Need help cracking lock box system

300 electronic keys at about $100 each. This was a huge investment for us but the system has been working great and it provides great security for the homes we have for sale.

Recently, Supra which is owned by General Electric decided that they can use a security feature of our lock box system against us to extort money from us. Our electronic keys must be updated with a security code each month. If the keys aren't updated, they won't open the lock boxes. We pay Supra about $3000 per year for the privilege of being able to call up their automated computer to get this security code each month. We call from a touch tone phone and enter our key's number and a computer speaks back a number that we enter into the key to activate it for another month. This has worked well.

However, Supra/GE has gotten even more greedy and they now tell us that they are going to force us to purchase new key pads at an outrageous cost of $600 each and new lock boxes at a cost of $89 each. They also want us to enter into a SIX YEAR contract with them. If we don't agree to their terms, they will cease to allow us to activate our keys. We will no longer be able to gain access to our lock boxes. The National Association of Realtors has purchased a lock box system that we would like to consider as an alternative, see

Unfortunately this system won't be available until April 2004. Supra will not give us a short term extension.

Does anyone know of a way we can "crack" this lock box system? If we could generate our own activation codes, we could continue with our current lock box system without Supra. This would buy us some time. The lock boxes we have are at:

electronic keys look very similar to these: Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Steve Smith>

You did not buy the keys' software, you leased it. Welcome to the real world. I think Supra has you in between a rock and a hard place. There is nothing you can do about it short of breaking the law.

It is very unethical to do what you are asking no matter how bad it seems you're getting the shaft. You should have read your contract. Supra has the right to change it at any time. I dont think you'll find help from the locksmiths here. Hackers maybe.

You should read the group FAQ before coming here asking for defeating instructions.

You realtors sure are tight. Think God for buyowner.com. They get 6% at closing here. Isn't that enough to lease new boxes?

I my opinion you should be arrested for attempted copyright infringment and disbarred.

PLONK!

We feel your pain. But that's the risk of getting in bed with a proprietary technology and evidently no contract protection on your part. Doubtful you will get much sympathry here since "cracking" these boxes could lead to a wave of burgalries with no signs of forced entry. If you haven't already done so perhaps you should speak to a lawyer. Should you buy/or lease a new system be sure a have a competent attorney reveiw the terms and conditions so you don't get trapped again.

300 electronic keys at about $100 each. This was a huge investment for us but the system has been working great and it provides great security for the homes we have for sale.

Recently, Supra which is owned by General Electric decided that they can use a security feature of our lock box system against us to extort money from us. Our electronic keys must be updated with a security code each month. If the keys aren't updated, they won't open the lock boxes. We pay Supra about $3000 per year for the privilege of being able to call up their automated computer to get this security code each month. We call from a touch tone phone and enter our key's number and a computer speaks back a number that we enter into the key to activate it for another month. This has worked well.

However, Supra/GE has gotten even more greedy and they now tell us that they are going to force us to purchase new key pads at an outrageous cost of $600 each and new lock boxes at a cost of $89 each. They also want us to enter into a SIX YEAR contract with them. If we don't agree to their terms, they will cease to allow us to activate our keys. We will no longer be able to gain access to our lock boxes. The National Association of Realtors has purchased a lock box system that we would like to consider as an alternative, see

Unfortunately this system won't be available until April 2004. Supra will not give us a short term extension.

Does anyone know of a way we can "crack" this lock box system? If we could generate our own activation codes, we could continue with our current lock box system without Supra. This would buy us some time. The lock boxes we have are at:

electronic keys look very similar to these: Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Steve Smith

This is likely the situation - however since I haven't seen the contract with Supra, I'm not certain as to the terms.

Depends on the contract.

My suggestion for a short term solution, is to buy mechanical boxes (rather than electronic ones) and use them for the few months needed for the new brand to become available. The lack of changes may not be of over-riding importance for this relatively short time.

Also, considering the size of the order, the new vendor might be willing to provide early delivery - at least of part of the order. (In my experience, vendors often get quite flexible for a $100K order.) This might be worth checking.

Look at it this way: You bought into this system, subscription costs and all, because it significantly reduces your liabilities versus the traditional keyboxes. If we help folks defeat it, you've just lost the very feature which justifies using these.

Did a quick check on their website to see if I could find a copy of their licence agreement. Haven't found one yet.

I *have* found a clear statement in their FAQs that you should *NOT* have to re[;ace AEII keyboxes. They say old boxes and the new IR-linked boxes should happily operate side by side. See third question in

BTW, electronic locks of this sort tend to be reasonably resistant to folks mucking with them via the electronics; you're unlikely to find anyone who is both competent to reverse-engineer the system and willing to consider it for any price you're likely to be willing to pay.

