Archive for the ‘Lockpicking’ Category

Dutch open lockpicking 2024 at LockCon

Wednesday, December 4th, 2024

The Dutch open lockpicking is one of the largest lockpicking competitions of its kind. In several rounds with ever more complicated locks the participants attempt to open the locks as quickly as possible to secure their place in the finals.

The qualifier consisted of six tables with ten participants at each table. In ten rounds of five minutes each, the participants decided who continued into the quarter-finals. The best three of each table, eighteen in total, continued. From there, more difficult locks were introduced. The competition went from eighteen to nine to three participants. The complete rule set can be viewed at https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4652

For the five minute locks we had a wide selection consisting of, Eras, Destil, Kibb, Yale, Mastermate, Dom, Basi, Nemef, and several others. For the fifteen minute rounds we introduced more difficult locks, including Winkhaus, CES 1SB, Gege ANS2, DOM Plura, DOM Sigma, Oxloc, and more.

While we cannot make guarantees, we strive for consistency.
You’ll very likely encounter the same or similar locks in the next competitions at LockCon.

The final score of the Dutch open lockpicking at LockCon 2024.
Dutch open lockpicking 2024 at LockCon. Henri (3rd), Nitiflor (1st), Walter (2nd)

Nitiflor won the competition by opening the most locks in the finals. He won the Multipick Elite Locknoob set with 39-pieces. Walter placed second and picked the Multipick Quick easy pro key duplication kit as his prize. Henri received a Sparrows Kirigami lockpick set as the third place winner. These prices were kindly sponsored by Multipick and Sparrows.

We are hosting a lockpicking competition like this one almost every year, and we hope to see you at the next one.

Scores of the half finals for inspiration

Toool NL competition

Wednesday, December 4th, 2024

In the Toool NL competition, the Toool members compete by picking a selection of locks during Toool meetings. This year was the 19th Toool competition, with 45 meetups and at least a hundred hours to attempt these locks. However, only the quickest opening time for each competitor counted.

The points are assigned by opening times, where the quickest opening gets ten points, the second-quickest gets nine points, and so on. Sometimes points are shared when several people have the same opening time, or opened the lock within five seconds. (We count these as the same opening time, as we have a lockpicking competition and not a stopwatch operating competition.) The full breakdown of the competitions, locks, statistics, and the rules in Dutch can be found on. https://toool.nl/competitie/

The competition went strong, from the first meetup after LockCon already many competitive times were set. More locks were opened every meetup, and the opening times were significantly reduced. The locks which were predicted to be difficult were not, while difficult locks were underestimated. The competition remained close until the end. The analysis on lock difficulty is found at https://blackbag.toool.nl/?p=4684.

Screenshot of the competition score. https://toool.nl/competitie2024/

Walter won the competition and received a Multipick Ares Disc detainer lockpick. Henri, with second place, chose the new Multipick Elite dimple picks community edition. Tom, who place third, won the Sparrows Vorax set. These prices were kindly sponsored by Multipick and Sparrows.

The next competition has started. Do you want to join this one as well? Become a member, and join us at the Toool meetups in Amsterdam and Eindhoven. May the best picker win. https://toool.nl/competitie2025/

Toool NL competition 2024 – analysis

Wednesday, November 20th, 2024

The 19th Toool NL competition is concluded (https://toool.nl/competitie/). The Toool members worked on lockpicking a set of 27 locks over a period of one year, and registered the quickest opening times. The full competition details can be found on https://toool.nl/competitie2024/.

Before we started picking, Walter asked the Toool members to make a guess on the best opening times for each lock. With this data he expected to see which locks are perceived to be difficult, but were not, or vice versa. Four lockpickers made their guess, and we analyzed the data.

Please note, the final opening times are heavily skewed in favor of short opening times, as the locks are picked several times at the Toool meetups and only the lowest time counts. A lock may be opened in 15 minutes during the first attempt, but during several meetups the final opening time can be reduced to five seconds. Many of the locks in the competitions are perfectly suitable locks, and us opening a similar lock in five seconds, shouldn’t be the reason to replace yours.

We found this data isn’t easy to visualize in a single graph, as each lock is unique. We chose to break down the analysis results and report on the five most underestimated locks and the five most overestimated locks.

CylinderBrandFastestLockpicker 1Lockpicker 2Lockpicker 3Lockpicker 4
T1906Abus E6066.5074.00630.005.0020.00
T1907GTV36.435.00940.0030.0015.00
T1910EVVA39.00420.00304.0060.0015.00
T1915Mul-T-Lock Classic216.04360.00312.00120.0045.00
T1924Sargent27.64150.00925.005.005.00
Underestimated locks from the Toool NL competition 2024
CylinderBrandFastestLockpicker 1Lockpicker 2Lockpicker 3Lockpicker 4
T1913DOM iX 5KG47.41240.00985.00120.00200.00
T1916ISEO8.31180.00781.0060.0025.00
T1918ASSA 5005.00120.00610.00180.0045.00
T1919Best SFIC5.00240.00558.00180.0020.00
T1926Medeco Biaxial5.00132.00121.00600.00180.00
Overestimated locks from the Toool NL competition 2024

It is quite interesting that only a few locks were underestimated, while most locks were overestimated. Several of the underestimated locks have a tight keyway, but this in itself is not a guarantee for the lock to be difficult. For example, it’s common for the old Evva to be full of standard pins. The biggest surprice is the Sargent lock, which is much better quality than they are usually given credit for.

On the overestimated side, we have locks which are usually quite secure. The Medeco has good tolerances, and the SFIC rely heavily on their double shearline for security. While the Assa 500 and DOM IX are well-made locks from Europe. However, with the right tools and techniques, they just opened without too much difficulty. (The Medeco was raked several times.)

This analysis and report may not have solved the mystery of why some locks are easy, and other locks are difficult, but it was interesting to analyze these nonetheless. We will not take guesses for the 20th Toool competition, but do take a look. https://toool.nl/competitie2025/ We chose to save all the keys of this new competition, which enables us to see if the bitting is what makes the difference after the competition concludes.

LockCon 2024: Dutch Open competition rules

Saturday, 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 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.

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!

LockCon 2024 announcement

Saturday, 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

Challenge completed!

Friday, 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.

By Jan-Willem. Pictures CCYBY4.0 by Walter and Jan-Willem Toool Blackbag.

UKLS January challenge

Monday, January 1st, 2024

The January challenge is a lockpicking game ran on the UKlocksport forum. In short, the challenge is to picks/impressions/opens one lock a day for the days of January. The rules say to post pictures daily and not to play catch up. As in, to pick a lock every day, not just 31 in the month of January.

You can extend your lockpicking streak, if you so wish. Some people extend the streak by a few days, others do a full year. One exemplary lockpicker, Toni, picked a lock a day for 1093 days straight, which is three days short of three years! