Avoid showing keys

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) advised people to hide the keys to their homes and cars from view because they could be “stolen” using camera phones and other digital cameras.

In the university’s “Project Sneaker” the scientists intended to warn people about the risks of haphazardly posting images or causing images of their keys to be seen online, or simply placing them in the carelessly in the open.

The scientists working in the project created software with a special algorithm that can produce an exact physical copy of virtually any key from its digital image, from any angle or distance.

People already have some awareness of identity security by graying out their names and credit card numbers when posting online pictures which show their cards. But there is practically zero sensitivity to security problems that could arise by displaying their keys.

Most people have at least five keys on the key rings they carry with them — a number of keys for their home or a friend’s house, at least one for the car, and some keys to the office.

Keys tend to provide some reassurance that homes, cars and property are safe. Yet, people are also aware that skilled people can open locks very easily with lock picks or duplicate keys they fabricate themselves. 

As part of the project, the UCSD team scoured photo-sharing Internet sites and had no problem locating thousands of photos containing keys with degrees of resolution good enough for replication. It would also be easy for someone to use the digital cameras on their cell phones to take a quick shot of keys lying on a tabletop.

From these photos, the team easily produced a functional key in 4 of 5 first tries. If the first try failed, they made one copy that worked within three tries.

The three tries took no more than five minutes. The special software took only about one-half minute to analyze the key’s ridges and grooves (although images with less definition required more time). Cutting the key then took a whole minute.

The researchers said it is not difficult to decode keys. Keys commonly in circulation are designed to work with four-pin or six-pin lock sets, which are basically equivalent to only four to six numbers. The pattern on the ridges and valleys on the keys match the pattern of small pins inside the lock.

An experienced locksmith can easily fabricate a duplicate key by sight. With the right software, the work can be done much more quickly.

An unscrupulous person who gets a good high-definition image of your key from a photo-sharing Web site can conceivably make a working duplicate without difficulty.

Safety Tip:

* Show your keys only when you need to use them. Avoid taking them out of your pocket unnecessarily. This is not the biggest threat to your security but it still pays to be careful.