.
|
| How about non-experienced lockpick? Or the one who gonna
| brute force everything? I think there's value is expensive
| lock (Assume you buy the high quality one, not the over-price
| one)
| tim333 wrote:
| I'm considering an angle grinder resistant lock for the
| bicycle. They are not totally uncuttable but it means you
| have to be stood there for a couple of minutes changing worn
| cutting disks and the like. Quite expensive though.
| userbinator wrote:
| The fact that he is actually a lawyer probably helps greatly,
| both in terms of what he can legally do, and as a deterrence to
| others trying to sue.
| mothballed wrote:
| This also works on places like HN. I will often make an
| argument in my normal, working class low educated redneck
| hick sort of writing style. People will assume I have an
| unsophisticated basis for my argument and are way more likely
| to debate me on it. They like to attack an 'easy' target and
| even better if they are culturally seen as different.
|
| If I use my pretend upper well-to-do white guy rhetoric with
| precise and deep vocabulary, I can make claims with a lower
| likelihood someone will challenge it, even if they are
| equally well backed.
| tuetuopay wrote:
| The most absurd thing is the original video response from the
| company was good, and with a very compelling argument: their
| customers never saw shimming in the field. Their user base don't
| need shimming resistance: security needs to be adequate, not
| perfect. And they follow-up by presenting options about people
| requiring the lock to be shim-proof.
|
| Granted, in this day and age, it's a disgrace to still make locks
| that can be shimmed. Especially when the shim-proof alternatives
| they show just have an additional notch to catch the shim.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| > their customers never saw shimming in the field.
|
| This is arguably good PR, but a terrible response. Shimming is
| so quick and hard to detect that even if you had 24-7 video of
| the lock, you probably wouldn't notice that the lock had been
| shimmed. You would just assume that someone lost a key.
| masklinn wrote:
| Also the company sold a picking-proof version... at a higher
| price.
| masklinn wrote:
| shimming proof not picking, sorry just noticed the entirely
| wrong word
| yreg wrote:
| It's a trailer hitch lock. If someone steals your trailer
| then you definitely do notice. And if they just shim the lock
| and put it back then it doesn't really matter.
| robotnikman wrote:
| I wonder how many stories like this are caused simply because a
| corporate lawyer is looking for some work to do, and maybe to
| meet some kind of internal KPI.
| pcaharrier wrote:
| Former in-house lawyer here and in my experience the answer is
| something like "probably less than you think." The job of the
| lawyer is to advise the client and (within the bounds of
| ethical rules) advocate for their position, not to come up what
| the company's position should be.
| robotnikman wrote:
| Interesting, thanks for the insight!
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Honest question.
|
| Is it the job of an in-house lawyer (or any lawyer) to say
| that this appears to be a vexatious or SLAPP case, and the
| client should not pursue it?
|
| Is there an ethical obligation not to get involved in a case
| that you know is being prosecuted in bad faith?
| pkilgore wrote:
| Within the limits of their knowledge/ability, yes. Some
| bosses make it clear they do not like being told no,
| however. YMMV if you continue to work for such people.
|
| The bar there is very high. This case might be embarrassing
| but probably isn't sanctionable. And the only lawyer that
| would get sanctioned would be the ones that signed the
| papers not the drone that hired them.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Under questioning, however, one of Proven's employees admitted
| that he had been able to duplicate McNally's technique, leading
| to the question from McNally's lawyer: "When you did it yourself,
| did it occur to you for one moment that maybe the best thing to
| do, instead of file a lawsuit, was to fix [the lock]?"
|
| Sometimes a single question tells you how the entire case is
| going to go.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > On July 7, the company dismissed the lawsuit against McNally
| instead.
|
| > Proven also made a highly unusual request: Would the judge
| please seal almost the entire court record--including the request
| to seal?
|
| Tough at first then running away with the tail between their
| legs. Typical bullying behavior.
|
| > but Proven complained about a "pattern of intimidation and
| harassment by individuals influenced by Defendant McNally's
| content."
|
| They have to know it's generated by their own lawsuit and how
| they approached it, right? They can't be that oblivious to turn
| around and say "Judge, look at all the craziness this generated,
| we just have to seal the records!". It's like an ice-cream cone
| that licks itself.
|
| > the case became a classic example of the Streisand Effect, in
| which the attempt to censor information can instead call
| attention to it.
|
| A constant reminder to keep the people who don't know what they
| are doing (including the owners of the company!) from the social
| media.
| embedding-shape wrote:
| > A constant reminder to keep the people who don't know what
| they are doing (including the owners of the company!) from the
| social media.
|
| I'm just guessing based on the contents of the article, but it
| sounds like a typical "hard-fist founder-run company" so good
| luck convincing the founder to not sit on social media and
| argue their points.
| dekhn wrote:
| also known as the 'double down on stupid' and 'triple down on
| stupid'
| seanhunter wrote:
| This is known as the "Randy Pitchford" social media strat.
| jeltz wrote:
| We recently had an example of that with Automattic and the
| WordPress drama. Where the founder was here on HN hurting
| his own legal case despite people here repeatedly told him
| to stop posting for his own sake and asking him to talk to
| his lawyers.
