I never did reach a truce with the locksmiths. A couple years later, I met Billy Edwards, the author of that editorial denouncing me, at a trade show, and when he learned who I was he refused to shake my hand and asked me to leave him alone.
I wish he had seen things differently, but I can respect that he was coming from a place of genuine concern, even if I think his approach was wrong.
To this day, I worry that I'm pretty screwed if I get locked out of my house.
7/7
NB: While I never intended to piss off locksmiths with my master keying paper, I did write a followup a couple years later about safes and safecracking, partly out of spite.
https://www.mattblaze.org/papers/safelocks.pdf
TL;dr: We can learn a lot from safes and safe locks, and the frameworks of cryptography and computer security are applicable there, too. The fact that our learning about this subject makes people in that industry upset is just a bonus.
I wrote that paper after I had moved from AT&T Labs to U. Penn. The Penn locksmith went totally apoplectic, and wrote regular angry letters to the dean and to the head of campus security warning about what an irresponsible, dangerous menace I am. But for whatever reason, his efforts were unsuccessful in getting me fired; the administration just forwarded me his letters, which I taped to the door of my office.
It occurs to me that people outside the security field might find it odd that we openly publish stuff like this. Why help people who might use the knowledge to do bad things?
There are a number of reasons. The first is that only through open discussion are we able to identify and fix problems. Another, which is what motivated my work, is educational: you can't learn to defend systems unless you understand how they are attacked.
So while openly publishing offensive security techniques might indeed help criminals, that harm is outweighed by significant benefits. Every properly trained computer science student should understand how to exploit vulnerabilities. Because the attackers DEFINITELY understand it.
The bottom line here is that while being the subject of attack by a deranged internet mob is never fun, sometimes it's the cost of doing business for doing interesting work.
And for those who yell at me for posting black and white photos or not putting content warnings on discussions of current events or not using enough hashtags or whatever, don't bother. I've stared down angry locksmiths and come out the other side.
I've gotten a few replies asking me if I regret publishing this or would do anything differently.
No. I'm proud of this work. I think it has value. I would do nothing differently. I am, evidently, remorseless and incorrigible.
@mattblaze@federate.social
The issue is not "how can I protect my 42 Rolex from thieves?" but "Why must a thief pick my 42 Rolex?", bringing to ask "Who taught to this person that to have 42 Rolex is good?", i.e. "Who invented the competition based on the possession of things?".
Matt Blaze