That is not correct. We did not lease any sofware.

We purchased an expensive system that was represented by Supra as being a long lasting solution. Without warning Supra now says they want to change the system and make us buy another at an exorbitant price. Supra is not giving us a choice. We just want to keep and use what we already paid for, what is already ours. Why do you think that's unethical? What Supra is doing is unethical.

Ah, now I understand. For a minute there I though maybe you worked for Supra. You just don't like Realtors.

We're not trying to infringe on a copyright. I volunteer to serve on my local board of Realtors and I receive no pay what so ever. I posted this message in an attempt to find a solution to our problem. I have broken no laws. I guess if it were up to you, a lot of honest hard working people would be in jail.

Steve Smith

Trivia... the local realtor called me and had one of the old boxes that 'failed to open'... his code was valid,etc, he opened another box for me... and this one had a key he needed out Since the box was junk, I 'opened it'... and am going to do an article for a mag or web site on how to get into them when they DO fail... He had a drawer full of them as well... and if i under stood right, DID already have the new system in place, so the April 04 date to me is 'fishy' he was NOT pleased having to get all new boxes, but bit the bullet and did so.

--Shiva--

April 2004 is the date the new lock boxes at

will be available. Supra's new lock boxes are already available. That Realtor was using either Supra or another brand.

Steve Smith

Defeating such an electronic system may be a breach of the DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

Are you saying you didn't "lease" any part of the system or are you just saying that the "keys" do not to you constitute software?

His point is pretty clear. Realtors are payed substantial commissions for what they do. Your overhead is bult into those commissions. Nobody who has ever bought or sold real property is going to be too sypathetic about your cost issues.

You probably should ask around for this sort of thing on some of the electronic security, crypto, hacking, and cracking related NG's. Someone might consider it enough of a challenge to assist you. You also might just get flamed. I suspect that what you want is possible, though likely not legal, either through reverse engineering or identifying a pattern with regard to your previously obtained codes, the latter is perhaps somewhat unlikely unless Supra has been very sloppy. You also have the option of trying to negotiate with Supra. You also always have the option of badmouthing them to realtors around the country, and letting Supra know of this option. I'm sure you have organizations and publications that would make it easy to get the word out and cause severe damage to future sales. Be sure to keep your comments truthful or you may have other problems.

I hope you have more ethics selling real estate than you show for other occupations.

[ snip ] Steve Smith snipped-for-privacy@ctliv> We're not trying to infringe on a copyright. I volunteer to serve on my local board of Realtors and I receive no pay what so ever. I posted this message in an attempt to find a solution to our problem. I have broken no laws. I guess if it were up to you, a lot of honest hard working people would be in jail.

The DMCA makes it a federal offense to try to defeat electronic locks through reverse engineering or otherwise cracking the encryption.

Your electronic keypads/keys have software in them. Attempting to bypass the authentication is also a violatin under the DMCA.

I wonder if anyone has forwarded this thread to Supra. It would be a shame if Supra decided to cancel your contract starting today. It's not hard to use whois to find out where you are in North Carolina.

You obviously have a contract with Supra that you are trying to breach. This is, by definition, unethical. I agree with the other posters, your board should look closely at how you are representing them.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Let's not go overboard here. I understand the guy's fustration; he made a bad choice and he's trying to find a way out of it. Gods know I've had enough second-guesses of my own. (Did I _really_ need that tooth extracted?)

Unfortunately for him, it sounds like the answer is "If you don't like it, then drop your contract and switch to something else."

todd snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net wrote

I operate my real estate business and my personal life with the utmost ethics. I take my ethics very seriously and I resent your implication to the contrary. My inquiry for help to this newsgroup is no different than someone who asks you to help them open the lock on THEIR house or THEIR car or THEIR safe, etc. This is OUR lock box system that we bought and paid for it with the expectation of being able to continue to use it as long as we desired.

Steve Smith

You bring up a good point and one that I am unfamiliar with. I'll have our attorney check into this. At this point, I have only made an inquiry. I don't think that in itself is illegal. I have no intention of doing anything that is illegal. If our attorney says that finding a way to use our current electronic keys would be illegal, then we will simply not make any attempt to do so.

