Hackers May Be Able To Unlock Your Doors As Well As Your Data

Now we may have to protect our physical security -- keys and locks -- from hackers. A new experiment suggests that web cam or cell phone images of keys may give crooks all they need to crack your locks.The experiment by researchers at UC San Diego sought to duplicate a key from images taken by digital cameras.

Key images -- admittedly high resolution images -- have been used to recreate key patterns before. The point of this experiment was to show that the near-ubiquitous web cams and cell phone cameras can capture images of sufficient quality to allow a workable key to be made. Not sure how serious a threat this is or will become -- the researchers have so far declined to share their software -- but it's another serious reminder of just how pervasive the potential for mischief is in our most pervasive technologies.