| jalapenos wrote:
| Seeing someone post here a screenshot of case filings
| that included a screenshot of that founder's HN comments
| thereafter was golden.
| SacToHacker wrote:
| If you want an extreme example of this; go look at the
| Sacramento startup Sircles. 7+ year old "startup" that has sub
| $100k revenue after several years but 9 million in debt. The
| founder has an account there under u/Sirclesapp where he goes
| off on toxic and insane tirades to anyone who dares say
| anything but utmost praise at his app. Apparently he stalks
| their reddit accounts and sends threatening letters to their
| personal home addresses from his lawyer for "defamation". That
| I understand he sent one to some ex employees and one to some
| woman who I think is a paralegal and is now suing them in civil
| court.
|
| He partnered with some radio program called radradio where the
| host had a lot of personal issues and the show ultimately got
| axed. The radio host was known for having issues with alcohol,
| but they kept partnering with him because he kept shilling
| their WeFunder. They've raised over $6m in SAFEs but
| considering they are $9m in debt, haven't broken $100k lifetime
| revenue after 7 years, and seem to have over a million a year
| burn rate, it's doubtful that the shares from those SAFEs (if
| ever executed) would ever be in the money.
| karlgkk wrote:
| Wow, it seems like the whole purpose of the product is
| grievance based against yelp. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a
| fan of yelp, but I get the vibe that maybe this person would
| be even more extractive if given the opportunity
| eru wrote:
| > [...] go look at the Sacramento startup Sircles. 7+ year
| old "startup" that has sub $100k revenue after several years
| but 9 million in debt.
|
| Going on a tangent:
|
| Depending on your industry, taking a while to see any revenue
| is common. Eg look into biotech or the people trying to make
| atomic fusion a reality.
|
| Debt is just as valid a way to finance your company as equity
| is. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modigliani%E2%80%93Mill
| er_theo... for the theory.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Depending on your industry, taking a while to see any
| revenue is common.
|
| That is true. But Sircles, which appears to be just another
| social recommendation app, is not in one of those
| industries.
| eru wrote:
| Oh, even without looking into it, I would assume that
| Sircles is probably pretty dodgy. I just meant that
| SacToHacker's original points against it aren't
| necessarily bad. But can be damning in the context of
| their industry, yes!
| vibrio wrote:
| True. and a screwdriver is as just a valid tool as a
| hammer. Though their use isn't always interchangeable .
| ejoso wrote:
| This is cool. Love little tangential info bombs like this.
| Thanks.
| koolala wrote:
| Cool but Sircles isn't a biotech company. It's a social
| network. They arn't "trying to make atomic fusion a
| reality" either.
| eru wrote:
| Oh, definitely. I was just nerding out about finance.
|
| Yes, Sircles is probably pretty dodgy.
| kennyadam wrote:
| That is cool! Sorry for nerding out just then.
| anitil wrote:
| They also made sloppy mistakes like naming the Proven owner's
| partner un-redacted in a document they submitted to the court
| (which is then available through legal search engines). If they
| were concerned with privacy they could easily have withheld her
| name.
| bux93 wrote:
| The one time security through obscurity would have helped
| them?
| szszrk wrote:
| That would be more like: shuffling that document randomly
| between other documents, or using white font on a white
| page in Word.
| cestith wrote:
| Obscurity is often a valid security tactic, just not all
| the time and never by itself.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Guy who paid someone to throw a brick through his ex wife's
| window is insensed at being intimidated.
| ljm wrote:
| There is delicious irony in the owner of a lock company being
| so insecure.
| DecentShoes wrote:
| The company who sued him is, still, embarrassingly, attempting
| to hold a social media presence, despite getting exposed as
| fraudsters and bullies:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/@provenindustries8236
| 7moritz7 wrote:
| > Proven Is so secure that if they detect a robber trying to
| lock pick they sue them.
|
| Incredible
| qwertox wrote:
| That article just kept getting better and better.
|
| Also:
|
| > "Sucks to see how many people take everything they see online
| for face value," one Proven employee wrote. "Sounds like a
| bunch of liberals lol."
|
| So when a great product is not a great product, it turns out to
| be great alone for the fact of being built by republicans.
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I think their point was that the lock picking videos were
| faked. But it's still a silly comment from the Proven
| employee.
|
| I've also seen people use "liberal" as a literal curse word
| before. On one "reality show", a member of the cast broke
| down while highly intoxicated and started screaming at other
| people saying:
|
| "You're worse than a _beep_! You're a liberal"
|
| It's insane just how far the political divide has become.
| 0xEF wrote:
| _Othering_ is easier than _improving._ An old philosophy
| professor taught me that at a community college when we
| started getting on the subject of philosophy in politics.
| This was probably 20-something years ago, now, but one of
| the many things that stuck with me from his teaching, and
| makes even more sense now than it did then.
