The New York Times visited an Amsterdam Toool gathering last week and wrote a nice article about it (PDF) ….
Posts Tagged ‘lockpicking’
2009: A new start for Toool Amsterdam
Sunday, January 11th, 2009It is not always easy of being the president of a locksport organisation. I am not complaining, but it requires a lot of skills to pull it off. Take for instance the location for our bi-weekly meetings. In Eindhoven they have it covered well. Nice meeting rooms above a great cafe in the center, and they do not even have to pay rent (as long as everybody buys their drinks at the bar).
So I was happy when last year we made a similar deal with restaurant/cafe 1900 in the east of Amsterdam. We would hold out bi-weekly meetings there and they would not charge us rent for the meeting-room as long as we ordered our drinks at the bar. Of course we realized that if there was a commercial party that wanted to rent the room when it is reserved for us, the party that pays goes first. But we did manage to agree a term of two weeks notice, and if the commercial party wanted the room less then one week before the meeting we would still get it anyway (still for free).
Unfortunately ’1900′ has a new owner and the policy changed (without notification). So when 15 people showed up for a meeting we found the room was rented to a group that was having dinner there. Not nice, especially since I went there in the morning to check if the room was reserved for us and all was still ok. And I am not even talking about the fact some Toool members travel more 100 Km to be there.
A meeting with the new owner did not went well. “You get what you pay for, and if someone wants to rent the room and pay they will always get priority over Toool”. No matter if your people have dinner before the meetings, and no matter if the previous owner made an agreement with you….
Now, I do understand that running a business in these times is not easy, so without much remorse I went out to find a new location. Thanks to Jean-Juc we found it. It is a truly amazing large basement with nice tables and chairs under a traditional Amsterdam cafe. What I mean by traditional Amsterdam cafe … you just have to see it to believe it ;) But the atmosphere is real nice and the people seemed very friendly when I visited it.
I hope the Amsterdam Toool members will be as enthusiastic as I am when we meet there this Wednesday.
The address: Cafe ‘t Knelpunt
Haarlemmermeerstraat 159HS
1058JZ Amsterdam
Nederland (Noord-Holland)
See you there!
Toool’s new lockpick competition …
Monday, November 17th, 2008I really love the fact that more and more members of toool get involved to the point they single handedly can perform crucial tasks. In this case Jos Weyers took care of this year’s lockpick competition. And one of the things he did was photograph all locks in high detail (images at the bottom of this post) ….
For those unfamiliar with the Toool competition, here is a small explanation: the competition starts and ends at every LockCon/Dutch Open event. So in this case we just started a new competition. We start with inviting people to donate special and exotic locks, and make a selection of 26 of the most interesting ones. As soon as this selection is done, all locks will be photographed and a competition webpage is set up (link to 2008, work in progress). Now the fun starts: At every Toool meeting (in Amsterdam and Eindhoven), members can try to open these locks, and keep track of their own time! After each club evening the scores are collected and the webpage with the scores is updated. You will receive ten points for being the fastest to open a lock, the second best will get nine points etcetera etcetera till number ten who will receive one point. Number eleven to open the lock will not get any points… Now all points for all locks will be added up and the person with most point wins. I have won this competition multiple times, but since I was too busy learning other lock opening skills I neglected picking a bit and last year did not even made it into the top three.
I am not sure if I will join full force this year, or if my new lock opening passion will take all of my time.
What I do know is that there is a lot of manufacturers out there that keep an eye on this blog to see if their lock is mentioned. Here is the list of locks in this years competition (click on the name of the lock for a close up): chinese lock with pins from three sides, Mul-T-Lock MT5+, no name, Tesa 5-pin, Fixit, Iseo 5-pin, 2001 (Buva?), Iseo 6-pin dimple, Abus, Lips, Corbin, Nemef, Giha 2000, Medeco Bi-Axial 6 pin (with correct side-bar ’set key’), Nemef, Oxlock, Ikon sperr rippen, Unknown (from SSDeV), GTV, Winkhaus, Yale, AGB, BKS, UCEM (Spain), BKS and … a Gemini shield!
If the new site is up where we keep track of times I will post the address here so you can keep track of our progress ….
video of the impressioning games at LockCon 2008
Monday, November 10th, 2008One of this year’s highlights for me was winning the impressioning championships at LockCon. I promise this will be the last posting about this topic, and the only reason to bring it up again is because SSDeV president Steffen Wernéry kept his promise: he edited (and made publicly available) a high quality video about the impressioning games in Sneek.
In this video you can see what it looks like when someone files a key to a lock without knowing what the original key looks like, and create a working key (from scratch) to a lock in minutes. For those who do not know how lock impressioning works here is a quick explanation: a blank key is inserted into the lock, and turning pressure is applied. This turning pressure creates pins to bind into the lock. By wiggling the key up and down when it’s under this turning pressure, the binding pins will make a small scratch into the blank. Once the scratches are identified, a few strokes with a fine file will take away some metal on the key, causing the pins to drop a little deeper into the key. The interesting thing is that pins will stop making marks/scratches when they are at the correct position. The process of twisting and filing is repeated until the pins no longer leave marks (and the lock opens).
Currently two versions of the video are available: one in Quicktime MP4 (230 MB) and one in Windows Media format (320 MB).
Looking back at the video I can only smile. I was under quite some pressure, and I did get a little nervous by the camera at first. Fortunately I could block that feeling quite fast and focus on opening the lock. Hearing me yell ‘open!’ on the video still gets a grin on my face.
I would like to thank Steffen for his hard work of editing the video and make it available in such short time frame. And I can only hope you enjoy the video as much as I do. Hopefully it will get you interested in learning about opening locks this way or give you an idea what impressioning is about and what our games look like ….
Defcon is ehrm … different
Sunday, August 10th, 2008
There is a time to write, and there is a time to party. And when you are in Vegas you party …
I must say Defcon is not like any other conference I have ever been to. Not necessarily better or worse then other conferences, but different for sure. And if you ask what is different … I leave that to your imagination.
No time to write more, but I do make the promise to follow up and write some serious postings in the weeks to come … Back to the party now ….
special deal in ‘off the hook’
Wednesday, May 21st, 2008Tonight Marc Tobias will be the special guest in the “Off the hook” radio show.
Topics covered are his new book, and the role lockpicking is going to play at the ‘last hope conference’.
And on top of that, some special offers will be made that are only valid during the show!!
“Off The Hook” airs every Wednesday night at 7:00 PM EST in New York City on listener supported WBAI 99.5 FM. It can also be followed by this audio stream, or as a high quality podcast (only available one week from now).
Golden (bump proof) pins
Monday, May 12th, 2008
For a long time Han and I are doing tests for various lock manufacturers. At the beginning, most of the requests were concerns if the ‘bump proof’ pins they came up with were really bump proof. And most of the time they were not.
On average it took three rounds of testing (and back to the drawing board) before we could not bump open the lock anymore. In some instances we supported the manufacturer with some technical advice to really make the lock bump proof (or highly bump-resistant).
And of course we have been thinking about designing our own bump-proof pin. We labeled it ‘the search for the golden pin’.
In our view, the golden pin has to have (at least) the following properties:
1) Prevent bumping one hundred percent (bump-proof, must withstand ‘advanced bumping’)
2) If possible, make other kind of attacks more difficult (like picking, impressioning and decoding)
3) The solution must contain not too many parts and must be easy to manufacture
4) Easy to Add to a classic 5 pin tumbler lock without modifying the core or house (too much)
5) If possible the ‘golden pin’ must be implementable in dimple and or other pin-tumbler style locks
6) Free of patents
Han and I have been partly successful in this search. And still we are having new ideas and brainstorm/try out sessions on a regular basis.
But ever since our trip to Vienna, our way of looking at the problem has changed.
We learned that if you ever want to have your invention implemented by a lock manufacturer, stop searching for a ‘golden pin’, and start searching for a ‘golden key’!
That is right, lock manufacturers are under constant pressure to come up with new patents on keys. A ‘patented key’ is required in all serious projects, and when a patent is ‘end of life’, so is the commercial success of the lock. Or actually a couple of years before the expiration of the patent (after all, who wants to buy something that will lose it’s ‘copy protection’ in three of four years?).
In a way it is a very healthy system. It keeps lock companies innovative. They can not just design a lock once and live of that design for ever. It forces them to keep investing in engineering.
The flip side it that great locking systems all of a sudden become ‘worthless’ because of the patent expiration. And in some instances that is not fair if you look at the level of security the lock and keys are still providing.
Looking at our mailbox, we are not the only ones looking for the golden pin….
A couple of times per month we receive mail from people who came up with pins or solutions against bumping. In almost all cases the six above properties are not met.
One of the last mails I recently received was from a gentleman called Ian Cecil from Australia. His invention is somewhat smart and makes use of the ‘floating pin’ principle. With that I mean that one of the pins is not reaching the ’9′ position. We have first seen this solution in CES locks where they simply did not drill the hole in the plug all the way. And other floating pins can be found in systems like GeGe Pextra, Nemef and Master padlocks.
But before I take you to all the solutions we found in various locks, back to Ian:
Ian cam up with the following idea: Use a short spring that is connected to the ‘stopper plug’ and the ‘bottom pin’. And the bottom pin is by magnetic force attracting the top pin. If you keep the top pin small (0-3), the bump key can not make contact and obviously does not work. As I said, a nice invention but far from ‘bump proof’. The lock can still be opened by ‘advanced bumping’.
How does advanced bumping works? If I know there is a floating pin inside a lock, all that is required is a set of probe keys to determine the position and minimum depth of the floating pin. And once that info is decoded all I need to do is cut a 99949 key and open the lock.
Still, Ian makes a lot of sense on his website and shows he does know what he is talking about. Who knows, maybe he will come up with a ‘golden key’ one day ….
Dutch Open 2008 (Oct. 9-10-11-12) … call for papers!
Monday, March 3rd, 2008I being charged up with positive energy just thinking about the Dutch Open….
The open and relaxed atmosphere, the knowledgeable people, the world class presentations, the hands-on workshops, the flow of creative energy, the championships, the most beautiful prizes to win, the unique locks and tools people show and sell, the parties, the ‘free beer’…. and so much more….
It has become the place where the industry meets the lockpickers and vice versa.
As far as I know it is a one of a kind, non-commercial, event.
And for us it is a big challenge to organize it. Every year we manage to create a bigger and better event, and every year the quality of speakers and presentations goes up.
This year is no exception, as we will try to raise the bar again. We promise: the Dutch Open 2008 will be bigger and better then ever before.
Already, a world class speaker committed to disclose in depth details of one of the most ingenious lock hacks I have ever encountered. I was briefed last year on this attack, and I must say I never ever have seen anything like it. Pure brilliance! The implications of this ‘hack’ are severe. At best, one of the most influential lock companies will ‘only’ have its reputation shred to pieces. Worst case scenario is they will go bankrupt over it. My guess is that millions of owners of this ‘unpickable’ high security lock are going to demand an upgrade or lock replacement. This summer a book will be released covering this amazing story. I am sure it will cause quite a stir in the US. Of course this book will be available at a very high discount in Sneek.
If you want to hear the full story (including gory details), and if you want to try this opening technique yourself, you will have to attend the 2008 Dutch Open ….
Sneak preview: some images that do not make any sense now, but surely will after the presentation ….
Because of this special presentation, and because we expect lots of international visitors, we decided to add one extra day for presentations at this years event. So the event will be from Thursday evening till Sunday evening.
And this years Dutch Open will be held in October, not November or December.
The reason we selected October is to give international visitors more value for money. After all, in October the famous ‘Essen Security Show‘ is held. So why not have our international guests join us and enjoy one of the biggest physical security shows on the planet.
Because that is what the security show in Essen (7-10 October) is. Here you can learn about the latest innovations in the area of physical security. Check companies present, and check my blog posting on the security ’06 show. Can you imagine a better way to kick off the Dutch Open?
Including the security show visit, the schedule for this years Dutch Open is following:
October 6-7-8 pick up various visitors from airport and drop at local hotels or friends places.
October 8 (wednesday) 20:00-23:00 visit the regular Toool meeting in Amsterdam
October 9 (thursday) Wake up early and visit the security show in Essen. In the evening drive to Sneek.
(people not attending Essen can go directly to Sneek)
October 10 (Friday) Presentations and workshops.
October 11 (Saturday) Championships (lockpicking, impressioning, combo manipulation (?))
Champions are honored at the ‘Dutch Open party’ later that evening.
October 12 (Sunday) Final presentations and the end of the event.
And even though we already have a world class presentation, we are placing a call for papers.
Because we added an extra day, we have room for more speakers, more presentations, more hands-on workshops, more lock pick challenges and other topics.
Please do not hesitate and send us your proposal before July 20, 2008.
On August 1 we will post the full Dutch Open 2008 schedule.
So tell your boss you will take some day’s off in October, and register now ….
The number of available seats is limited to 100 … and … First-come first served!
Mail us at: dutch-open-2008@toool.nl
(To give you an idea what to expect, some links about previous Dutch Open’s: click 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 or 8)