Toool's Blackbag

The LockCon LockQuiz

November 1st, 2024

For this years’ LockCon, I decided to not do a lecture about a lock-related subject, but to organise a lock-themed pubquiz, the “LockQuiz”. I like the old-skool quizzen where you work together in teams and write down your answers on paper. Modern app-based quizzen have their own charm, but that was not what I was going for. When I play a quiz, I like questions where teamwork leads to the correct answer.

So I went about to see if I could come up with enough locksport-related questions and categories. I ended up with 68 questions in 6 rounds. In round 1, I showed lock cylinders and padlocks, with the brand name removed and the teams had to tell the brand. In round 2, lock-related books were shown, with one word (partially) blurred, the question was what the word was. Round 3 was another picture round with pictures of tools, where the question was which toolmaker the tool was from. After a small break, we continued with round 4, in which I asked for names of movies in which something lock(picking) related was shown. Round 5 showed keyways, asking for the brand and model, and round 6 was a music round, showing clips that had something to do with locks as well. Requested was the name of the artist.

I got very good feedback and everybody seemed to really enjoy the quiz. I have made generic pubquizzes before and know that the biggest pitfall is to make them too hard, which is no fun for the people doing the quiz. That is why I included answer sheets for the (rather difficult) movie and music rounds, that showed the number of letters in the answer and also had some letters filled out in advance.

The quiz had a clear winner, which was good, as I had not thought of a tie-breaker question. In the end, 77% of the questions were answered correctly, which is wonderful, as that was what I sort of aimed for, but it was hard for me to know how difficult it would be in advance. The lock brands round turned out to be the easiest, the music round the hardest, but even that round had 74% correct answers, thanks to the answer sheets.

If anybody wants me to do the quiz elsewhere, contact me. Obviously, the people at LockCon already know the answers. Or, if you have suggestions for other topics for rounds, or questions, I’d be interested in those as well. And finally, if you’ve made pictures of me presenting, I’d love to have a copy as well.

And again, congratulations to Team Baguette, who won!

Walter.

Posted in Locks, General, LockCon, Conference | No Comments »

LockCon 2024 Schedule

September 21st, 2024

Tickets to LockCon are still available as of 20th of September. We will close the registration on the 25th of September. Please see ‘LockCon 2024 registration is open!’ for more information. https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4627

Hi Everyone, we are hoping you are doing well! With this blog, we like to show you this program we have created for LockCon 2024. It’s a great mix of the competition you expect, and loads of new and exciting content.

Thursday is the first day of the event, we will use this day for catching up as well as building up the conference room. The cadence of the rest of the event is talks in the morning, a competition in the afternoon, and an evening program which includes a variety of activities.

For the competitions, we have Friday evening reserved for the Dutch Open in impressioning, on Saturday the Dutch Open in Lockpicking will be held, and on Friday we will start and Sunday we will conclude all the ongoing smaller competitions: Lever lockpicking, Disc detainer picking, Felix’s Breakout and Pic Tac Toe by FoxPick, and safe manipulation. The rules for each competition are published here: https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4652

The schedule will be available in the conference room on large sheets of paper. The Schedule is not set in stone, where you are allowed to fill the gaps, or take the stage with your own last minute talk. Last year, a panel on RFID was assembled on Sunday to fill one of these gaps. Please discuss large changes with the organisation.

Thursday
17:00	Arrival (Hotel check-in is possible from 15:00)
19:00 – 20:30	Dinner (with prior reservation)
20:30 – 22:00	Conference room build up
22:00 – 01:00	Socializing in the hotel bar

Friday
07:30 – 10:00	Breakfast
10:00 – 10:15	LockCon Opening
10:15 – 10:30	Dennis van Zuijlekom – Shoot all the hackers
10:30 – 11:30	Zeefeene – Why Your Unpickable Lock Sucks
12:00 – 12:30	Michael Hübler – 3D printing working keys for TSA008 and (all versions of) TSA006
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 19:00	Dutch Open Impressioning competition
19:00 – 20:30	Dinner
20:30 – 21:00	Introduction to the evening program & ongoing competitions
21:00	Start of disc detainer & safe manipulation competition by Toool
21:00	Start of lever lockpicking competition by Nigel Tolley
21:00	Start of Pic Tac Toe and Felix’s Escape by FoxPick