| cassepipe wrote:
| Surely this philosophy has great value if you still
| believe your adversary is misguided but still well-
| intentionned
|
| But if your adversary is lying knowingly to everyone
| saying you are a criminal and should be locked up or
| deported then I wonder what's there to improve
|
| The game of cooperation only works if you're not playing
| with someone who is constantly trying to exploit your
| cooperation attempts
| cassepipe wrote:
| Surely _both_ sides are responsible even though it only
| started happening once a certain political figure popped up
| started calling his meekest opponents murderers and
| criminals and having crowds chant for them to be locked up
| frumplestlatz wrote:
| Is "Basket of Deplorables" ringing any bells?
| DirkH wrote:
| This was a once unscripted statement that she never
| repeated again her entire campaign. She expressed regret
| immediately after making it (not after losing) explaining
| how it was grossly generalistic but stood by that it does
| describe a large chunk of Trump's base.
|
| Can you name one time Trump immediately regretted what he
| said about the Left and explained that it was an
| overgeneralization? Also again, in Clinton's case it was
| a single unscripted statement. By contrast Trump has a
| pattern of calling opponents vermin, the anti-christ,
| evil, warning of a bloodbath to come... Yea the left's
| attacks on the right just don't seem nearly as bad
| especially if it is just being called "deplorable" once.
| I could write a book that is just hateful Trump quotes.
| Ganna print it and give it to my son one day as
| inspiration for how to be an honourable leader. /s
|
| I say all this as a Canadian that would have voted for
| Trump in 2016 if I could have.
| immibis wrote:
| That was proven correct, so what are you saying the
| problem is?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| If I remember right, she said that half his supporters
| were a basket of deplorables. This right after a study
| was published suggesting that about half of conservatives
| were unconsciously racist.
|
| So she wasn't wrong, but saying that out loud was pretty
| stupid.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| You're right, it's _the other side_ that 's feeding the
| political divide!
| hnlmorg wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's a recent phenomenon. It's just
| reached absurd levels.
|
| As for who's responsible, there's plenty of blame to go
| around. However it's hard to deny that conduct of one
| party is far _far_ less professional than the other
| party.
|
| I honestly think politicians should be thrown in jail for
| lying. But that will never happen because they're all too
| busy being corrupt; the entire lot of them.
| moomin wrote:
| Yeah, I noticed that. I'd put money on not a single person in
| this whole dispute being a liberal at all.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| That was probably the final straw for me. Well, one of the
| final straws. Imagine trying to politicise this.
| itchyjunk wrote:
| Shushh, don't tell people about Streisand Effect.
| strangattractor wrote:
| One thing Proven might have done is to analyze the attack. Then
| see if the lock could be improved to prevent it. Offer
| exchanges for the old locks (most of which are unlikely to be
| requested). Instead they resort to Lawyers, refuse to solve the
| problem and waste everyones time and money.
| zahlman wrote:
| So... what _should_ we be using for physical security?
| shagie wrote:
| The question is "what do you want to secure against?" Describe
| the threat and then go from there. What are you securing? Is it
| meth-head or teenager? Or is it person determined to get in
| while making your insurance grill you over "did you lock it?"
| alistairSH wrote:
| In the case of a trailer, you do some combination of...
|
| - Receiver pin lock similar to the one highlighted here (but
| probably not that exact one) - Wheel lock / boot - Receiver
| coupler lock (locks inside the cup-shaped receiver, preventing
| somebody towing the trailer with an undersized ball) - Secured
| storage lot / garage
|
| But, basically all options are only going to stop random
| opportunistic thieves. If somebody really wants whatever you're
| protecting, they'll find a way. That's why insurance exists.
| teekert wrote:
| Just clicked around after watching the vid and stumbled onto
| [0]. So there are locks he recommends... When it requires focus
| + several minutes to pick.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrV86GqlY8o
| shagie wrote:
| Long (often an hour long) with significant snark videos going
| over the filings:
| https://www.youtube.com/@RunkleOfTheBailey/search?query=Prov...
| modeless wrote:
| > In the end, Proven's lawsuit likely cost the company serious
| time and cash--and generated little but bad publicity.
|
| There's no such thing as bad publicity. People say this for a
| reason. It's true. I'm willing to bet that their sales have only
| increased since this started.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Who is in the market for a product that doesn't work as
| advertised?
| leni536 wrote:
| Lockpicking youtubers? But I guess that market got exhausted
| early on.
| paxys wrote:
| There's absolutely such a thing as bad publicity. Entire
| products and even companies have tanked because of bad
| publicity. I don't know why this myth continues to be so
| prevalent.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| I think the saying is for people who can take the bad
| publicity and use it to their advantage.
| henry2023 wrote:
| I didn't buy a Juicero back in 2015. Seems like I was not the
| only one.
| modeless wrote:
| Bad publicity doesn't guarantee success for a bad product.
| But it doesn't doom a good one either.
| ktallett wrote:
| You're right! I'm off to the next Fyre festival and making sure
| my bag is secure with a Proven lock..... I wonder if Dassani
| still exist so I definitely can quench my thirst.
| jasonjmcghee wrote:
| Humane Pin?
| rkhassen9 wrote:
| Um...shouldn't Proven just hire Trevor McNally as a consultant or
| heck, make him a partner? I mean...can you imagine the next level
| reputation they'd have if they can adapt and make a Trevor-proof
| lock?
