> It looks like this is an urban legend: > > Hotel Room Keys Have Your Personal Information on Them Including Credit > Card Numbers-Fiction! Ok, so I'm a little slow responding to this... But I wanted to pass on some first-hand information that is vaguely related to this subject and might be of interest the list. I discovered, pretty much by accident recently, that some of card-style door locks have a rather disturbing fail-"safe" mode. I was leaving my hotel room and turned the door handle behind me after the door shut -- not something I always did and not really a conscious thought. But it sure got my attention when the door opened! That's right, the door opened without using a key card. After calling room service and having the lock repaired, I learned that the door deals with dead batteries by defaulting to the unlocked position. It was not clear what the procedure was to detect this failure (ie was somebody supposed to make a regular round checking doors, or did the door report its condition) -- but it was clear that in this particular hotel the procedure had failed and I almost unknowingly walked off leaving the room unlocked. To make matters worse, I investigated the door a bit and discovered that the batteries are enclosed within the latch mechanism on the OUTSIDE of the door and the cover plate is held on by a standard torx screw. In other words, it would be pretty trivial for a would-be thief to can access to any room by simply popping the plate off the door, removing the batteries and taking advantage of the fail-safe unlock to walk into the room. I didn't carry my investigation as far as actually trying that technique, but I was tempted... There's not much that can be done as a hotel guest about the break-in problem, but I do encourage everyone to get into the habit of always trying the door handle after closing on the way out. Raan Young
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Nov 08 2003 - 13:59:33 PST