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This is a very engineering solution to a very not-engineering problem. Would this deter thieves? Possibly! Would thieves eventually be able to work around it?

This is a very engineering solution to a very not-engineering problem. Would this deter thieves? Possibly! Would thieves eventually be able to work around it? Also probably! Would it increase the friction of getting in and driving? Definitely! Today, your house keys are basically useless for security -- getting into your house is trivially easy both destructively and not. But we all use house keys because they feel safer. Ask people to provide biometrics or long passkeys or keycards and eliminate the existing locks? It's a hassle most folks won't tolerate. Likewise, people are comfortable with the walk up, push button, leave nature of fobs. Replacing that with "walk up, scan fingerprint" or "walk up, type in password" is going to tick off a lot of people.

HPsquared 3y ago
Security is always a trade-off. The most effective, and also most costly, way to avoid car theft is to not own a car at all (for example).
- radiator 3y ago
  How is this the most costly way?
  - gruez 3y ago
    Opportunity cost of the additional travel time[1] that you have to spend because you don't have a car. [1] Yes, I'm aware of european cities where cars aren't necessary or are actually slower than public transit. That's not applicable to most of the US though.
    - postmortembees 3y ago
      I wonder how many instacart/uber orders I would need to have to offset the cost of a car, assuming I can bike to most of my needs. The only reason I have a car is because there are some specialized transportation needs (towing) that I cannot get from my bike. I use my bike for everything from hardware to Costco to groceries to child care to ... lots of stuff.
      - SoftTalker 3y ago
        You're in the minority. Most people cannot use a bike for this stuff. They live too far away or the roads and/or terrain are not suitable for bikes.
      - gruez 3y ago
        > I wonder how many instacart/uber orders I would need to have to offset the cost of a car, assuming I can bike to most of my needs. Not that much. One site[1] lists the TCO of a compact car at around $33k/year if you drive it for 15k mi/year for 5 years. That works out to $550/month. Of course, if you're comparing this to getting ubers, there's no way that you'll be driving anywhere near 15k mi/year, so the TCO of a comparable car is probably $450/month. That's a lot of money to spend on uber/instacart, but keep in mind that if you have a modest commute of $20 each way, that only works out to 11 round-trips a month, or half the working days. So if your lifestyle is such that you don't need to drive to work most days, and you don't any other similar uses for cars (eg. picking up kids from school and/or driving them to extracurriculars), then by all means uber everywhere rather than owning a car. [1] https://www.kbb.com/new-cars/total-cost-of-ownership/ https://www.kbb.com/new-cars/total-cost-of-ownership/
        postmortembees 3y ago
        I've got an ebike that takes me anywhere within ~10 miles easily, including picking up/drop off kids), and I'm a remote worker (though I could bike to the office easily.)
      - thomastjeffery 3y ago
        I have a friend whose only reasonable option to commute to/from work is uber/lyft. He spends more each month on that than I do on my car loan. He can't afford to make a downpayment for a car loan of his own, because he is spending that money on uber/lyft. This is a vicious and familiar cycle in America.
EA-3167 3y ago
Most locks on most residential facilities are not about security so much as a "tamper evident" seal for insurance purposes.
- postmortembees 3y ago
  I guarantee you I, or anyone else with ~30m of training can get into 95% of homes without leaving much evidence that the locks were tampered with. House locks are very easy to pick open.
  - EA-3167 3y ago
    Most thieves are not trained in covert entry, they aren't lock pickers, they're desperate addicts looking to get some things to pawn for a fix.
    - postmortembees 3y ago
      Of course. Most thieves break in use the time honored "brick + window" method. But I was refuting the specific idea that house locks are a tamper evident seal. They are trivially easy to bypass in a tamper evident manner.
  - jerlam 3y ago
    And yet, the universal way to break into homes is with brute force, by smashing a window or kicking the door in.
  - talldatethrow 3y ago
    If I know my door is locked, and you get in, I can still shoot you since I know I locked it, thus you'll have the tools somewhere near you showing you broke in. If it's just a code, tons of legal ambiguity comes up. Can a gf shoot her exbf that she gave the keycode to last month?
    - jjnoakes 3y ago
      > Can a gf shoot her exbf that she gave the keycode to last month? How is this different from a physical key?
