Sprites mods writes –
What to do if you are renting a room in students flat and want to make use of an unused, empty room? You just walk in and do your thing. What if the landlord, for some stupid reason he got from his higer-ups, has to lock all unused rooms? You go ahead and pick the lock. Not really 100% legal, but closing an empty room for no apparent reason isn’t really ethical too, in my opinion. But what if the landlord comes to check if the room still is locked? Hmm…
After some brainstorming, we came up with a James Bond-worthy concept: knock on the door in a certain fashion, and the door’ll open automatically. The idea was perfect: no need to drill holes, sneaky enough so the landlord wouldn’t accidentally trigger it, easy enough to remember.
12 thoughts on “Knock to open”
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…until the landlord decides to do something useful with the room one day and finds mysterious improvised electronics connected up to the door. We all know how that turned out in Boston.
We do, how’d it all turn out in Boston?
LOL, Fastolfe is talking about this:
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/01/31/boston.bombscare/
I never thought about that but you are right, someone who didn’t know what is was would probably not guess the purpose at first glance. I could just imagine one of those bomb squad robots maneuvering to the door and blasting large holes through the circuit with a shotgun…
If you got someone to pick it in the first place, why not take the cylinder out, bring it to a locksmith and have them make a key? Then just re-install the cylinder. There would be an hour of exposure where the lock had no cylinder, but creative folks can figure out how to mitigate that, I hope. This way, you get a key and leave no solid evidence of breaking and entering behind.
If I owned the building, I know I wouldn’t want people using my rooms without permission (and would press charges if I found some, mainly as a CYA for liability, probably the same reason they’re locked in the first place), so maybe this could’ve been framed in the context of accessing a secret room or something in your own house by knocking? And it’s not like you can use that spare room for storage, as anything found in it would be confiscated, so…?
By itself, this is a really cool idea, but this is exactly what people are afraid of when they complain about or oppose the dissemination of certain kinds of information, such as lock picking, which by itself is just another skill to master. I’d prefer these projects not tarnish the image of freely available information being a good thing by admitting to a crime in the process, that’s all. I’m not old-fashonied, or trying to lecture anybody, I just want the free flow of information to continue!
Has anyone reading this ever tried making “bump keys?” They’re the easiest way I’ve found to open most locks, provided you have time to make them in advance of when they’re needed.
And please tell me that the knock code is not “Shave and a haircut…”
I knew a guy about 20 years ago who had modified his corvette to not have *any* external door locks or number pads. It would open with a knock pattern.
No clue what his failsafe was in case of the battery dying though…..
“but closing an empty room for no apparent reason isn’t really ethical too, in my opinion”
I guess it’ll be up to me to defend private property rights even though I’ll bet Make magazine wouldn’t appreciate someone stealing their articles. Very juvenile and it is impossible for me to get past such idiocy to think about how cool the circuit may be.
Kuslar