Legally the Protec Elite and Ruby Exclusive key profiles have the same level of key control, no dealer other than the dealer who originally issued the keys (or the Factory) can cut more keys. Technically, with the standard Protec Elite key profile, all Abloy Protec/Protec2 dealers in the US have access to this key blank. This is a slight security risk as it does mean they could duplicate a Protec/Protec2 Elite key if they wanted to (but they would break their contract with Abloy in doing so and we have yet to hear of a dealer doing so). Our Ruby Exclusive key profile is a key blank that is only issued to us, which removes the option for another Abloy dealer to duplicate your ruby key as they do not have access to the key blanks. A Protec Elite key will not even fit in a Ruby Exclusive lock. The Ruby Exclusive is a very secure level of key control giving peace of mind to even the most worried lock owner.

myliit • June 5, 2020 6:30 PM

Our host in the making. From the OP.

“One of us (Bruce) remembers that as a child he once brute-forced a combination padlock in his house. A four-digit lock’s 10,000 possible combinations might be enough to keep out a burglar, but fail against a child with unlimited access and nothing better to do that day.”

Clive Robinson • June 6, 2020 7:00 AM
https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/06/new_research_pr.html#c6812062

@ mylitt, Bruce, ALL,

"A four-digit lock’s 10,000 possible combinations might be enough to keep out a burglar, but fail against a child with unlimited access and nothing better to do that day."

They used to say that,

Necessity is the mother of invention.

However "Curiosity" is the fundamental reason we learn about our world.

I remember learning not only to undo combination locks by "feel" at an early age, but also how to pick simple bike locks and desk/cupboard locks with home made skeleton keys and later picks. And at some point learning again self taught how to do what is called in the profession "impressioning".

My parents used to tell other adults as a precautionary tale about "curiosity" of certain bad habits I had when younger than four, that I don't remember. Apparently my little fingers had learnt some technique for "worrying" nuts and bolts, such that given time I could undo them without the need of spanners etc and amongst other things had taken the bolts out of a set ot wooden step ladders much to my fathers anoyance when they fell appart on him one day.

However I think he was only briefly annoyed, because unlike my mother he actively encoraged my curiosity and tinkering. It occasionally went wrong like when I chopped the corner of my index finger off with a "Stanly knife" (modeling knife, like an up market box cutter). But it grew back so nothing real lost and a lesson learned... Which is not so much cutting yourself hurts, which it does, but it carries on hurting, then itching, and finally is to soft for half a year, which when you are eight is a very long time :-(

My curiosity with locks taught me not just to impression keys but how to cut keys on sight, which later gave rise to me about using photographs for cutting them. Which supprised our host Bruce when I first mentioned it, but then enabled us to all have a good laugh at the TSA for being idiots when they published a photograph of all the TSA approved luggage lock keys.

It's also enabled some as we now know to use 3D Printers to automate the process of key cutting...

But curiosity also leads to reading, and when young I read adventure books and graduated onto detective stories and SciFi. I worked out by accident when very young how to make fake finger prints. From a very early age I used to collect the red wax from Edam Cheese, it had some nice properties that whilst fairly solid at room temprature it became nicely soft at hand temprature if you "worked it". The problem was in working it your fingerprints showed up. The only way I had to get rid of them at the time was to roll the wax into a ball in the palms of my hands. A little while after that in junior school I got to play with "Copydex Glue" it was the "Pritstick" of it's day and considered to be unhalmfull to very young children. Also known as "Rubber Solution Glue" it had an anoying property when it dried on your hands it made a transparent layer like a second skin. As kids we quickly realised you could use it to make "fake wounds" to scare other kids with, and was as much fun as the "finger in the matchbox trick". At some point I realised that you could make a mould of somebodies finger print with the warm Edam Cheese wax and then paint Copydex in it to make "fake fingerprints" all good fun. But it was not untill I showed other kids how you could use a little light oil or grease (fat from cooking a chicken works) to actually leave a fingerprint on objects, that my brain suddenly realised just how powerfull it was in that you could also put the fake skin with finger print onto gloves and leave false evidence.

I thought it was "pretty neat" but some time later on when reading a Sherlock Holmes Story about a crooked builder who faked his own murder that it mentioned using a finger print impression used in a wax seal on the back of a letter to make a fake finger tip to leave a finger print in blood to frame a solicitor.

However it sparked a life long interest in "faking forensics" and later "faking biometrics" which has led me down all sorts of twisty little passages of science most will never have heard of...

So if you have young children that exhibit "curiosity" I'd encorage it a lot, they might not be rich and famous but they will I can assure you have more fun in life than many many others as you will open their minds "To a World of Wonder". They will also learn the important lesson in life that too many people make assumptions and get led astray by them and what are little more than simple parlor tricks. The fact the average person does not know something is possible, should not be taken to mean that something is impossible or even improbable if not actually very easy to do. Most "Guild Secrets" were kept not because they were special or clever but because they enabled Guild Members to profit substantially by others ignorance. The only difference today is we don't call them "Guild Secrets" any more at best "Trade Secrets" or by a slang such as "The Knowing", "Knowledge", etc.

The classic example of this "Guild/Trade" secret is "Hotel keys", where there is a "Hotel Master Key" that opens all doors, "Floor Masters" that open all doors on a floor for cleaners etc and "Suite Masters" where several rooms can be turned into a suite of rooms for more well healed guests with their own servants, assistants, or family. The myth sold by locksmiths is that such mechanical lock systems are "more secure" than ordinary locks and keys, when in fact they make the locks easier to pick etc... This myth also alows them to charge between five and ten times as much for each lock, and ten to twenty times as much for each key, compared to an equivalently secure lock from your local large DIY store.

I just published a new paper with Karen Levy of Cornell: "Privacy Threats in Intimate Relationships."

Abstract: This article provides an overview of intimate threats: a class of privacy threats that can arise within our families, romantic partnerships, close friendships, and caregiving relationships. Many common assumptions about privacy are upended in the context of these relationships, and many otherwise effective protective measures fail when applied to intimate threats. Those closest to us know the answers to our secret questions, have access to our devices, and can exercise coercive power over us. We survey a range of intimate relationships and describe their common features. Based on these features, we explore implications for both technical privacy design and policy, and offer design recommendations for ameliorating intimate privacy risks.

This is an important issue that has gotten much too little attention in the cybersecurity community. //

As was once pointed out by someone way more famous than the rest of us,

"Three can keep a secret as long as the other two are dead." //

lurker • June 5, 2020 6:01 PM

@Rj

This was Samson's mistake in Judges 14:18.

and again [!] in Judges 16:17. //

myliit • June 5, 2020 6:30 PM

Our host in the making. From the OP.

“One of us (Bruce) remembers that as a child he once brute-forced a combination padlock in his house. A four-digit lock’s 10,000 possible combinations might be enough to keep out a burglar, but fail against a child with unlimited access and nothing better to do that day.”