mrweasel 3y ago
> This is a very engineering solution to a very not-engineering problem. True, the solution very obviously to reduce poverty. It's a social problem, not an engineering nor a policing problem.
- teach 3y ago
  Land Value Tax would fix this!
  - bagels 3y ago
    We already have a land value tax. It's called "Property Tax"
    - postmortembees 3y ago
      Property tax is not land value tax. Property tax is a tax on both the improvements and the base value of the land. Land value taxes are only taxes on the value of the land. A land value tax would tax a giant residential building and the parking lot adjacent to it the same, which encourages maximizing the value of the lot rather than leaving it for parking.
- postmortembees 3y ago
  Agreed. It's surprising how often we are great at post mortem analysis in engineering contexts (asking "why" five times), but we find it uncomfortable to do the same in social contexts. We jump straight to "How" rather than "why", and build locks that inconvenience people in hopes of stopping that one "how" rather than investing in fixing the root causes.
hutzlibu 3y ago
"Today, your house keys are basically useless for security" They are not useless. Only some people have the skills and tools to open them - so they are useful at keeping most people out, even though they don't provide perfect protection. Most thieves are not professionals, but for example junkies who look for something easy. A simple automatic light, is already doing wonders to keep them away.
- postmortembees 3y ago
  Raking house locks is a) not difficult and b) not expensive. You don't need to be a professional to do that. But also, bricks through windows are equally not difficult and not expensive, though they do leave a bit more evidence. When my neighbors have been burgled, this is the preferred method of entry I've seen.
  - hutzlibu 3y ago
    "But also, bricks through windows are equally not difficult and not expensive, though they do leave a bit more evidence" But that would be loud. You don't want attention when breaking in. (Unless you are a fucked up junkie not caring about anything anymore) But yes, my parents for example are paranoid about always locking the front door 2 times(and get angry if I don't do it when I visit), but have a glass door in the back. There are also glass cutters. "Raking house locks is a) not difficult and b) not expensive. You don't need to be a professional to do that" But you do have to make some investment. They are illegal to purchase (in most places), I would not know, where to start looking. And then you have to learn to use them. And I know someone who did play with those a bit - yet he still could not enter my door at all. So it is a barrier.
    - autoexec 3y ago
      > They are illegal to purchase (in most places), I would not know, where to start looking. amazon. Not much of an investment needed https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-20-School-Toolbox/dp/B0C8VM9HZQ https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-20-School-Toolbox/dp/...
talldatethrow 3y ago
Another reason you have locks is to show intent to keep others out. You can't shoot someone that walks into your home through an open door. You can shoot someone that rams your door to open it.
- goodpoint 3y ago
  You cannot shoot anybody in the largest majority of countries on this planet. Thankfully.
  - pdonis 3y ago
    How do you get criminals to obey this nice rule?
    - master-lincoln 3y ago
      By making it hard to obtain weapons. The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...
      - talldatethrow 3y ago
        What do you do if two criminals break into your house and you don't have a gun?
        talldatethrow 3y ago
        I love that this got downvotes but no responses.
        ddingus 3y ago
        A few things: The number one, by far most effective thing you do comes well ahead of those armed, home entry thieves, and that is you make your home scream "GO AWAY!" Get a dog Employ great lighting Put the home alarm stickers on, actual alarm optional, [3] Clean up. Etc... The criminals work on risk reward. You can bias that equation away from favorable meaning the baddies pick another home, not yours. From there, should you really feel this scenario could happen, maybe consider a gun. But if you do, please get gun education. One bad scenario is to have a gun, and face experienced users. Your chance of getting you, and or family, hurt go way up! I do mostly identify with the left, but am gun friendly having grown up rural and well educated about guns. [3] - no joke! Neighbors had done the sticker thing for roughly a decade. That, plus the other suggestions work well.
IshKebab 3y ago
> getting into your house is trivially easy both destructively and not. Absolutely not the case. With toughened glass and modern reinforced doors it is very far from trivial. At least in the UK. I understand security standards can be much lower depending on the country.

