locks – Dan Q

Lock All The Computers

I wanted a way to simultaneously lock all of the computers – a mixture of Linux, MacOS and Windows boxen – on my desk, when I’m going to step away. Here’s what I came up with:

There’s optional audio in this video, if you want it.

One button. And everything locks. Nice!

Here’s how it works:

The mini keyboard is just 10 cheap mechanical keys wired up to a CH552 chip. It’s configured to send CTRL+ALT+F13 through CTRL+ALT+F22¹ when one of its keys are pressed.
The “lock” key is captured by my KVM tool Deskflow (which I migrated to when Barrier became neglected, which in turn I migrated to when I fell out of love with Synergy). It then relays this hotkey across to all currently-connected machines².
That shortcut is captured by each recipient machine in different ways:
- The Linux computers run LXDE, so I added a line to /etc/xdg/openbox/rc.xml to set a <keybind> that executes xscreensaver-command -lock.
- For the Macs, I created a Quick Action in Automator that runs pmset displaysleepnow as a shell script³, and then connected that via Keyboard Shortcuts > Services.
- On the Windows box, I’ve got AutoHotKey running anyway, so I just have it run { DllCall("LockWorkStation") } when it hears the keypress.

That’s all there is to is! A magic “lock all my computers, I’m stepping away” button, that’s much faster and more-convenient than locking two to five computers individually.

Footnotes

¹ F13 through F24 are absolutely valid “standard” key assignments, of course: it’s just that the vast majority of keyboards don’t have keys for them! This makes them excellent candidates for non-clashing personal-use function keys, but I like to append one or more modifier keys to the as well to be absolutely certain that I don’t interact with things I didn’t intend to!

² Some of the other buttons on my mini keyboard are mapped to “jumping” my cursor to particular computers (if I lose it, which happens more often than I’d like to admit), and “locking” my cursor to the system it’s on.

³ These boxes are configured to lock as soon as the screen blanks; if yours don’t then you might need a more-sophisticated script.

A Surprisingly Shit Bathroom

This bathroom at the holiday home where some fellow volunteers and I are doing some Three Rings work, this week, has a few unusual quirks, including this surprisingly-shit bathroom:

The door has a lock… but there’s a second door which doesn’t.
Oh, and the first door’s lock doesn’t actually do anything. The door can still be opened from the outside.

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

This is a repost promoting content originally published elsewhere. See more things Dan's reposted.

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/06/15/taplock_broken_screwdriver/ (theregister.co.uk)

It’s never easy to crack into a market with an innovative new product but makers of the “world’s first smart fingerprint padlock” have made one critical error: they forgot about the existence of screwdrivers.

Tapplock raised $320,000 in 2016 for their product that would allow you to use just your finger to open the “unbreakable” lock. Amazing. Things took a turn for the worse when the ship date of September came and went, and backers complained that the upstart has stopped posting any updates and wasn’t responding to emails nor social media posts.

But after months of silence, the startup assured El Reg that everything was still moving forward and the delays were due to “issues with manufacturing in China.”

Fast forward 18 months and finally – finally – the $100 Tapplock is out on the market and it is… well, how do we put this kindly? Somewhat flawed.

…

Kieren McCarthy (The Register)

A Weekend Of Lockpicking

Following up the arrival of my new lockpicks, I’ve spent the weekend picking pretty much every lock I’ve come across (and helping to teach JTA and Bryn how to do it for themselves). The result: six of nine attempted locks picked, feeling significantly more well-practiced, and very, very sore fingers. I need to get some rubber sleeves or something for these picks, ‘cos holding them for several hours in a day actually begins to bruise.

In other good news, I’m aware that there’s a planned RockMonkey social in which RockMonkey people will go out for drinks and take photos of the various locations featured in TromaNightAdventure. Sounds like a giggle to me, if ever I heard one.

I Can Still Do It

My new lockpick set arrived today. I haven’t played with picks in years and years, and so, when I started clumsily fooling around inside a chunky padlock that Claire found behind some furniture yesterday, it felt like I was about to have another half-hour of footing around before I could even count the number of pins it had. And then it all came back. 30 seconds later, the lock was open.

Nothing to all of you guys, but it elated me for a moment to find that lockpicking, too, is just like riding a bicycle.