Reconsidering Physical Key Secrecy: Teleduplication via Optical Decoding

[Creegan 11.9]

Our SNEAKEY system correctly decoded the keys shown in the above image that was taken from the rooftop of a four floor building. The inlay shows the image that was used for decoding while the background provides a context for the extreme distances that our system can operate from. In this case the image was taken from 195 feet. This demonstration shows that a motivated attacker can covertly steal a victim's keys without fear of detection. The SNEAKEY system provides a compelling example of how digital computing techniques can breach the security of even physical analog systems in the real-world.

Abstract
The access control provided by a physical lock is based on the assumption that the information content of the corresponding key is private --- that duplication should require either possession of the key or a priori knowledge of how it was cut. However, the ever-increasing capabilities and prevalence of digital imaging technologies present a fundamental challenge to this privacy assumption. Using modest imaging equipment and standard computer vision algorithms, we demonstrate the effectiveness of physical key teleduplication --- extracting a key's complete and precise bitting code at a distance via optical decoding and then cutting precise duplicates. We describe our prototype system, Sneakey, and evaluate its effectiveness, in both laboratory and real-world settings, using the most popular residential key types in the U.S.


Citation
Benjamin Laxton, Kai Wang, and Stefan Savage
Reconsidering Physical Key Secrecy: Teleduplication via Optical Decoding.
ACM CCS 2008, Alexandria, VA, October 2008.

Paper
Paper pdf.

[Sc4Rzz.]

Woah. Very intresting.
I could REALLY use this.. Any idea if this is ever going to reach the community, and even open source?

[Creegan 11.9]

jajajajajajajajajajajajaja, I just read your blog post xD

[sew_nice0999]

Great minds think alike Creegan

[Creegan 11.9]

oops, sorry, forgot about the image part.

Fixed

[root]

>_> You should've put in the image ;D Anyway nice post, thank you!

[Codejunky]

Above image? Am I missin somethin? Nice post tho

[snapcrackerz]

Very interesting Creegan thanks for the share ;}