Keys to the Kingdom

I picked up a second hand copy of Keys to the Kingdom after greatly enjoying Ollam's talks at WWHF and DefCon. This book was disappointing, as he's a much better speaker than he is writer. The good: you can get through this book in a few hours, and it covers the same amount of material as maybe four or five of his talks. The bad: you'll be getting a significantly worse experience.

After the first few chapters, I found myself skimming. As an amateur with only a passing interest in lockpicking, most of these attacks are too sophisticated for me to care about. I'm not going to be breaking in to any high-security locations, and attacking a pin tumbler is as fancy as I'm ever going to possibly need be.

That's not to say this book is without its highlights. I learned about the impressioning attack, and that pressing a key against your forearm for 30 seconds will leave an impression for 15 minutes. That's a pretty cool way of exfiltration. I just tried it myself and it seems to work!