Saturday
07:30 – 10:00	Breakfast
10:00 – 11:00	Eric Scaillet – Aubin’s trophy
	Group photo
11:30 – 12:00	Nigel Tolley – Hobbes Anti-Violence
12:00 – 12:30	Thijs Bosschert – Lockpicking in Capture the Flag
	short break
12:30 – 13:00	Han Fey – Lips Keso
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 19:00	Dutch Open Lockpicking competition
19:00 – 20:30	Dinner
20:30 – 21:00	Eric Scaillet – Lishi
21:00 – 23:00	Walter Belgers – Pub quiz

Sunday
07:30 – 10:00	Breakfast (Check out of your hotel room)
10:00 – 10:30	Denes Szabo – Car lockpicking book
10:30 – 11:00	Prize ceremony
11:00 – 12:00	Disk detainer finals
12:00 – 13:00	Nigel Tolley – Lever picking finals
13:00 – 14:00	Lunch
14:00 – 15:00	Foxpick’s games finals
15:00 – 16:00	Safe manipulation finals
16:00 – 16:30	Closing Ceremony + prize ceremony
18:00	Dinner (with prior reservation)

Posted in LockCon, Conference, Gatherings | No Comments »

LockCon 2024: Dutch Open competition rules

September 21st, 2024

We are excited to announce the competitions hosted at this year’s LockCon. There will be the usual lockpicking and impressioning competitions, as well as a return of the disc detainer picking competition. You can also test your safe manipulation skills, join the lever lockpicking competition by Nigel Tolley, and play multiple games by our friends from Foxpicks.

The smaller competitions will be open from Friday evening till Sunday. Each of these competitions reach their conclusion during the finals on Sunday. This can be either a 1:1 with the best pickers, or a first to open wins where the best are competing all at the same time.

Dutch Open Impressioning & Lockpicking

The two main competitions are impressioning and lockpicking, where each takes a whole afternoon. The main rules are found in the pdf below, but for this year’s event we like to share our competition planning as well.

The Impressioning competition will be a standard competition with a qualification round, and two finals of six people each. We want to reduce the luck factor in the competition. E.g. consistent opens are a better demonstration of skill than a single quick open. For this, we have split the qualifier into two. You will now have to open both Abus C83 locks within two 30 minute attempts. The finals are, as per usual, on Abus C83 as well. The locks and blanks are sponsored by Abus!

The lockpicking competition is a standard competition with a qualifier and a bracket of two and three people. The qualifier has six tables of at most ten people per table. This qualifier is five minutes per lock, and in total you will pick ten locks. The best three from each table continue to the bracket. The bracket is played in nine groups of 2, three group of 3, and a final with the last best three lockpickers. Each round of the bracket is 15 minutes per lock.

Further details are below.

Dutch_Open_rules Download

Dutch Open Disc detainer picking

Also this year, we have a disc detainer competition. We have learned from the competition last year, and have updated the rules accordingly. We have chosen some great locks for you to pick. This year we have included the Discombobulator from Opsasec in both in front and rear tensioning models, but you can also use the Sparrows 2-in-1 disc detainer lockpick.

20240921-V1.0-LC24-disc-detainer-competition Download

Lever lockpicking

Nigel Tolley hosts this year’s lever lockpicking competition. Try your hand at lever lock picking! Various lever locks from the UK will be attending LockCon, for your bafflement and amusement. Try picking a selection varying from 2 levers, uncurtained without anti-picks, up to 5 lever curtained with anti-picks, with various tools supplied. Nothing too hard, and everyone should get at least one open.

The winner of each round goes through to the final, there will likely be 5 rounds of 5 locks for 5 minutes. The final setting will be communicated so everyone is on the same page.

Timing will be like the cylinder picking, call out “open” when you’ve opened your lock. The locks will be modified to not open fully, so expect the bolt to remain sticking out a little when unlocked – but don’t worry, it’ll be obvious! Have fun. Please remember, ‘it’s about manipulation, not brute force.’