|
| I'd buy it.
| zem wrote:
| clearly proven needs to sue whoever initiated that lawsuit for
| "mockery produced for the purpose of humiliating plaintiff".
| tptacek wrote:
| The whole case is up on RECAP:
|
| https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70036390/proven-industr...
| vladmk wrote:
| Yeah saw this - I can't believe a company would steer so far
| wrong...
| dekhn wrote:
| I once worked for a company that kept its passwords locked in a
| safe. One day, all other copies of the password were lost, and
| they needed it, but the safe's key could not be found.
|
| They expensed a sledgehammer and obtained the password through
| physical modification of the safe using a careful application of
| force. Some employees complained that meant the safe wasn't...
| well, safe.
|
| The security team replied "Working as Intended" - no safe is
| truly safe, it's just designed to slow down an attacker. At that
| moment, I was enlightened.
| russdill wrote:
| Excellent koan
| Terr_ wrote:
| All Security Hinges on the arrival Of people
| with guns
| cwsx wrote:
| Obligatory xkcd
|
| https://xkcd.com/538/
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| please stop mention this anymore, I gonna crazy
| hrimfaxi wrote:
| I thought maybe cwsx was posting this often but that
| doesn't seem to be the case. Is it that that xkcd is
| basically a HN trope at this point?
| deaux wrote:
| If you do a site search you'll find 700+ comments linking
| to it. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the number one
| most frequently linked page in HN history.
| nocman wrote:
| And Randall _deserves_ EVERY single one of them, IMHO!
| maybewhenthesun wrote:
| Please mention/link it even _more_. All security nerds
| _need_ to see this comic once a month.
| tonyhart7 wrote:
| once a month???? I literally see this once every 2 days
|
| every comment that has little bit content of
| security/cryptography/secure/blockchain/CIA etc always
| mention this particular entry
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Just wait until you discover '10,000'.
| rprwhite wrote:
| It's tonyhart7's lucky day https://xkcd.com/1053/
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Why? Everyone knows about rubber-hose cryptanalysis. The
| whole point of cryptography is to _reduce them to this_.
|
| If they want our information, they should have to become
| literal tyrants, send armed men after us and violate
| human rights in order to get it. Not push a button on a
| computer to tap into their warrantless global dragnet
| surveilance networks and suddenly have our entire private
| lives revealed to them on a computer screen.
|
| Yes, people will fold if they are kidnapped and tortured.
| That's not news. Forcing them to stoop to that is the
| entire design. Once the situation has escalated to that
| level, you are justified in killing them in self-defense.
| Torturers don't make a habit of allowing their victims to
| live and testify about it.
| Dilettante_ wrote:
| >Everyone knows
|
| Don't make me link 1053 ;)
| gweinberg wrote:
| It's really pretty stupid. Your encryption is there in
| case your laptop gets stolen. If you have people willing
| and able to kidnap and torture you to get your data, you
| have much bigger problems than the fact that they'll
| probably get it.
| atoav wrote:
| Why? There are actually valuable takeaways from this.
|
| One would be that people are the weak point in your
| security system. If all your organizational security
| hinges on one guy not folding, that guy is the natural
| target. Whether a literal 5$ wrench is used or they bribe
| him makes no difference.
|
| That means you could consider shaping your org in a way
| that is resistent against this by e.g. decentralizing
| secrets. That means instead of bringing a "5$ wrench" to
| one person (which may even work without raising
| suspicion), you now need to convince multiple people at
| once which is much more unlikely to work without being
| detected.
| ljm wrote:
| All you need to do is s/wrench/social engineering/ and
| you will understand exactly why it's such an effective--
| if not infallible--vector of attack.
|
| The only defence is to _not have the secret at all_.
| atoav wrote:
| In a similar way sometimes the best way to protect data
| is not to collect it of if you collect it not keep it
| around in its raw form.
|
| As for secrets, you sometimes need to have them for very
| good reasons. If you can reach the same goals without a
| secret while having the same protection going without a
| secret is a good choice.
|
| But let's assume if you want the cryptographic
| protections of confidentiality (through encryption),
| authenticity (through signatures) and integrity (also
| through signatures or hashes) chances are someone
| somewhere has to store a secret. If that someone isn't
| you it is someone else (or something else).
|
| But if you want to protect data with encryption and you
| should be the only one who can decrypt it I don't really
| know how you would do it without any form of secret.
| razodactyl wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/538/ LOOK AT IT
| spigottoday wrote:
| Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (movie).
| astroflection wrote:
| All security is merely a fantasy of mortal
| people.
| kqr wrote:
| Slow down -- sometimes. But for the most part, locks are more
| like envelopes. They produce evidence of tampering.
| eru wrote:
| > They produce evidence of tampering.
|
| That's why one of the more advanced challenges in lock
| picking is to minimize the amount of evidence you leave. Eg
| even a normal pick can leave some scratches on and in the
| lock in different places than a normal key.
|
| If I remember right, 'bumping' is an interesting technique
| partially because it leaves even less of a trace.