HPsquared 3y ago

Security is always a trade-off. The most effective, and also most costly, way to avoid car theft is to not own a car at all (for example).

radiator 3y ago
How is this the most costly way?
- gruez 3y ago
  Opportunity cost of the additional travel time[1] that you have to spend because you don't have a car. [1] Yes, I'm aware of european cities where cars aren't necessary or are actually slower than public transit. That's not applicable to most of the US though.
  - postmortembees 3y ago
    I wonder how many instacart/uber orders I would need to have to offset the cost of a car, assuming I can bike to most of my needs. The only reason I have a car is because there are some specialized transportation needs (towing) that I cannot get from my bike. I use my bike for everything from hardware to Costco to groceries to child care to ... lots of stuff.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      You're in the minority. Most people cannot use a bike for this stuff. They live too far away or the roads and/or terrain are not suitable for bikes.
    - gruez 3y ago
      > I wonder how many instacart/uber orders I would need to have to offset the cost of a car, assuming I can bike to most of my needs. Not that much. One site[1] lists the TCO of a compact car at around $33k/year if you drive it for 15k mi/year for 5 years. That works out to $550/month. Of course, if you're comparing this to getting ubers, there's no way that you'll be driving anywhere near 15k mi/year, so the TCO of a comparable car is probably $450/month. That's a lot of money to spend on uber/instacart, but keep in mind that if you have a modest commute of $20 each way, that only works out to 11 round-trips a month, or half the working days. So if your lifestyle is such that you don't need to drive to work most days, and you don't any other similar uses for cars (eg. picking up kids from school and/or driving them to extracurriculars), then by all means uber everywhere rather than owning a car. [1] https://www.kbb.com/new-cars/total-cost-of-ownership/ https://www.kbb.com/new-cars/total-cost-of-ownership/
      - postmortembees 3y ago
        I've got an ebike that takes me anywhere within ~10 miles easily, including picking up/drop off kids), and I'm a remote worker (though I could bike to the office easily.)
    - thomastjeffery 3y ago
      I have a friend whose only reasonable option to commute to/from work is uber/lyft. He spends more each month on that than I do on my car loan. He can't afford to make a downpayment for a car loan of his own, because he is spending that money on uber/lyft. This is a vicious and familiar cycle in America.

EA-3167 3y ago

Most locks on most residential facilities are not about security so much as a "tamper evident" seal for insurance purposes.

postmortembees 3y ago
I guarantee you I, or anyone else with ~30m of training can get into 95% of homes without leaving much evidence that the locks were tampered with. House locks are very easy to pick open.
- EA-3167 3y ago
  Most thieves are not trained in covert entry, they aren't lock pickers, they're desperate addicts looking to get some things to pawn for a fix.
  - postmortembees 3y ago
    Of course. Most thieves break in use the time honored "brick + window" method. But I was refuting the specific idea that house locks are a tamper evident seal. They are trivially easy to bypass in a tamper evident manner.
- jerlam 3y ago
  And yet, the universal way to break into homes is with brute force, by smashing a window or kicking the door in.
- talldatethrow 3y ago
  If I know my door is locked, and you get in, I can still shoot you since I know I locked it, thus you'll have the tools somewhere near you showing you broke in. If it's just a code, tons of legal ambiguity comes up. Can a gf shoot her exbf that she gave the keycode to last month?
  - jjnoakes 3y ago
    > Can a gf shoot her exbf that she gave the keycode to last month? How is this different from a physical key?

mrweasel 3y ago

> This is a very engineering solution to a very not-engineering problem. True, the solution very obviously to reduce poverty. It's a social problem, not an engineering nor a policing problem.

