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Order and orient the keys on your keychain

(practicalbetterments.com)
67 points surprisetalk | 2 comments | 22 Oct 24 16:29 UTC | HN request time: 0.429s | source
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gorgoiler ◴[26 Oct 24 21:25 UTC] No.41957840[source]▶
Key your locks alike, then you only need one key! I actually had to find something to put on my house-keyring because it felt so empty being a single key.

The downside to this is if your locks are cheapo pin tumbler locks then if an attacker steals the lock itself it is trivial for them to take your lock apart and reverse engineer a key that works in all your other locks (think crazy ex or wacko, rather than burglar.)

If you key your mailbox padlock and your front door alike and the wacko steals the padlock, they can take it home and figure out the code to your house.

My home has three entry points, one with a porch, and all four doors have keyed alike locks. It’s great!

replies(3): >>41958110 #>>41958185 #>>41958454 #
1. robobro ◴[26 Oct 24 22:12 UTC] No.41958110[source]▶
Why would they need to steal the lock? I don't think it's uncommon knowledge that most locks are pretty easy to pick quickly :/
replies(1): >>41959611 #
2. gorgoiler ◴[27 Oct 24 03:17 UTC] No.41959611[source]▶
You’re right in that the only reason to offline decode the lock is to either create a legitimate key (or DoS your opponent’s wallet by forcing them to re-key the remaining N-1 locks.)

It is left as an exercise to the imagination as to when it an attacker might find advantage in:

  t_steal_mailbox +
  t_decode_lock +
  t_keyed_front_door_entry
being less than:

  t_pick_front_door
as well as solving a similar inequality for the probability of being caught in both scenarios.