Locks and Lockpicking

Slate has an article up about locking picking videos on the intertubes, and the implications for locksmiths and lock manufacturers.
Apparently, amateurs interested in lockpicking have been organizing themselves on the internet and forming "locksport" clubs. They then videotape how to pick progressively more difficult locks, and put it on the internet. In the article, the author, Farhad Manjoo, compares the problems presented by amateur lockpicks revealing how to break into locks to computer hacking. This comparison is somewhat problematic though, because locks and computer security have different functions.

Locks are not meant, by themselves, to keep someone out of a place. The crucial function of a lock is to increase the time and effort required to enter a given location, be it a building, a safebox, or a car. Ultimately, the function of a lock is to slow down the person attempting to gain access to a location. There is an assumption in placing a lock on something that by slowing down access to a place through greatly increasing time and effort to enter there, someone or something can provide further warning of the security breach. Locks by themselves cannot make something safe. The time bought by the lock is the protective value of the lock.

For example, and one can think of many examples, if someone wanted to break into my house, they could simply smash a window and climb in. Now there are really high costs to this type of entry. Namely, the likelihood a neighbor or I will hear or see them doing smashing the window and be properly alerted to call the cops or arm myself. Someone smashing a window is a pretty rare occurrence, which is what would give the action the alarm value. If I didn't have locks on my house they could just walk in the front or back door, a rather normal occurrence, not provoking any potential alarm value. Similarly, someone kneeling in front of my doors, apparently picking the lock, would also provide a similar amount of warning.

This expectation that locks only provide time is further evidenced by door alarms in houses, where if a door is opened and the alarm is not disarmed in enough time, it begins issuing a warning through sound or calling the alarm company.

The point ultimately is that although you can apparently find videos on how to pick the locks of the White House and Buckingham palace, this knowledge is useless because other security measures exist to protect those places. Perhaps the greater problem with lock picking videos online is the damage it does to lock companies in the sense that they want to sell you on the strength and security of their locks, but to a large extent the strength and security of their locks is a fiction. In other words, a lock company wants you to believe that their locks can keep anyone out, but that simply isn't the case. It seems unlikely anyone would buy a lock if they were told that the lock will slow down potential burglars/thieves, but after that you are on your own.

An Idea for Helping Generate Free electricity

I think this idea is so dumb it just might work. Would it be possible to develop a work out gym where the people in the spinning class, or rowing class, or on the stair master, or whatever, some how generate electricity to help power the building? Think of all the wasted energy that could be captured. I think it would be cool. Furthermore, you could have competitions between work out types, as in "I generated X-watts of electricity today dude!" and "Oh Yeah? Well I generated X+1-watts and therefore am better than you!".

Damn I am smart.

I came across this statement in an article I was reading today

"You can play “what if?” until the cows come home, and it will make no difference to what was, and what is, and what will be." citation

Sophistry, at its finest!

Well, not entirely, but the statement is only about half true. One can play "what if" until the cows come home. So that is true. It will make no difference on what has happened, so the what was part is also true.

Where the statement fails is on the last two parts. The past, and debates about it, including "what ifs" form what is the current world. So on this point the statement is false, because playing what ifs do make a difference in what is. Similarly playing what ifs informs the future, and this gives the game of what ifs its other power. To some extent playing what ifs is simply the exercise of understanding the world. Obviously the author of this piece wanted to take the intellectually lazy way out of the situation, and attempt to cut of further discussion by damning all of what ifs.

A random thought I hope to expand at a later date

I was thinking this morning that it might be possible that the only thing that separates traditional conservatives and more socialistic liberals is their views on altruism and greed. I would like to expand this more at a later time, but am putting it up now so I won't forget.

Rule of Law?

Can you have the rule of law when the laws are vague, unspecified, and utterly lacking in modern content?

I am not sure you can, and I don't know what this means for the United States and its archaic constitution.

Thinking about the Tigers

In light of the last post, and thinking about the Tigers again. Man that Cotton Bowl win over Arkansas was satisfying.

I hate lazy journalism

So I was reading about my hometown favorite college football team on ESPN.com this morning and I came across this sentence:

"Now, the Tigers just have to do it all over again, only better. And they'll have to do it without a few key figures from last year's team, and with an even bigger target on their backs."

This is a supremely lazy statement for a journalist to write in a college football preview piece. One could write that sentence about almost any team, in any league, in any given year. With free agency in the pros, and with the pressure to go pro at the collegiate level, it is very rare, if not impossible, for every team to have every "key figure" back, every year. The part about doing it "all over again, only better", goes for any team that has a great year, but doesn't win the championship in any sport. I don't know what to make of the "even bigger target" because in college football with the one loss and you are out of the national title picture set up, every team has a huge target on for every game.

I just wish the sentence was more informative and not so much just filler.

Poor editing ESPN.com, poor poor editing.

Updatin' is so much fun!!!!

Alright, its been awhile, and much has happened in the political world.

More importantly I have moved, still in the central timezone, thank god, but much much further South. Not much news about that, but it is warm.

Bush as Brezhnev? Maybe. That should remain for a much further discussion later, if I gets around to it.

Obviously I quit updating the electoral college predictioning. Basically, I don't care anymore. Obama "moved to the center" and that was dumb. I will probably still vote for him, but I am not enthusiastic about it anymore. Boo on him. If he wins, I hope he brings the pork chops. (shout out to GC)

Furthermore, on this front coupled with the dead comedic giants, I read some where that part of what led Obama to support FISA was he began receiving the daily intelligence briefings. I don't know if that is true or not, but it reminds me of Bill Hicks' point about why nothing ever changes with elections of new presidents. Where some people take the new president to a darkened room and show him the Kennedy assassination from a never before seen angle. If you know what I am talking about, then, tautologically, you know what I am talking about. If not, listen to Bill Hicks.

I am sure I had other things on my mind, but they are gone now.

Maybe post later.