| implements wrote:
| Yep. There's a safe engineer on YouTube who was explaining
| the history of dial combination locks commonly used for
| government filing cabinets, etc. He pointed out that you can
| drill them in minutes but you'd need several hours to make
| good the damage such that the break in wouldn't be easily
| detected. The combined time is therefore the 'strength' of
| the security. (Also, why it might be a good idea to have open
| sensors on safes, cabinets, etc)
| lexszero_ wrote:
| Not sure if you're referring to DeviantOllam or someone
| else, but here is his awesome talk on safes:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z_Jv7vuiqg
|
| He is a great source of knowledge on physical security for
| laymen and professionals alike, and leaves an impression of
| an extremely amicable and well-rounded human being.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yup, I've got a three bolt break in resistant front door in
| my house, but right next to it is a window that can be
| breached in .5 seconds by yeeting a brick though it. But both
| will leave traces if they've been forced so my home owner's
| insurance should cover any losses / damages.
| hopelite wrote:
| That seems to be a rather weak security, especially relying
| on "...should cover..." to save you, which I presume you
| have also never been able to test. And that's without
| addressing common mistakes like not realizing the policy is
| for cash value and requires evidence; which people do not
| have, is not updated, or is not compliant. That can leave
| people with effectively no coverage at all, with the only
| test being run in deployed systems... the first time you
| check if your arms supplier provided quality arms, is when
| you're facing the enemy trying to kill your at the front
| lines.
| showerst wrote:
| "Having windows in your home is weak security": The
| trade-off between usability and security incarnate.
| jama211 wrote:
| You're right, they should board up all their windows or
| live in a concrete box.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Which is why McNally (the youtube in the title) demonstrating
| poor locks that can be opened by simple bypass attacks like
| shimming or whacking is especially damning for those locks.
| You can always destroy a lock with brute force, preferably
| power tools. You also spend years honing your lock-picking
| skills and open any keyed lock in less than a minute, but
| good locks make this a difficult craft. But shimming a
| padlock or whacking a masterlock with another masterlock
| takes no skill, doesn't leave evidence and allows you to
| relock it when you are done. It defeats every protection the
| lock was supposed to provide
| al_borland wrote:
| Most locks are there to keep honest people honest.
| hvenev wrote:
| From what I remember, the quality of a safe is measured in
| minutes, with "15-minute" safes being OK for general use.
| Beretta_Vexee wrote:
| I worked on port facilities. Everything corrodes quite quickly,
| and locks and keys need to be replaced fairly regularly. Once,
| there was a problem with key management following the
| replacement of locks on a building containing emergency diesel
| generators.
|
| The doors were heavy, 45-minute fire-rated security doors, aka
| "Fucking heavy doors that can cut your fingers just from
| inertia or wind.".
|
| These doors had to be opened quickly in the middle of the
| night. There was no locksmith on call, but there were
| boilermakers. Supports and a chain were welded to the doors,
| and a T-Rex container mover was used to carefully pull the
| doors off the building.
|
| The whole operation took less than an hour. Physical security
| is a matter of time and resources.
| atoav wrote:
| I mean theoretically ever the hardest encryption just buys you
| time. That time may be long past the lifetime of our own sun,
| but it just buys you time.
|
| The same is true for locks and safes as well.
|
| Being one of the few people who never had their bicycle stolen
| in a city where this is common, the trick that always works is:
| Just make your lock harder to attack than other locks that
| safeguard comparable things. Good lock + old
| looking bicycle = no theft
|
| Unless your stuff is unique and high stakes that means regular
| criminals won't pick you since the surrounding stuff looks more
| intersting and is the easier target.
| tim333 wrote:
| I think 'one time pad' encryption can't be decrypted unless
| you get the key, even given infinite time.
| K0balt wrote:
| Depends on the length of the key vs the message, but if the
| pad is 100 percent and has something approaching a random
| distribution, and the message length is suitably padded,
| and the results roll over in a modulo that is close to the
| information distribution, then all valid results become
| close to equally probable, so, while you may decode a
| message, it is very unlikely to be the message that was
| sent.
|
| Still lots of ways to crack a poorly executed OTP.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| > Good lock + old looking bicycle = no theft
|
| "I parked my old, crappy bike and started locking it. Some
| guy went past and said, "Don't worry, love - no-one will nick
| that", and a passing crackhead said "I fuckin' would", and we
| three strangers shared a moment of humour together. "
| smartbit wrote:
| I'd say Good lock1 + old looking bicycle = no
| theft 1 attached to solid fence or bicycle rack
| muyuu wrote:
| reminds me of how a few years ago it became fashionable to say
| that "walls don't work"
| HexPhantom wrote:
| When the theory hits reality with a sledgehammer
| Animats wrote:
| However, for good safes, there's a rating on how long it
| takes.[1] Ratings start at TL-15, for 15 minute resistance
| against hand tools. They go up to TXTL-60: torch, explosive and
| tool resisting for 60 minutes. Safes with these ratings will
| have a metal plate indicating UL testing and approval.
|
| If there are any rated safes on Amazon, I can't find them. A
| real TL-30 1 cubic foot safe sells for about $2000 and weighs
| about 500 pounds. Amazon sells something that looks similar for
| about $100 and weighs about 15 pounds.