There aren’t many rules, but if you break a tool, you’re out!

Foxpick’s games

Foxpick will host two lockpicking games during LockCon. In Pic Tac Toe, you will play a head-to-head competition in a game of tic-tac-toe, but to move you’ll have to pick the locks. For the second game, Felix’s Breakout, it’s your goal to free Felix the Fox from jail! Both games are very exciting, and we hope you will enjoy them as well.

Foxpick will provide all the tools you need. This helps to keep it an even playing field for everyone. Further details of the game are explained before each player starts.

Safe manipulation

To celebrate the skill of safe manipulation, we have included it in this year’s competition list. We are working with S&G 6730, for which we ask you to find the combination. The locks spin true, and read very well, so don’t let this opportunity pass!

20240921-V1.0-LC24-safe-lock-manupulation Download

Posted in Lockpicking, Safe, Impressioning, LockCon, Conference | 9 Comments »

Impressioning a Porsche 356 gear shift lock

July 2nd, 2024

I don’t consider myself much of a car person, but this Porsche 356 from the 1960’s is a work of art. The owner imported it from the US, and a keyless gear shift lock was added in the sale. The current owner had almost given up the hope of finding a working key for it, when he read about Toool in an old Quest magazine.

*The gear stick with the lock to the right*

Learning of a community of lock enthusiasts, he contacted us hoping we might have a solution for his problem, and luckily we did. I immediately thought of impressioning a key for the lock. After emailing back and forth a bit, the owner ordered blank keys and arranged for him to visit me after they got in from the UK.

*The lock cylinder. Note two screws: one in the middle to hold the plug, and a longer one in the back used to install the cylinder*

A couple of weeks later, after the blanks arrived, we arranged to meet and impression some keys. This was the first time I saw the cylinder, and I was surprised to find out it was a five pin cylinder and not a wafer lock as I expected from a car lock. The blanks were from Ilco, DM2, and brass.

Impressioning was pretty straightforward, but I did encounter some interesting things:

Impressioning a used, old lock has it’s own challenges. Wear and dirt made getting marks take a bit more time. It felt dampened and “muddy” (for lack of a better word);
The brass used for the blanks was very soft. I was afraid to use a lot of force, because I didn’t want to unnecessarily break the few blanks I had;

Luckily I didn’t break any blanks. I took my time checking marks, only filed when I was certain there was a mark (as I know I should always do, but sometimes forget in the heat of the moment). Then after about half an hour the key suddenly turned. But only once, I couldn’t reopen the lock with it. Closer inspection showed two deep craters on 1 and 4. Slightly filing those down left us with a smooth working key. Beforehand I had warned the owner that the process might take a while and multiple tries, so we were both surprised and very happy with this swift success.

I really enjoyed doing this project. Not only did I get to practice my impressioning, but we also had a nice conversation about how much fun it can be when different hobbies suddenly overlap. Lately I have realized this is one of the things that keeps me going back to the locksport community: meeting people from all walks of life and discovering there’s always something connecting us.

Henri/Greenish

Tags: car, impressioning, porsche
Posted in Locks, Impressioning | No Comments »

LockCon 2024 registration is open!

June 18th, 2024

Dear friends,

With this mail, we like to announce registration for LockCon 2024 to be open. The event will be from 17th to 20th of October 2024 at De Werelt in Garderen, The Netherlands. This is the same venue as last year, which was previously known as Westcord Hotel Garderen.

The program

We will welcome the attendees from Thursday afternoon 15:00 with a get-together at the bar. On Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, we will have a program with talks, workshops, and competitions. In the program there will be plenty of room to socialize, and pick locks. LockCon closes on Sunday afternoon, 17:00-ish.

If you are unfamiliar with what we usually do at LockCon, please read https://toool.nl/LockCon and the LockCon 2023 recap https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4357. The schedule for this year’s event will be quite similar, where the competitions are usually in the afternoon, and the remaining program are talks, workshops, and socializing.