teach 3y ago
Land Value Tax would fix this!
- bagels 3y ago
  We already have a land value tax. It's called "Property Tax"
  - postmortembees 3y ago
    Property tax is not land value tax. Property tax is a tax on both the improvements and the base value of the land. Land value taxes are only taxes on the value of the land. A land value tax would tax a giant residential building and the parking lot adjacent to it the same, which encourages maximizing the value of the lot rather than leaving it for parking.
postmortembees 3y ago
Agreed. It's surprising how often we are great at post mortem analysis in engineering contexts (asking "why" five times), but we find it uncomfortable to do the same in social contexts. We jump straight to "How" rather than "why", and build locks that inconvenience people in hopes of stopping that one "how" rather than investing in fixing the root causes.

hutzlibu 3y ago

"Today, your house keys are basically useless for security" They are not useless. Only some people have the skills and tools to open them - so they are useful at keeping most people out, even though they don't provide perfect protection. Most thieves are not professionals, but for example junkies who look for something easy. A simple automatic light, is already doing wonders to keep them away.

postmortembees 3y ago
Raking house locks is a) not difficult and b) not expensive. You don't need to be a professional to do that. But also, bricks through windows are equally not difficult and not expensive, though they do leave a bit more evidence. When my neighbors have been burgled, this is the preferred method of entry I've seen.
- hutzlibu 3y ago
  "But also, bricks through windows are equally not difficult and not expensive, though they do leave a bit more evidence" But that would be loud. You don't want attention when breaking in. (Unless you are a fucked up junkie not caring about anything anymore) But yes, my parents for example are paranoid about always locking the front door 2 times(and get angry if I don't do it when I visit), but have a glass door in the back. There are also glass cutters. "Raking house locks is a) not difficult and b) not expensive. You don't need to be a professional to do that" But you do have to make some investment. They are illegal to purchase (in most places), I would not know, where to start looking. And then you have to learn to use them. And I know someone who did play with those a bit - yet he still could not enter my door at all. So it is a barrier.
  - autoexec 3y ago
    > They are illegal to purchase (in most places), I would not know, where to start looking. amazon. Not much of an investment needed https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-20-School-Toolbox/dp/B0C8VM9HZQ https://www.amazon.com/Stainless-Steel-20-School-Toolbox/dp/...

talldatethrow 3y ago

Another reason you have locks is to show intent to keep others out. You can't shoot someone that walks into your home through an open door. You can shoot someone that rams your door to open it.

goodpoint 3y ago
You cannot shoot anybody in the largest majority of countries on this planet. Thankfully.
- pdonis 3y ago
  How do you get criminals to obey this nice rule?
  - master-lincoln 3y ago
    By making it hard to obtain weapons. The US thinking to me seams to go along the lines of handing out nuclear weapons to everybody so forces are balanced...
    - talldatethrow 3y ago
      What do you do if two criminals break into your house and you don't have a gun?
      - talldatethrow 3y ago
        I love that this got downvotes but no responses.
      - ddingus 3y ago
        A few things: The number one, by far most effective thing you do comes well ahead of those armed, home entry thieves, and that is you make your home scream "GO AWAY!" Get a dog Employ great lighting Put the home alarm stickers on, actual alarm optional, [3] Clean up. Etc... The criminals work on risk reward. You can bias that equation away from favorable meaning the baddies pick another home, not yours. From there, should you really feel this scenario could happen, maybe consider a gun. But if you do, please get gun education. One bad scenario is to have a gun, and face experienced users. Your chance of getting you, and or family, hurt go way up! I do mostly identify with the left, but am gun friendly having grown up rural and well educated about guns. [3] - no joke! Neighbors had done the sticker thing for roughly a decade. That, plus the other suggestions work well.

IshKebab 3y ago

> getting into your house is trivially easy both destructively and not. Absolutely not the case. With toughened glass and modern reinforced doors it is very far from trivial. At least in the UK. I understand security standards can be much lower depending on the country.