WiFi Your Door Lock With An ESP

The Internet of Things is upon us, and with that comes a deluge of smart cameras, smart home monitors, and smart home locks. There actually aren’t many smarts in these smart conveniences, and you can easily build your own. That’s what [MakerMan] did with some off-the-shelf parts and just a little bit of code. Now he can open his door with WiFi, and it’s a nice clean build.

The build process began by first removing the existing barrel bolt on the door. This was replaced by a deadbolt that also had some really neat solenoids inside for remote activation. This was mounted to the door in a way that the door could lock, with a minimal amount of damage from some skillful hacksaw work. The only thing left to do after this was add some electronics and brains to the lock.

For this, [MakerMan] added a button and LED to the outside of the door. Some of these wires were fed into the lock mechanism, with a few more run over to a project enclosure mounted next to a power outlet. The project enclosure holds an ESP-8266, power regulator, and relay board, and the ESP is running code that instantiates a web server that will unlock the door with a few clicks on a web page.

Sure, it’s probably not the most secure lock on the planet, and the 5V linear regulator is held on to the relay board with hot glue, but this is an exceptionally well-documented project, and all the code is available in an archive.

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3D Printing A Combination Lock

Combination locks! They’re great if you’re skilled at remembering arbitrary strings of numbers, and have a dramatic flair that’s made them a famous part of many a heist movie. They come in a wide variety of styles, and are vulnerable to a different set of attacks than the more typical pin-tumbler locks used on a household basis. If you fancy tinkering with a combination lock, why not 3D print one yourself?

It goes without saying that any lock you 3D print is going to have issues with strength. Such a lock should not be used to protect anything of real value, but it could be handy to prevent the kids getting at the Halloween candy you’re saving for October.

Regardless, 3D printing and assembling your own combination lock is a great way to learn about how they work. It’s a fun project that is also much easier than sourcing and disassembling the real thing. For a greater understanding of the underlying mechanism, this video should make the basic operation clear.

That’s not all 3D printing can offer to the locksport community, of course. You can always print your own keys, too. Video after the break. Continue reading “3D Printing A Combination Lock”

Hacked Electric Toothbrush Defeats Locks With Ease

The movie version of lockpicking tends to emphasize the meticulous, delicate image of the craft. The hero or villain takes out a slim wallet of fine tools, applies them with skill and precision, and quickly defeats the lock. They make it look easy, and while the image isn’t far from reality, there are other ways to pick a lock.

This expedient electric toothbrush lockpick is a surprisingly effective example of the more brute force approach to lockpicking. As [Jolly Peanut] explains, pin tumbler locks work by lining up each pin with the shear line of the cylinder, which allows the lock to turn. This can be accomplished a pin at a time with picks, or en masse by vibrating the pins until they randomly line up with the shear line just long enough for the lock to turn. A locksmith might use a purpose-built tool for the job, but a simple battery-powered electric toothbrush works in a pinch too. [Jolly Peanut] removed the usual business end of the brush to reveal a metal drive rod that vibrates at a high frequency. The rod was slimmed down by a little grinding to fit into the keyway of a lock, and with the application of a little torque, the vibration is enough to pop the pins into the right position. He tries it out on several locks in the video below, and it only takes a few seconds each time.

Such brute force methods have their drawbacks, of course. They’re not exactly subtle, and the noise they create may attract unwanted attention. In that case, hone your manual lockpicking skills with a giant 3D-printed see-through lock.

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Opening A Ford With A Robot And The De Bruijn Sequence

The Ford Securicode, or the keyless-entry keypad available on all models of Ford cars and trucks, first appeared on the 1980 Thunderbird. Even though it’s most commonly seen on the higher-end models, it is available as an option on the Fiesta S — the cheapest car Ford sells in the US — for $95. Doug DeMuro loves it. It’s also a lock, and that means it’s ready to be exploited. Surely, someone can build a robot to crack this lock. Turns out, it’s pretty easy.

