Schuyler Towne
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2014–2020
51:21 · 36K views · Sep 23, 2012
Locksport historian Schuyler Towne's RVASec 2012 talk on why people lock their doors, tracing the history of locks and the assumptions about security behind them.
HN commenters call it a passionate and educational history of locks and physical security, and a good starting point for the subject.
4 comments from Hacker News
If you ever listen to people who really love locks talk about locks they all seem to say one thing. "All locks are pickable [or attackable]". This just means that this particular lock is abnormal and most lock-people don't have the experience to attack it, not that it is secure. If you are semi-interested in locks, I really recommend listening to Schuyler Towne talk about locks. He's one of those people who is very passionate about what he does in a way that interest in locks really rubs off onto you in a really educational and relatable way. Here's a longer talk about the history of locks by him from 2012. It's a great place to start. this video
And the US in the early 1800s. Schuyler Towne has an amazing discussion of this, how Europeans routinely were laughing at American inventions... until they suddenly very much weren't. It's in this talk. this video I'd link directly to the relevant five minutes but it's hard to justify doing that sort of harm, depriving you of the other great 45 minutes there. (Ok, let's say it's 34ish to 41ish. Still, that entire thing is probably better than the other way you were going to spend some 50 minute block today.)
Schuyler Towne has (several?) great talks on this, going through the history of physical security and our assumptions about perfect security vs. social and cultural symbols. this video
I've researched the "why" and a couple years ago had the opportunity to discuss some of the broader ideas in the history & anthropology of locks. It was actually titled "Why do you lock your door?" this video