Matt Blaze on locks at U Penn

Perry E. Metzger perry at piermont.com
Mon Feb 3 11:31:55 EST 2003


Forwarded from Dave Farber's list:

----------------------------------------------------------------------

   Dept. of Computer & Information Science
Colloquia Series 2003 is honored to present ...

              Matt Blaze
       AT&T Labs.
       Thursday, February 6, 2003
    3:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
         Room 216 Moore School

__________________________________________________
Title: Cryptology and Physical Security: Rights Amplification
        in Mechanical Locks

Computer security and cryptology takes much of its basic
philosophy and language from the world of mechanical locks, and
yet we often ignore the possibility that physical security systems
might suffer from the same kinds of attacks that plague computers
and networks.  This talk examines mechanical locks from a computer
scientist's viewpoint. We describe attacks for amplifying rights in
mechanical
pin tumbler locks.Given access to a single master-keyed lock and its
associated change key, a procedure is given that allows discovery and
creation
of a working master key for the system.  No special skill or equipment,
beyond
a small number of blank keys and a metal file, is required, and the attacker
need engage in no suspicious behavior at the lock's location.  We end with
future directions for research in this area and the suggestion that
mechanical locks are worthy objects of our attention and scrutiny.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Cryptography Mailing List
Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo at wasabisystems.com



More information about the cryptography mailing list