|
| There's a separate set of ratings for fire protection, from the
| NFPA. Fire safes are much simpler. They have more insulating
| materials and less steel.
|
| [1] https://www.vaultandsafe.com/vault-safe-classifications/
| duxup wrote:
| It kinda fits how I feel sometimes.
|
| Folks come up with some super secure idea for securing my
| account and I think "Yeah but maybe I forget the thing ... I do
| still want to access it."
| croes wrote:
| > Proven argued that it would be difficult for an untrained user
| to perform.
|
| That's are exactly the people who usually break locks. All others
| fail on simple locks too.
| croes wrote:
| > Lee's partner and his mother both "received harassing messages
| through Facebook Messenger," while other messages targeted Lee's
| son, saying things like "I would kill your f--ing n--- child" and
| calling him a "racemixing pussy."
|
| Some people always go too far, undermining the good cause of the
| others
| anitil wrote:
| If anyone is interested in the legal side, I'd also recommend
| 'Runkle of the Bailey' who has a series on this saga but with a
| focus on the legal shenanigans [0]
|
| [0]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3WVme9LAcQ&list=PLo0bMOObfk...
| logicallee wrote:
| This is the stupidest thing I read today.
| realaaa wrote:
| so they were even asking for it themselves? ahah, geniuses
| sreekanth850 wrote:
| Suing someone because your product doesn't work correctly is
| diabolical. Instead of filing a lawsuit, they should have
| acknowledged the issue and released an upgrade to their locks.
| bdamm wrote:
| Ah, but the truth came out here; the can't sell a lock that is
| upgraded, because they already do sell one at a higher price.
|
| There are cheaper locks if you don't care to defend against
| shimming.
| rdiddly wrote:
| What a snowflake.
| kuil009 wrote:
| OMG
| DecentShoes wrote:
| The company who sued him is, still, embarrassingly, attempting to
| hold a social media presence, despite getting exposed as
| fraudsters and bullies:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/@provenindustries8236
| lenkite wrote:
| Haven't laughed so much reading an article recently. Wow, this
| story looked taken right off a comedy movie.
| jeffreygoesto wrote:
| https://youtu.be/PVhYhLQ4Y64?si=5UrMMeovCkP2J3Nr
| jbs789 wrote:
| Sounds like the guy had rude awakening that his lock wasn't as
| good as he thought it was.
|
| Another way of responding to this is... to improve the lock?
|
| Could even explore a positive collaborative social media campaign
| promoting the new lock.
|
| Ship has sailed now...
| jeroenhd wrote:
| There were locks that were secure against this attack, but
| they're more expensive. The cheaper locks vulnerable to this
| attack probably still makes them a load of money, though.
| hufdr wrote:
| If a company's first reaction to a flaw is to sue instead of fix
| it, the problem probably goes beyond the lock itself. A real
| security company would appreciate someone pointing out a weakness
| rather than trying to take the video down. That kind of openness
| would actually make people trust them more.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The weird thing is, they actually had someone competent dealing
| with the issue:
|
| > The strange thing about the whole situation is that Proven
| actually knew how to respond constructively to the first
| McNally video. Its own response video opened with a bit of
| humor (the presenter drinks a can of Liquid Death),
| acknowledged the issue ("we've had a little bit of controversy
| in the last couple days"), and made clear that Proven could
| handle criticism ("we aren't afraid of a little bit of
| feedback").
|
| > The video went on to show how their locks work and provided
| some context on shimming attacks and their likelihood of real-
| world use. It ended by showing how users concerned about
| shimming attacks could choose more expensive but more secure
| lock cores that should resist the technique.
|
| Sounds to me like someone professional in the company with a
| cooler head was on this and was handling it well, but someone
| else higher up got angry and aggressive and decided that
| revenge was more important.
| pkphilip wrote:
| One of my favourite lock pickers is Marc Tobias. He was also sued
| by a number of lock companies.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NadPAE6BDbA
|
| It is interesting to see that these companies still don't know
| about the Streisand Effect or they choose to think that it won't
| happen to them.
| foofoo12 wrote:
| He just dropped a new video. Totally roasted the cunt out of
| that Easilok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lS5_6D4q9k
| Azkron wrote:
| This reminds me of the CEO of a cyber security company that
| challenged Anonimous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HBGary. If you
| work for any kind of security company, do not ever ever ever
| challenge any kind penetration specialist. Everything is
| hackable, it is only a matter of cost vs reward, but when you
| challenge someone that goes out of the window.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| Generalizing the advice..
|
| Don't challenge people. Don't insult people. Don't humiliate
| people. Don't threaten people. Allow them to maintain their
| self-respect even when they lose. Don't rub it in. Give them a
| face-saving exit.
|
| Plenty of violence and aggression is caused by violation of the
| above rules. They seem simple but they're broken on a daily
| basis. Famous last words: "you don't have the guts".
| kh_hk wrote:
| It would be funny if all this was just a liquid death marketing
| campaign
| wafflemaker wrote:
| Once came back to work after 4 week holidays (not USA) and
| realized I forgot the 3 digit code to my locker.