How to participate

LockCon is an event organized by Toool in the Netherlands for the extended Locksport community. This means, we try to be welcome to everyone with a healthy interest in the lockpicking hobby and the community. The attendees of LockCon are mostly friends, and friends of friends. You are also welcome if we have never met before. While it is easier for you to have a friend vouch for you, but this is not required.

The venue

This event is hosted at a hotel at which we have rented a large conference hall, and enough rooms to host a hundred guests. We are able to use the other hotel facilities, like the bar and restaurant. The hotel has additional facilities like a sauna, but these will have an additional charge and are booked at the reception.

The ticket price for LockCon 2024 is €430 per person, this includes three nights in the hotel with breakfasts, lunch, and dinner in the restaurant. Some options, like a single person room, have an additional charge.

Please register as soon as possible:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdNg6lzLXX669DL2Oru2Qgb6w6nqChjP95Mg45NlQAT_-kxtQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

We are looking very much forward to the event. Hopefully we will see you in October,
LockCon Team

De Werelt in Garderen | Oud Millingenseweg 62 | 3886MJ Garderen | The Netherlands.
https://dewereltgarderen.nl/
https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/3591498

Posted in LockCon, Conference, Gatherings | 1 Comment »

LockCon 2024 announcement

March 23rd, 2024

Dear friends,

We are happy to announce the date for LockCon 2024.
The event will be from 17th to 20th of October 2024 at De Werelt Garderen.
This is the same venue as last year, which was then known under the name Westcord Hotel Garderen.

Registration isn’t open yet, but hopefully this announcement will help you plan ahead.

Hopefully we will see you in October, LockCon Team

Posted in Lockpicking, LockCon, Gatherings | Comments Off on LockCon 2024 announcement

Impressioning light

March 10th, 2024

At the impressioning championships in Germany at Wendt, organised by SSD e.V., I noticed somebody using a light I had not seen before. Since my own light/loupe is incredibly old and almost falls apart, I decided to buy one as well. It’s the “Maginon Tischlupe TL-120”. I bought one for €27.32 including shipping from Germany, with that price it’s worth to give it a shot.

I set up a little working space to compare my old light, which has a TL light, and the new light, which uses LED.

Both are flexible. The Maginon has a nice heavy base, but you can also attach it to a table clamp (included with the light). Apart from the small loupe, there is also a bigger loupe but that does not offer the same magnification. The little ‘eye’ in the old loupe has the most magnification. The LED of the Maginon is attached just below the loupe, you can see some LEDs shining through the glass in the picture above. The LEDs can be shivelled from shining horizontally to almost vertically.

What is nice about the Maginon is that it can be battery operated (3 batteries included), or you can power it via USB-C (adapter and cable also included). The button switches between no, medium or high illumination. So I went on and filed a key, looking for marks using both loupes.

Unfortunately, I was not able to make decent pictures on the old loupe. The above one shows a distorted key which is due to the little loupe and camera interfering. In reality, the marks were visible very well.

Using the Maginon, what I first noticed was the fact that it does not magnify as much. I prefer my old loupe as far as magnification is concerned. I had to play a bit with the angle at which the LEDs are places. Shining horizontally doesn’t work well as it doesn’t illuminate the whole surface in a uniform way. Shining almost vertically causes a lot of areas to shimmer which also doesn’t work well. Putting the LEDs in about a 45 degree angle gave the best results.

Interestingly, sometimes I saw a mark better on the Maginon than on my old loupe, but the reverse also happened. The marks of the pins riding over the key were certainly easier to spot with the Maginon. In the above picture, clear marks can be seen.

The light of the Maginon, being LED, is whiter and more unnatural than the TL light of my old loupe. The key under the Maginon shows all sorts of colourful artefacts. In the end, I prefer my old loupe, mainly because of the higher magnification. The selling points of the Maginon are its price and wireless operation. The selling points of the old loupe are the maginifaction and the natural light. In the end, I filed a working key.

I will probably take the Maginon with me to upcoming competitions, both as a backup (always make sure you have backups!) and as a device to give me a second opinion, when I doubt a mark I am seeing on the old loupe. Having a second loupe at the table could provide the mark that is needed to continue.

