[PLUG-TALK] Hacking Hotel Locks with an Arduino

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Thu, Jul 26, 2012 at 09:24:55AM -0700, Rich Shepard wrote:
>   I wonder if reservation clerks at hotels know the brand of locks installed
> on their room doors. If enough potential customers ask, and avoid any
> facility with Onity locks, they'd be replace rather quickly ... I would
> hope.

If reservation clerks told potential customers what brands of locks
the hotels used, you bet those clerks would be replaced quickly.
Changing staff is easier than telling the truth or replacing locks.

With a $50 electronic key that can reprogram a lock to ignore
the hotel's cards (and perhaps the hotel's rekey tool), who
needs reservations?  Just be sure to leave the room before
the maintenance guy gets there in the morning, and calls
the cops.  Oh, and leave a nice tip for housekeeping.  :-)

I think we will need to collect lists and maps on a website. 
The lock design and the card keys are probably both unique to that
brand, so the website could show examples.  The hotel response
will be legislation to make such websites, and Arduinos, illegal.
Congressmen are cheaper than telling the truth or replacing locks.

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs