From hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil Mon Jul 31 00:39:04 1995
From: hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 95 00:38:16 EDT
To: kfl@access.digex.net
Cc: blb@panix.com, doug@ss2.digex.net, dragon@access4.digex.net,
    esr@snark.thyrsus.com, hlavaty@panix.com, nancyl@universe.digex.net
Subject: Re: Woman electrocuted using hotel card-key

Thanks, KFL, for bringing the story to our attention.  But please note
Eric Raymond's correct address (esr@snark.thyrsus.com) and my more
usual one:

Dan Hoey
Hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil

From: risks@csl.sri.com (RISKS Forum)
Newsgroups: comp.risks
Subject: RISKS DIGEST 17.21
Date: 31 Jul 95 16:17:17 GMT

Date: Fri, 28 Jul 1995 18:01:44 -0600
From: William Kucharski <kucharsk@drmail.dr.att.com>
Subject: Re: Woman electrocuted using hotel card-key

I have to object to the inference that the woman was somehow electrocuted
because she was using a card key lock.

For those familiar with the VingCard system, there is NO WAY the woman could
have been electrocuted by the lock itself, as the card key is
(nonconductive) plastic.  The woman was likely electrocuted when she grabbed
the metal doorknob.

If a faulty A/C caused the problem by causing the door to acquire a charge
(obviously a metal door), she would have been electrocuted even if the hotel
had used a conventionally keyed door lock (and would have most likely been
zapped when she inserted the key into the lock).

An additional issue is the fact that most hotels have metal door frames (to
make it more difficult for a door to be kicked in), meaning that mere contact
with the door FRAME would most likely have been fatal.

William Kucharski  kucharsk@drmail.dr.att.com

    [also commented further on by various others, including
       Jim Garrison <jhg@acm.org>, and
       Dan Hoey <hoey@AIC.NRL.Navy.Mil>, who added (among other things),
  This is the hotel that hosted the Disclave science fiction convention
  from 1984 to 1991, and so this incident was much on the minds of the
  Washington Science Fiction Association at its meetings last month.
  ... I suppose it could be considered a technological risk that the
  use of card-key entry systems has led to grounded doorknobs.  Dan Hoey
    PGN]