The electronics and mechanical part of this build are pretty simple. An acrylic frame holds five solenoids over the keypad, and this acrylic frame attaches to the car with magnets. There’s a second large protoboard attached to this acrylic frame loaded up with an Arduino, character display, and a ULN2003 to drive the resistors. So far, everything you would expect for a ‘robot’ that will unlock a car via its keypad.

The real trick for this build is making this electronic lockpick fast and easy to use. This project was inspired by [Samy Kamkar]’s OpenSesame attack for garage door openers. In this project, [Samy] didn’t brute force a code the hard way by sending one code after another; (crappy) garage door openers only look at the last n digits sent from the remote, and there’s no penalty for sending the wrong code. In this case, it’s possible to use a De Bruijn sequence to vastly reduce the time it takes to brute force every code. Instead of testing tens of thousands of different codes sequentially, this robot only needs to test 3125, something that should only take a few minutes.

Right now the creator of this project is putting the finishing touches on this Ford-cracking robot. There was a slight bug in the code that was solved by treating the De Bruijn sequence as circular, but now it’s only a matter of time before a 1993 Ford Taurus wagon becomes even more worthless.

Color-Coded Key Opens Doors, Opportunities

Of all the ways to open up a lock, there are some tried and true methods. Keys, combinations, RFIDs, picks, and explosives have all had their time and place, but now someone else wants to try something new. [Erik] has come up with a lock that opens when it is shown a pattern of colors.

The lock in question uses a set of color coded cards as the “keys”. When the cards are inserted in the lock, a TCS230 color sensor interprets the pattern on the cards and sends the information over to an Arduino Uno. From there, the Arduino can command the physical lock to open if the pattern is a match, although [Erik] is still waiting on the locking mechanism to arrive while he continues to prototype the device.

This is a fairly unique idea with a number of upsides. First, the code can’t be “stolen” from inside a wallet like RFID cards can. (Although if you can take a picture of the card all bets are off.) If you lose your key, you can simply print another one, and the device is able to handle multiple different keys and log the usage of each one. Additionally, no specialized equipment is needed to create the cards, unlike technologies that rely on magnetic strips. Of course, there’s always this classic way of opening doors if you’d rather go old school with your home locks.

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3D Printed Key Saves The Day

When [Odin917’s] parents went away on vacation, they took the apartment mailbox key with them. With the mail quickly piling up in the mailbox, he needed to get in there. He could have had the building super replace the lock, for a fee of course. Instead he had his parents email a photo of the key, which he used to 3D print his own copy.

Using a photograph as a template for a 3D printed copy is nothing new. We’ve covered it in-depth right here. However, this is the first time we’ve seen the technique put to use for good – in this case avoiding a hefty lock replacement fee.

He did his modeling in Autodesk’s free Fusion 360 CAD software. He then printed it out, and the box didn’t open. It took three revisions before the perfect key popped out of the printer. This particular mailbox uses a 4 pin tumbler, which makes it a bit less forgiving than other mailbox locks we’ve seen.

Admittedly this isn’t [Odin917’s] first time working with locks. Back in 2013, he submitted a parametric bump key model to Thingiverse.

Picking locks isn’t just for getting the mail. Locksport is a popular pastime for hardware hackers.

Colette Biometric Security Purse Screams When Stolen

A team of college hackers was disappointed with the selection of secure purses available. Nearly every purse on the market is attractive, secure, or neither so they are designing their own security purse with some style. Instead of just brass or leather clasps keeping unwanted hands out, they are upgrading to automation and steel.

Everything starts with a fingerprint reader connected to an Arduino. Once an acceptable finger is recognized, a motor opens a coffin lock, also known as a butt-joint fastener, which can be completely hidden inside the purse and provides a lot of holding force. That is enough to keep quick fingers from reaching into an unattended purse.

In the case of a mugging, a sound grenade will trigger which should convince most thieves to quickly abandon it. Then, the internal GPS tells the owner where the purse can be found.

We can’t imagine a real-life purse thief prepared to tackle this kind of hardware. Hackaday loves knowing the ins and out of security from purses to cars and of course IoT.