Top-selling handgun safe can be remotely opened in seconds—no PIN needed
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Most safes for home use (whether for firearms or just general valuables) aren't really meaningfully secure anyway - they exist as a delaying device that hardens a target against a quick smash & grab.
With just about any preparation and a small amount of time they can be opened without much trouble, because they're all basically garbage - even the "good" ones.
In short, while this vulnerability is idiotic, and has no excuse for existing, on the whole I don't think it makes that much of a practical difference. If the safe is portable enough to be carried, the locking mechanism doesn't matter.
If it isn't portable, it will still likely resist crimes of opportunity. Otherwise a prepared thief or just one with a little bit of time will be able to bypass just about any residential safe - electronic lock or not.
With just about any preparation and a small amount of time they can be opened without much trouble, because they're all basically garbage - even the "good" ones.
In short, while this vulnerability is idiotic, and has no excuse for existing, on the whole I don't think it makes that much of a practical difference. If the safe is portable enough to be carried, the locking mechanism doesn't matter.
If it isn't portable, it will still likely resist crimes of opportunity. Otherwise a prepared thief or just one with a little bit of time will be able to bypass just about any residential safe - electronic lock or not.
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A gun safe like that is not designed to be impenetrable. That's not an excuse for the flaw, but the fact is a thief could put that in their backpack. If you're trying to keep your handguns secure from thieves you need a more robust solution.
The only thing a safe like that is good for is keeping your weapon out of the hands of small children. If they're old enough to break into it, you should have taught them about safe handling of firearms by that point.
Again, not an excuse for the flaw, but it's not that big a deal.
The only thing a safe like that is good for is keeping your weapon out of the hands of small children. If they're old enough to break into it, you should have taught them about safe handling of firearms by that point.
Again, not an excuse for the flaw, but it's not that big a deal.
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A pistol safe like this should have holes in the bottom to mount to a piece of furniture. You're going to attract at least a little attention walking around with my dresser under your arm.
Gun safes aren't there to stop determined thieves. They're there to convince methheads that it's a better use of their time to just grab my PlayStation and split before someone calls the cops.
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It would be easier to carry that safe out. And smash it..... That kind of safe is intended to keep kids out... Not protect from thieves... I would still feel perfectly fine buying that product even knowing of this vulnerability.....
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Demolition
Ars Scholae Palatinae
You probably wouldn't even need a Dremel. According to several of the Amazon reviews, the lid opened when the safe was jolted or thumped with a hand. One reviewer was able to pry it open with his fingernails. Another merely lifted it off of a table and the lid popped open.
With that level of (in)security, you might as well just hide your firearms in the fridge.
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For those who are still confused, you do not have to have TSA locks on a firearm container. In fact, it is highly discouraged, for obvious reasons. Instead, they will *thoroughly* check your luggage in front of you before it gets sent off.
A number of people, myself included, like to fly with firearms because you can put a real lock on your luggage and all but guarantee that it doesn't get messed with in transit. However, I don't know anybody who would use a Bluetooth lock
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Quick access gun safes like this are really meant for securing firearms from children, not from securing them from dedicated criminals. Different tools for different jobs.
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Well it is obviously Case Nightmare Plaid.
A bad guy with a gun is like in the house. But your key is on the key rack by the door? Or in the bedside drawer but they have that covered with their gun. But you are packing a smartphone, luckily, because you forgot to put it on the charger, and so you can open the safe by typing in an access code. Then you can get out your gun, load it (or you store it loaded I don't judge) and then you take the safety off and start shooting at the bad guy with a gun because you are the good guy with the gun in your house.
Obvious really if you think about it.
Or it is Case Nightmare Blind Drunk
Someone or something is in the house and you're gonna shoot but you are too drunk to remember where the keys are. But you can drunk dial so you have the smart phone. So you get the gun and start shooting. Its tragic for the family members / dog / burglar / whatever you shoot. But you are like freedoming or something.
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I think the best solution is a push-button-keypad quick-access safe for a home defense firearm and a heavy, fireproof traditional-combo-lock gunsafe for the rest of the collection.