Your assumptions are incorrect. We do not have a contract with Supra and that is the problem. Our contract has recently expired and Supra will not renew under the terms of the previous contract. Their new contract requires that we purchase all new keys at $600 each. I am not trying to break a contract(that no longer exists) and I am not trying to do anything that is unethical. I am not trying to hide my identity in this public forum, yet I could have done so very easily. Supra knows about our displeasure with them and I don't care if you forward this to them. I feel sure that my fellow Realtors would be very pleased to know that I am investigating all the possibilities for a solution to our problem. I believe it is my job to do a thorough investigation and my inquiry to this newsgroup is part of that.

I do appreciate the constructive comments I have received, especially the ones I received via private email. I do not care to debate the ethics of my inquiry on this newsgroup and I do not wish to start a flame war. However, I am puzzled that some here feel that I am the bad guy. We being taken advantage of by a huge corporation(Supra is owned by General Electric). This corporation sold us an expensive lock box system that was supposed to be secure for OUR benefit, NOT theirs. Supra is now using one of the security features of the system against us to force us to pay them an exorbitant price for a whole new system that we don't want. I suspect that our attorney will tell us what they are doing to us is perfectly legal. But it's hard for me to believe that any reasonable person would feel that what Supra is doing is also ethical. Yet, I am accused of being the unethical one for inquiring about how we can continue to use the system we bought and paid for. Perhaps this stems from animosity some may have against Realtors. As I mentioned above, I will look into the legal issues. But, I will not respond to any personal attacks.

Steve Smith (Yes, that's really my name)

STeve, If you really belive that then take it up with SUpra, not a locksmith. If you REALLY believe you bought the system and didn't just lease or buy the rights to the program for a certain period of time then you should be consulting a lawyer who is used to dealing with software and firmware not hardware. Your problem sounds very similar to when people firts bought WIndows software and thpught they "owned it" The sad fact is you don't the company retains the rights and ownership you just buy a license for use. Just my perspective as a locksmith and computer tech.

Robert

Steve Smith wrote:

Well, under the current laws, you don't own the software that makes YOUR system function so the person who does own it can do whatever they want to do and GE is busy buying up lots of companies to simply discontinue their product lines in favor of another. This is common in business.

What I don't understand is how did Supra suddenly disable all the locks? Seems like a premises visit would have been required to disable each lock box and I am sure that didn't happen so how did the boxes suddenly get a command to not work anymore?

Do each of the locks have to be 'refreshed' on a regular basis? Otherwise, how do the boxes 'know' your contract has expired?

Seems like if you actually own the hardware but not the software you just need software from a different vendor and if its your hardware your are free to look around for another vendor to service your hardware. I guess the fly in the ointment is that they may have installed some sort of security feature to prevent you from switching vendors.

You bring up a good point and one that I am unfamiliar with. I'll have our attorney check into this. At this point, I have only made an inquiry. I don't think that in itself is illegal. I have no intention of doing anything that is illegal. If our attorney says that finding a way to use our current electronic keys would be illegal, then we will simply not make any attempt to do so.

Your assumptions are incorrect. We do not have a contract with Supra and that is the problem. Our contract has recently expired and Supra will not renew under the terms of the previous contract. Their new contract requires that we purchase all new keys at $600 each. I am not trying to break a contract(that no longer exists) and I am not trying to do anything that is unethical. I am not trying to hide my identity in this public forum, yet I could have done so very easily. Supra knows about our displeasure with them and I don't care if you forward this to them. I feel sure that my fellow Realtors would be very pleased to know that I am investigating all the possibilities for a solution to our problem. I believe it is my job to do a thorough investigation and my inquiry to this newsgroup is part of that.

I do appreciate the constructive comments I have received, especially the ones I received via private email. I do not care to debate the ethics of my inquiry on this newsgroup and I do not wish to start a flame war. However, I am puzzled that some here feel that I am the bad guy. We being taken advantage of by a huge corporation(Supra is owned by General Electric). This corporation sold us an expensive lock box system that was supposed to be secure for OUR benefit, NOT theirs. Supra is now using one of the security features of the system against us to force us to pay them an exorbitant price for a whole new system that we don't want. I suspect that our attorney will tell us what they are doing to us is perfectly legal. But it's hard for me to believe that any reasonable person would feel that what Supra is doing is also ethical. Yet, I am accused of being the unethical one for inquiring about how we can continue to use the system we bought and paid for. Perhaps this stems from animosity some may have against Realtors. As I mentioned above, I will look into the legal issues. But, I will not respond to any personal attacks.

Steve Smith (Yes, that's really my name)

---snip---

about how we can

this stems from

above, I will look into > the legal issues. But, I will not respond to any personal attacks.

its not personal. if you would have read the faq ?

would have seen that defeating instructions are not usually given on this open forum. you not only went wrong by asking defeating instructions. you asked for someone to help you defeat Supra's security system.

my2