Friday, October 31, 2008

Very Off-topic: Duplicating your keys without your knowledge

From Roland Piquepaille's Technology Trends:

Some clever computer scientists at UC San Diego (UCSD) have developed a software that can perform key duplication with just a picture of the key -- taken from up to 200 feet. One of the researchers said 'we built our key duplication software system to show people that their keys are not inherently secret.' He added that on sites like Flickr, you can find many photos of people's keys that can be used to easily make duplicates. Apparently, some people are blurring 'numbers on their credit cards and driver's licenses before putting those photos on-line,' but not their keys. This software project is quite interesting, but don't be too afraid. I don't think that many of you put a photo of their keys online -- with their addresses. But read more...

Silicon core of an optical fiber


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HT: Futurismic Keys cloned from long-range photographs