|
| But I remembered that friend's locker (he was on holidays then)
| used US police code for murder. (Police in US use codes for
| crimes when communicating on the radio).
|
| I googled the code, used friend's locker for the day, and by
| lunch the next day I've bruteforced through enough codes to learn
| that my code was the embarrassing 420.
| simonw wrote:
| This reminded me of Matt Blaze's work on physical lock security
| back in 2003. He found a method of deriving the "master key" for
| a building (one key that opens all locks) from a single example:
| https://www.mattblaze.org/masterkey.html
|
| When he published about this he was bombarded with messages from
| locksmiths complaining that they all knew about this and kept it
| secret for a reason! https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/kiss.html
|
| It was a fascinating clash between computer security principles -
| disclose vulnerabilities - and physical locksmith culture, which
| was all about trade secrets.
| czx111331 wrote:
| Perhaps the most important difference is that software -- even
| after being purchased and used -- remains relatively easy to
| patch, unlike a physical lock.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| Tbf that's a new-ish principle. 2003 was Windows XP era and
| the early days of Metasploit. I.e. Microsoft and all the
| other companies were still figuring out this internet thing,
| while most computers were riddled with unpatched
| vulnerabilities. There was no such thing as zero day back
| then, because you could use many exploits years later.
| ale42 wrote:
| Totally true. Also consider that although software can
| theoretically or technically be patched, sometimes patches
| just don't exist... the amount of unmaintained but yet
| useful software is just huge.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Oh, the bugtraq era, when any grade schooler could download
| a 0day POC and force remote reboot his classmates' laptops.
| (I'm told)
| Sharlin wrote:
| Grade schoolers didn't exactly have laptops in the 00s.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Thanks to the largess of a media company (read: school
| admin golfed with the right people), we had them issued
| ~97.
|
| A lot of kids learned about cybersecurity and emulator
| config (and Harvest Moon) because of it, so net win?
| stingraycharles wrote:
| But Windows Update was definitely already a thing back
| then, so I don't think this "Microsoft was still figuring
| out this Internet thing" holds.
|
| Software was updated all the time, and it's much more
| difficult to do that with locks.
| sigmoid10 wrote:
| It was a thing, but it was also a thing to have it
| disabled or simply not working. XP was famous for its
| hackability. And web frameworks were also far from what
| you see today with auto updates. It's hard to describe to
| people who were not involved how crazy ITsec was back
| then. It felt like the wild west compared to today.
| Literally every other DB had a critical unpatched
| vulnerability. Thankfully Shodan did not exist yet, so
| the barrier to entry was high for people without a
| particular skillset (which was also much harder to learn
| back then). But MSF pushed security awareness pretty hard
| once people realized how easy it can be if you just
| collect a bunch of scripts for common exploits in a
| simple framework that everyone can learn.
| LogicHound wrote:
| > But Windows Update was definitely already a thing back
| then, so I don't think this "Microsoft was still figuring
| out this Internet thing" holds.
|
| They had update mechanisms sure. But it was very much
| upto you to run. When XP came out most people used dial-
| up (at least in the UK), after 2002 ADSL internet started
| to become ubiquitous and computers were on the internet
| for longer periods.
|
| They had to start baking security into every aspect of
| the OS. It was one of the reasons Vista came out several
| years later than planned. They had to pull people from
| Vista development and move them onto Windows XP SP2.
|
| One of the reasons Vista was such a reviled OS is because
| the UAC controls broke lots of piece of software which
| ran under XP, 2000 and 98.
|
| > Software was updated all the time, and it's much more
| difficult to do that with locks.
|
| YIt wasn't unusual to run un-patched software that come
| from a disc for years. You had to manually download
| patches and run them yourself. A software update / next
| version could take like 30 minutes or so on 56k dialup to
| download. If you didn't need to download a patch, you
| probably didn't.
| chmod775 wrote:
| It just takes seconds to swap the core on most locks.
| yubblegum wrote:
| In 'Three Days of Condor', Robert Redford's character locates
| the hotel room of a professional hitmat (who is after him) by
| going to a locksmith and asking him "which hotel and room this
| key belongs to?" and the locksmith asks him "are you in the
| trade?" and he responds, "No, but I read a lot".
| bean469 wrote:
| Watched it a few months ago, such a great and under-rated
| film! RIP Robert Redford
| yubblegum wrote:
| It's a serious hacker film, actually. Redford is the
| ultimate hacker in that film: social engineering, picking
| locks, scrambling MaBell's circuits, and taking out the bad
| guys in the CIA.
|
| [699BB20FD159089A03DD8935575805B1168A8E63 7.4G 1080 blu]
| ac29 wrote:
| While I'm sure some people appreciate your link to
| pirated content, it seems inappropriate for HN.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's not a link, it merely allows to confirm a specific
| file is the one you're looking for :).
| yubblegum wrote:
| That is protected speech. :)
| ghaff wrote:
| I'm not sure it's really underrated so much as fairly old
| and not really in the classic canon. (Which may be more or
| less saying the same thing.)
