The Password Is All Zeros

E519 - The Password Is All Zeros

Published: January 23, 2026

Duration: 1:06:51

Mark Omo and James Rowley spoke with us about safecracking, security, and the ethics of doing a bad job.

Mark and James gave an excellent talk on the development of their safecracking tools at DEF CON 33: Cash, Drugs, and Guns: Why Your Safes Aren't Safe. It included a section of interaction involving the lock maker's lawyers bullying them and how the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has a Coders' Rights Project to support security research.

As mentioned in the show, the US Cyber Trust Mark baseline has a very straightforward checklist; NISTIR 8259 is the overall standard...