"Internet-connected" and "smart" devices don't mix with firearms.
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What's to keep the kids from writing a simple nested for loop? If your 6 year old is not smart enough to break this, it's time to get a smarter 6 year old.
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of course it is easy to hack, otherwise how could we expect CSI scenes breaking into it with a high tech watch in seconds to get the victim's gun and shoot him dead
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Assuming that the kids don't get their hands on the phone -- or are just given the phone to distract them.
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Or how about people just not own guns to begin with? I like how Ars fails to address the elephant in the room there.
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I guess it is good info, but it seems pointless to me. If a burglar breaks in and steals the safe, they are not going to hack it, but use a hammer and chisel. I think this story is just more liberal "gun fear mongering" to try to make the sheeple not buy a gun and defend themselves. But that really is the only way when the criminal has one.
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That's security in depth. The thief can't see the safe, so he can't steal it.
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with the safe size, i'm on the side of this not being a huge issue.
it seems the best use scenario of this product is keeping it out of children's hands (or passing curiosity.) which it should accomplish still.
in any other adult theft scenario just take the whole thing home and pry it open at your leisure if you're not into coding.
it seems the best use scenario of this product is keeping it out of children's hands (or passing curiosity.) which it should accomplish still.
in any other adult theft scenario just take the whole thing home and pry it open at your leisure if you're not into coding.
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I love how most the comments focuses on the kid being coached.
Yes, it's completely unthinkable that a kid would sit and poke the safe with whatever he has in his hand. Oh no, a kid would never do that, much less a three-year-old.
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And this is who we are trusting with our future in case of a nuclear war? Next thing you know they’ll be telling me those punks in the tunnel snakes can make my pipboy randomly shock me.
Edit: and I managed to find a screenshot of the exploit code in action...
Edit: and I managed to find a screenshot of the exploit code in action...
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It's a perfectly reasonable safe.
Barring an exploit like this, it will keep young kids from getting inside. Kids "playing" with guns is an unfortunately high cause of child morbidity/mortality from guns.
It will also keep an intruder from using your gun against you, although as you are implying, they can still actually take the gun.
Finally, if you want to transport a gun by airplane (or in automobiles in certain states) you have to have it in a locked, hard-sided container. It would be silly, to say the least, to use a non-portable safe in such instances
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Plus, two of the examples are where he just picks up one side of the safe a little and drops it. Then the safe opens easily. The way the kid does it seems unlikely that a kid would do exactly what he does. But there are all kinds of ways such an object could be dropped/jarred that would result in similar forces within the mechanism.
Imagine a kid playing near the bedside table that the safe sits on (a lot of people who owns such safes actually do keep them right next to the bed). Kid jars the bedside table while playing. Then a little while later the kid starts just sort of fiddling with the knob. Voila... kid now has access to loaded handgun.
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All safes are delaying devices. Even safes used by the government to protect classified areas and documents come with a rating of how many hours or minutes they will withstand attack.
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People really think the primary reason to lock up your gun is so it doesn't get stolen in a burglary? Seems like the primary reason is that people (especially kids) have a bad tendency to hurt themselves while "playing" with guns. Generally not people that are familiar with them, though. I've had a (thankfully) empty gun pointed at me one time by an idiot that thought he was being funny.
Him: "Hey, look. I found Dave's gun. Bang!"
Me (ducking): "#%&@! Don't ever point that thing at me like that."
Him: "It's not loaded."
Me: "I don't care. You do that again, I'll go find some cartridges, load it, and make sure there isn't third time.... idiot."
If Dave's gun had been in a gun safe, that extremely unsafe (but thankfully harmless) incident would have been avoided.
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No, it's for keeping kids or unlicensed adults from shooting themselves or others accidentally or on purpose.
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Licensed? People have been advocating for the sensible measure of licensing guns in a similar fashion to automobiles for decades, without success. Did I miss something?
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My point? I was merely pointing out that safes such as these aren't only for reducing access to "kids". I suppose I could have said unauthorized adults or untrained adults, but we're just playing with semantics now.