CCBY4.0 Walter Belgers Toool Blackbag

Posted in Impressioning | 1 Comment »

Hackerhotel 2024: Opening electronic safe locks with Ketchup and Lasers

February 21st, 2024

Hi all, I would like to share a presentation I’ve worked on for quite a while. The talks were on electronic safe locks, and a starting point for lockpickers to get into picking electronic locks. For Hackerhotel 2024 I’ve decided to create a summarized version to inspire others to pursuit electronic security research, and apply the knowledge on electronic locks.

The talk, linked below, has two main topics; Opening electronic locks with Ketchup, so-called liquid spiking, and attempts in reading the memory of the 8051 chip in the early Kaba-mas X0 locks. X07 to X09, specifically. When I find time, I’ll work both into a series of blog posts as well, but no promises.

If after this presentation you like an idea of other talks at Hackerhotel, there are some great ones. Walter presented about Lucid dreaming, and Chantal and Nancy discussed what man can do to promote diversity in the workspace. Women in tech, specifically.

HH24_Ketchup_and_Lasers_V5 Download

CCBY4.0 Jan-Willem Markus Toool Blackbag

Posted in Electronics, Safe, Conference | Comments Off on Hackerhotel 2024: Opening electronic safe locks with Ketchup and Lasers

Hackerhotel 2024: Safe cracking workshop

February 16th, 2024

Hugo and I taught Safe cracking to a group of eleven at Hackerhotel 2024. It was great sharing the knowledge and inspiring others. Much respect goes to the attendees, which after a busy conference still had energy to take on this mighty challenge.

Every training needs to start with a good basis. We started with an introduction on what safe locks are about and how they operate, specifically group two safe combination locks. From there, we built knowledge from practical examples and exercises. From simply operating the safe lock by dialing 4L-3R-2L-1R with a known combination, to exploring contact points and graphing.

For this two-hour session, we worked with locks of known combination, and usually only get to complete one and a half graphs in this time. Around six graphs were completed in total, and some even finished all three graphs within the session.

While any training is mostly satisfying a curiosity, we expect this training gave the attendees enough knowledge to give it a try on their own later. Maybe even getting obsessed about it in the process 🙂

Safe manipulation 101 v2

CCBY4.0 Jan-Willem Markus Toool Blackbag

Posted in Locks, Uncategorized, Conference, Decoding, Gatherings | 2 Comments »

Challenge completed!

February 2nd, 2024

Walter and Jan-Willem successfully completed the UKLS January challenge, and like to share the lessons learned as well as show off the 31 locks. The challenge is to open a lock, every day, for the days of January. This is a good way to get in the consistent lockpicking practice, and challenge yourself to pick more difficult locks. You can find a longer explanation of the challenge in the blog released earlier this year. (https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4023).

Picking a lock a day has helped me to get use to my new thick acrylic Moki handles, and taught me a few new picking tricks. As the month progressed, I attempted quite difficult locks, of which most didn’t open, at least not right away. For example, I’ve played an hour a day with a particular BKS, which still remains shut. When a lock didn’t open after a while, I frequently tried another lock, if not to keep the streak.

Walter picked a DOM, Pfaffenhain, Nemef, Mul-T-Lock, Wally, Anker, EVVA, ISEO, Gerda, CES, Ivana, Geba, Novoferm, Wilka, FF, Abus, Thirard, Yale, Vachette, Lips, Pratic, S2, Sobinco, Mauer, Corbin, BASI, VBH, Zeiss Ikon, Destil, Kale and an M&C.

On the other hand Jan-Willem picked the Kibb, Dom Sigma, Abus C83, MD, Anker, CAS, Gerda, Lockinox, Nemef, Pfaffenhain, Kraft, Nino, Gaba, (another) Lockinox, Bern, Yale, Axa, S, Era, UAP, Evva, M&C, F (can’t recall, federico? fred?), Iseo, Fake Assa 700, (2nd) gaba, corbin, mila, Ivana, Favour, and a SEZAM cylinder.