ProSecurityNews

UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering has developed a software program that does what locksmiths have been doing visually for years, sight reading keys.

A skilled locksmith, knowing the possible depths of cuts for a particular manufacturer of locks, can create a key after merely observing the target key for a few moments. Each key cut carries a numeric value (1-6 for Kwikset; 0-9 for Schlage, etc) which is easy to memorize so the key can be cut by code on the appropriate key machine. Some key originating machines are mechanical punch style and do not need electricity, so they and portable and can be used anywhere.

I have used this technique many times in my 35 year locksmith career and it never fails to “WOW” the client. A good example is when GM cars used to have 2 keys, one for the ignition and one for the door. If a driver locked the keys in the car, it was easy to read the cuts of the door key through the window while the keys were hanging from the ignition.

The UC San Diego computer scientists have applied software to this problem. Given a photograph of the key, the program can produce the cut values, not much of a challenge given a good side profile picture. But what if the key image is at an angle and at some distance from the camera?

Quoting from the website: “The challenge for the software system is to adjust for a wide range of different angles and distances between the camera and the key being captured. To do so, the researchers relied on a classic computer vision technique for normalizing an object’s orientation and size in three dimensions by matching control points from a reference image to equivalent points in the target image.”

““The program is simple. You only need to click a few control points in the image of the key and the ‘Sneakey’ program does the rest. It normalizes the key’s size and position so that each pixel then corresponds to a known distance. From this information, the height of each of the key cuts can easily be computed and likewise the bitting code can be extracted,” explained Benjamin Laxton, the first author on the paper who wrote the Sneakey program and recently earned his Master’s degree in computer science from UC San Diego. ”

So, is there a threat here? Yes, but not because of this particular software program. As I explained in the opening paragraph, sight reading of keys has always been possible. New technology such as miniature digital cameras, and long range video simply make it easier for the bad guys to capture an image of a key.

What can you do to counter this threat? Invest in key systems that cannot be sight read or that have multiple characteristics to the key other than just depth of cut. I submit it would be harder to execute such an attack on a key that had both bittings and side milling, or a dimple key that had active cuts on both sides of the key, or mechanical keys with embedded electronics as part of the code required to open the lock. Or just keep your keys in your pocket ALL the time.

Your thoughts?

//Jon Payne, CML

Read more here;

Link to the news story at Jacobs School.
Link to the project page at Jacobs School.

Tags: bittings, depth, digital camera, long range video, sight reading, software, visual