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Well, no. "Unauthorized" and "unlicensed" aren't semantically connected; they're two entirely different words with entirely different meanings. Had you said "authorized" I wouldn't have commented. Saying "unlicensed" is an entirely different matter.
Words matter.
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There's not a general licensing requirement for owning/carrying guns, but some jurisdictions do require some types of licensing:
Carrying a handgun concealed requires a license in most states.
Carrying a handgun not concealed requires a license in some states.
Owning a handgun at all requires a license in a few jurisdictions (I know NYC is one, but not sure of exactly where else).
Most states allow owning long guns without a license (again, NYC is the one exception I'm sure of where you need a license).
A few states require a license to open carry a long gun, and even then only require a license in towns/cities. Basically, every state allows open carry of long guns without a license out where hunting is legal.
BTW, I'm using "license" to include "permit". Not sure whether they are legally the exact same thing, but in some cases, it's technically a "permit" one would need.
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Yeah, I kept re-wording it, then noticed that after I posted.
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Un freakin real.
Our Bell Aliant cable box (actually it's fibre op but I digress) has better security. I installed their tv remote app on my android phone and had to pair them using a code the cable box gave me.
It's stories like this that make me shiver about IoT.
Our Bell Aliant cable box (actually it's fibre op but I digress) has better security. I installed their tv remote app on my android phone and had to pair them using a code the cable box gave me.
It's stories like this that make me shiver about IoT.
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First of all, the Constitution isn't, strictly speaking, "law". It's a framework upon which our laws hang. It basically sets limits on what the government can, and can't do and provides a set of instructions for the basic function of our nation. It carries the force of law, but isn't technically, a law like a speed limit.
Secondly, your observation presumes people hate the constitution. That's not at all true, but we all know it isn't perfect, nor immutable. In fact, it's been amended 27 times. It's been changed before, therefore it can be changed again. There's even a process delineated within the constitution that allows for that kind of change to happen.
Finally, you mention "cowards", but I'm admittedly confused by about whom you were referring. If you were referring to gun control advocates (as seems likely), they are proposing NOT being allowed the right to keep and bear and/or regulating that right (as provided for by the first four words in the second amendment) to restrict unfettered access to firearms. This would reasonably argue that they are more confident in their security in facing the world potentially WITHOUT firearms than with them. That would also tend to make one think that going unarmed and confident in their own security would be more courageous than someone who felt they needed a firearm (or any other kind of weapon) to walk around feeling confident in their own security.
So, one has to ask, who are the cowards there? A better question would most likely be, "Did you even bother to think about your response, or were you, as usual, shooting from the hip and hitting yourself in the foot and mouth with that one shot?"
Given the complete lack of any apparent reason in your post, and its insulting, but contradictory nature, I'm inclined to think the wounds you're taking over it were thoughtlessly self-inflicted.
Besides, this isn't the time or place to be insulting gun control advocates. One should be throwing their rage at a company that makes a piece of shit that can be easily hacked to illegally obtain a weapon that, had the storage container been made with any actual care, wouldn't have been as readily accessible.
This would have benefited you specifically because then you could have unleashed your rage at people who were actually less intelligent about their implementation than you were in your post.
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it's a good thing criminals don't have guns either... whew... what a mess that would be huh?
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And many people think there's a segment of the gun owning population that is made up of paranoiacs. I wonder why they get that impression?
Do you live in Mogadishu? Are you in witness protection, and live in daily fear of the Gottis' hit man finally showing up at your house?
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I was thinking more a Texas trailer park...next door to a baptist church.
But FWIW - I grew up in Detroit during the 60s and 70s, in a shockingly shitty neighborhood. And no one in our family did or ever has owned guns, although we've long since left that area/state. During my time there, I never saw a gun upholstered or brandished. And guns used during burglaries are almost unheard of. I'm not in anyway suggesting there weren't problems in Detroit related to gun violence; just that even at the high levels seen, it was still pretty rare.
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