| yubblegum wrote:
| I have to disgree here regarding the film's merit. There
| are a few quite interesting (and unique) films in that
| genre from the 70s that are little known to today's
| audiances. Most came out around Watergate ~'74 (so were
| topical in those days) but then have been kind of memory
| holed.
|
| _The Kremlin Letter_ , 1970
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065950/) - I recall
| someone saying this film really shows the ugly underbelly
| of intelligence services. This is an interesting film but
| it is very dark and somewhat disturbing. This one
| predates Watergate - it is a Cold War spy flick and makes
| Smiley's People look warm and cuddly ..
|
| _The Conversation_ , 1974
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071360/) - Gene Hackman's
| character resurfaces a couple decades later in _Enemy of
| the State_ (1998).
|
| _The Parallax View_ , 1974
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071970/)
|
| _The Tamarind Seed_ , 1974
| (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072253/) - A subtle movie
| that superficially seems like a romance.
|
| So that's from the top of my head. All are eminently
| watchable films and some possibly classic canon
| contenders.
| bean469 wrote:
| I haven't heard of those films, but they sure seem
| interesting. Thanks for the recommendations!
| HexPhantom wrote:
| In the long run, transparency always wins
| smcin wrote:
| There's a reason for the different cultures and information
| asymmetry: in most countries you need a criminal background
| check to be a locksmith. But not to operate a keyboard.
| DrewADesign wrote:
| Right. I'm in a structured trade right now and learning about
| _ _~hF.8f_ @,8zKub&&@(4'v but we're not supposed to talk
| about it. At least they let us use the company computers for
| personal net stuff.
| mike50 wrote:
| That only applies to access to modern electronic tools and
| digital codebooks requiring accounts. Nothing prevented
| people in the past from buying the physical books used.
| trollbridge wrote:
| Long ago I used to maintain a door lock system. I was
| responsible for designing a new system to encode the room keys
| and it became obvious as I worked with the internals that it
| had a vulnerability that would allow anyone to open any lock
| from this vendor with the right tool.
|
| When I quietly mentioned this, the response was that everyone
| knows this but we don't talk about it.
|
| When Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated with no signs of
| forced entry on his hotel room, let's just say it wasn't
| surprising. And no, I don't think these security flaws are some
| conspiracy or by design - it's simply the difficulty of
| updating firmware on 10 year old boards with a 20 year old
| design with millions of them out in the field. And they cost
| around $750 a piece to replace and that was back in 2010.
| polynomial wrote:
| Securing the room's internal physical latch after the
| assassination was a nice touch.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| "Who are you and how did you get in here?"
|
| "I'm a locksmith, and I'm a locksmith."
| giovani wrote:
| Police Squad!
| vdfs wrote:
| "Although a few people have confused my reporting of the
| vulnerability with causing the vulnerability itself, I can take
| comfort in a story that Richard Feynman famously told about his
| days on the Manhattan project. Some simple vulnerabilities (and
| user interface problems) made it easy to open most of the safes
| in use at Los Alamos. He eventually demonstrated the problem to
| the Army officials in charge. Horrified, they promised to do
| something about it. The response? A memo ordering the staff to
| keep Feynman away from their safes."
| jama211 wrote:
| Security through obscurity in a way...
| jmpman wrote:
| When my first house was under construction in 2001, I created
| my own key from the builder's key. When I finally moved in, my
| key would then disable the builder's key. Curious how this
| work, I disassembled my lock and found that there were (iirc) 8
| keys which would open all my neighbors houses, even after they
| had moved in and had disabled the builder's key. Of course I
| rekeyed my house to prevent that vulnerability, but in theory
| it remains on all my neighbors. I also didn't disclose the
| vulnerability.
| shaftway wrote:
| I don't know about builder's keys from that era, but modern
| builder's keys aren't vulnerable to this problem. The
| builder's key uses a deeper cut on one or more pins, but the
| owner's key can and should be pretty unique. The only real
| requirement is that there be at least one cut to a high
| enough number to allow for a builder's key. There's a good
| video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUCW4OnE6Mc
|
| Maybe they used a master key system instead.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Even as a computer nerd, I find computing culture to be often
| too radical sometimes.
| amelius wrote:
| Wait, what if a hacker found an exploit and then published it
| without giving the company a chance to fix it?
| HexPhantom wrote:
| They turned a one-minute critique into a PR disaster that
| millions of people now know about
| aswegs8 wrote:
| The wohle article reads to me like: "AMERICA FKK YEAHHH BROO, HE
| GOT PWNNNDD, SON!" _eagle sounds_
|
| Gotta admit its entertaining, though.
| dpoloncsak wrote:
| Saw the headline, knew it was going to be McNally.
|
| God Bless McNally
| throw7 wrote:
| Who knew shaking a juice box could be so intimidating!
| xyst wrote:
| LPL (Lock Picking Lawyer) has been making a fool of MasterLock
| and other physical security products/marketing for many years.
|
| Guess ML realizes it's best to be humiliated online where a small
| subset of population would never buy their products anyways.
| Rather than humiliate themselves in public like Proven Industries
| did (Barbara Streisand effect?)
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