Key-cutting machine borked sideways after visit from the BSOD fairy locks things down
- Reference: 1601541106
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/10/01/bork/
- Source link:
This latest example of Microsoft's finest being poorly in the wild was spotted by Register reader Adam Isherwood during that most British of undertakings – a weekend trip to his local purveyor of DIY products.
After collecting his implements of destruction and construction, Adam paused to snap a shot of a very distressed key-cutting kiosk. Nobody likes being BSODed sideways, and this eye-watering example is our old friend A process or thread crucial to system operation has unexpectedly exited or been terminated.
[1]
Digging a little deeper into the meaning of that 0x000000F4 STOP error hints that a CRITICAL_OBJECT_TERMINATION might be in the offing. Some cross-session naughtiness might be to blame, or perhaps a simple bit of duff hardware.
Either way, there'll be no entrusting of one's keys with this particular machine today.
A shame because the kit on offer from Keighley-based [2]My Key Machine is quite the neat device. The team behind it kicked things off in 2010 and spent two years building the first-generation machine. Three years on, the gang were flinging the things out of the door.
"The appearance of the machine has evolved dramatically," trumpets the company's puffery, "but the revolutionary technology inside is still the bedrock in which our fantastic service is based."
That, and the pumice-like bedrock of Windows, judging by the unhappiness on display in England's Huddersfield.
There are those that might step back from the idea of scanning a key for reproduction by a kiosk powered by anything electronic, let alone Microsoft's finest, and for many the human touch is often preferable despite the "under 3 minutes" promise of My Key Machine.
"Choose the best and 'Just Say No' to the rest!!" is the slogan of Wallington-based [3]Mentor Lock & Safe Co , operating from a small shop in the Surrey town. A trek from Huddersfield for sure, but when one has the chance of being served by Grange Hill 's* Zammo (aka Lee MacDonald, owner of the business), the thought of a contactless tap on a kiosk pales somewhat.
Just say... Windows? As the kids from Grange Hill never, ever said. ®
* A BBC children's drama that ran from 1978 to 2008, portraying life in a fictional secondary school. Samuel "Zammo" McGuire, played by MacDonald, featured from 1982 to 1987 and the character's infamous dalliance with hard drugs saw the cast take on Nancy Reagan's [4]"Just Say No" slogan in a [5]video of 1980s musical delight .
Get our [6]Tech Resources
[1] https://regmedia.co.uk/2020/09/29/bork11.jpg
[2] https://www.mykeymachine.com/
[3] https://www.mentorlock.co.uk/
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2016/mar/07/grange-hill-nancy-reagan-white-house-just-say-no
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkQXnQ0plDA
[6] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Poor choice of words but presumably inside this kiosk is a CNC that grasps a blank and then mills out the grooves. Even in cheapo CNCs from Aliexpress the motors can move each axis within 0.1mm precision so there is no reason to think this kiosk would be any worse, and would be well within the tolerances of typical locks.
e.g. A Yale style lock has 7 pins, each cut to 7 potential heights that vary by 0.025 inch / 0.635mm increments. The corresponding key has 7 grooves that when inserted allows the pins to align and allow the lock to be turned.
So 0.1mm would be nothing at all and well within the tolerances that a lock would cope with.
Well, yes, my point was largely about the vagueness of the language. As an aside, most of the pin-tumbler locks I see use 6 pins. The spare I got cut (by a human) for my front door actually only works if you jiggle it a bit... I think it's a combination of heavy wear on both the lock and key (it's a communal door for three separate dwellings), followed by inaccurate cutting. I maintain that, depending on the quality/age/wear of the lock, 0.25mm could be enough to at least make it need a jiggle...
i would think that the accuracy is as good as the usual manually operated machine. Those cannot be better than 0.25 mm.
That's quite a bad lock up!
lock-up
Maybe they need to input a key to unlock it?
I wonder...
I've never seen one of these kiosks let alone know how it works. But it would be interesting if it cuts a key by scanning one optically. I wonder if you could print out an image of a bump key and have this machine cut you one.
Re: I wonder...
Maybe there are magic fairies and a big mouse wheel inside the kiosk, and none of this technology stuff.....
When i see borked things like this in a public place, I always wonder why none of the many sales droids and other employees, or god forbid, the store manager hasn't tried switching it off and back on again. It's on a 3 pin plug for goodness sakes, and makes the whole store look so amateurish.
Maybe this is the result of switching off and on, in which case a nice bit of paper stuck to the front saying o-o-o would be better than just a borked machine.
Re: I wonder...
That's also an old version of Windows I think
Re: I wonder...
That's the big problem with using Windows to run machines. It's not really practical to update any but the most expensive machines out in the field, so they'll tend to run with whatever was current at installation time.
Even if there's a maintenance contract, a new Windows version 10 years after installation is probably going to involve replacing the hardware./ You're not going to just install an update CD on something with machine control systems. So you essentially limit the machine's lifetime to the life of a Windows release.
Re: I wonder...
I think leaving the BSOD up is a way of saying 'it's not our fault. It's the computer'.
Re: I wonder...
There's one in my local supermarket and I've been pondering it.
I've two £1 keys to my flat door, but the door to the tenement costs £15 and you need permission to cut one (they are engraved 'Security Key'). I'd like to give it a go but I don't want locked out during lockdown.
Re: I wonder...
Last time I got a "security key" cut, all they did was ask me to write down a name and address. I say a name and address. Could have been anyone's. They didn't even ask me what door it was for. I do wonder what the point is...
Re: I wonder...
As it happens, I had some keys cut by one of these the other day.
They're not entirely automatic - they rely on an operator to feed in the original key and then the correct blanks, one at a time as each one is cut.
TLS - Transcribed Locking Service
Do these keys have an expiration date longer than a year? That sort of behaviour is deprecated these days.
According to their website, "every key is cut to within a fraction of a millimetre". Hmm... to be honest, that doesn't sound good enough. Even a ¼ of a millimetre out will quite easily stop a key from working. Perhaps they should have been more specific...