Much of the language of computer security and cryptology is borrowed from the world of locks and physical security. When computers are compromised, we say they’ve been “broken in to”, even though no physical trespass has occurred. And ciphers have “keys”, even when there’s no physical object required for decryption. But other than linguistic metaphors, is there a deeper connection between mechanical locks and computer science? Do the two fields have interesting things to teach each other?

This talk will explore how mechanical locks can be analyzed with the tools of modern cryptology, revealing some interesting (and perhaps even dangerous) new attacks against physical security systems.