Tedium - Slot Insecurities 🔐

Today in Tedium: I’ve only dealt with the theft (or potential theft) of computers a handful of times in my life. One of those times came about five years ago, when someone stole a laptop of mine, but was caught before the device was gone for good. (I still have that laptop today—it’s my Pop_OS! machine—and thanks to the help of my refurbisher pal John Bumstead, it now has a new screen.) Perhaps I could have prevented its movement and near-theft had the device had a physical lock on the side. This locking capability, while perhaps not used by many home users, is actually fairly common on many modern computers, particularly of the laptop variety. The device that was nearly stolen had it! Clearly had I thought ahead, I could have stopped it from being pulled away—at least that’s the theory, anyway. Today’s Tedium ponders laptop security slots and the complications a little sunlight creates for keeping things secure in the modern day. — Ernie @ Tedium

ACCO Brands, the owner of Kensington, started out as a paper clip manufacturer more than a century ago. (Donald Giannatti/Unsplash)

The company behind the Kensington security slot is also behind a lot of other things

A paper clip would make a terrible lock. Made of a thin material, paper clips can be easily bent out of shape and rejiggered any which way but Tuesday. And most people could bend it with their bare hands, no special lockpicking tools needed.

But a company that became famous for turning a paper clip company into a stationery conglomerate is largely responsible for the rise of the Kensington security slot in the modern day.

Founded in 1903, the American Clip Company became an office and stationary supply giant initially off the back of the paper clip. It eventually evolved into ACCO Brands, a firm responsible for many innovations in the office and classrooms you take for granted—and some you’re probably not even aware of. A few of ACCO’s well-known brands:

1. Mead. This well-known maker of stationary materials, most famously the Trapper Keeper, sold most of its office-supply offerings to ACCO Brands in 2012.

2. Five Star. This maker of school supplies, at one point a Mead product line, has evolved into a brand of its own, and is the one you’ll likely run into if you’ve needed a giant binder of some kind in the last decade.

3. Advanced Gravis. This now-defunct company, acquired in 1997, was famous for creating game controllers targeted at PC users—most famously its Gravis Gamepad, a necessary element of any worthwhile Commander Keen session. (PowerA, a gaming accessories company, carries the torch for ACCO today.)

4. Swingline. A famous maker of staplers, the company’s best known stapler—a bright red one featured in the movie Office Space—was not actually something the company offered at the time of the film’s release, but eventually became a big seller once they resolved that.

And that brings us to Kensington. Started in 1981 as Kensington Microware, the company found its footing making accessories for the IBM PC and Apple II, largely surge protectors and input devices. An early hit for the company was the TurboMouse, an early trackball device for the Macintosh that dates to the late 1980s. As Anil Dash will tell you, Prince was known to use Kensington trackballs.

In many ways, Kensington, which ACCO acquired in the late 1990s, has become the key umbrella brand for ACCO’s digital efforts. To this day, the company has interests in trackballs, but it’s expanded its product base into docking stations, laptop bags, standing desks, mouse pads, travel adapters, and (of course!) device security.

Around the late 1980s and early 1990s, the market for computer notebooks was growing in earnest, and concerns about security were growing. Kensington, a firm with an interest in computer accessories in all forms, was early to the endeavor, selling the endeavor initially as the MicroSaver, a brand name that dates as far back as 1984 (though not in its later context as a locking mechanism).

A 2008 MacBook Pro, which includes a Kensington security slot. It’s to the right of the headphone jack. (William Hook/Unsplash)

And as laptops became more common, physical security elements were directly baked into them. A 1992 article in PC Magazine described the benefit of this strategy as helping to sell the concept of laptops to businesses, which clearly might have misgivings about allowing machines that cost thousands of dollars to leave the building on a daily basis. In that sense, the security slot was an effective way to ease the concerns of early ’90s IT departments.

“When the lock is closed, the notebook is secured to the desk,” author Christopher Burr wrote. “If someone tries to steal it, they’ll either be discouraged or they’ll destroy the notebook case in the process, making it practically worthless.”

At the time, laptop manufacturers’ support of this endeavor was seen as essential to making this possible, and Burr wrote that major laptop makers of the time, such as Toshiba and Compaq, were working to support locks such as Kensington’s.

While there have been some changes over the years, the Kensington slot survived on many Apple laptops through to the unibody MacBook Pro, which was sold until 2016; many modern Windows PCs and Chromebooks still have it, and for devices that don’t have one, like iPads, the company has been known to create custom proprietary designs to secure them.

There’s just one problem, and it’s on YouTube.

The website for Derman’s Padlock Security, which discusses his patent filing for his latest lock. He directly credits LockPickingLawyer for inspiring his design.

Why the guy who helped developed many of Kensington’s locks wants to beat the LockPickingLawyer with his latest lock design

Throughout our call, Derman seemed determined not to dwell on his past successes alone. Much the opposite, in fact. When I tried to lean on the nostalgia angle or the sheer reach of some of his inventions—a bit of a softball that I naturally ask in cases like these—he wasn’t having it.

“My slot lock? Well, it’s not helping them anymore,” he says, explaining that physical locks must adapt with the time just as digital security often does. “If someone wants to steal it, they can steal it. Because there’s someone on the computer or on the cell phone, they can learn how to steal it, if that’s what they want.”

When I pressed him on whether he felt any warm feelings about his past work, I got the impression that, instead, he was concerned instead about the many locks out there that weren’t actually secure, because of the growing interest in videos that reveal the secrets of locks we use every day.

Perhaps for this reason, Derman—who has moonlighted in developing things such as soap dispensers that work with regular drinking glasses and mouse traps that improve on a basic design that is more than a century old—has started to pick up interest in coming up with new types of locks once again. In 2019, he filed for a patent for a lock with a design that he hopes will prevent the LockPickingLawyer (or anyone else, for that matter) from breaking in; he was granted the patent back in May.

A drawing from Derman’s latest patent filing, “Padlock Security.” (Google Patents)

The design is a built around a standard padlock-style design, but wraps an additional metal chamber around the outside of it, so the lock itself can only be accessed with an extra-long key. He notes that any padlock can be pressed to its limits, but at least his should prove a serious challenge to anyone hoping to break into it using traditional lock-picking methods.

“If they can’t get in using the padlock and they want to rip the door down, okay, that’s not taking the lock. But they did have to go through an extra effort—but big time extra effort and a lot of noise—to rip a garage or a storage door open or a gate open, you know, break it down. But that’s not kicking it in: That’s using an electric drill, or using a hydraulic cutting tool, or a portable electric saw.”

In many ways, Derman took the underlying point of the LockPickingLawyer’s many videos to heart: Many physical locks—including those sold by large, mainstream brands—represent theater, not security. So he used that knowledge to build a better lock that may be strong enough to represent security, not theater.

He has yet to sell the lock design to anyone (he’s taking offers now, tell ’em Tedium sent ya), nor has he been able to convince the LockPickingLawyer to take a stab at his patented device, but one hopes it eventually happens.

Having talked to Jay, I can say that he is truly someone who took that YouTuber’s point to heart.