The robot can go through every single numerical combination on an Android in 19 short hours. Ios devices lock you out after a few failures, so it doesn’t work on those. It also has trouble with screen patterns. But when it comes to Androids’ numerical protection, it’s as easy as stealing candy from a baby. Easier, actually, since the robots have no programming when it comes to babies or candy.
Currently, the guys are working to break the aforementioned devices their robot has trouble with. They also want to be able to crack hotel-room safes and ATMs.
Oh yeah. And they built this baby for less than 200 bones, using parts and pieces they cobbled together. If this thing were manufactured, there’s a good argument that it would cost half that.
It should be noted that Engler is a security engineer, so he isn’t out to hack all of our phones. If he were, this would be a pretty dumb way to go about it. Rather, he wants to point out the holes in our security, of which there are many.
We live in a society so worried about privacy, but so lax on protection. It’ll be interesting to see if this spurs anyone into action when it comes to creating better security.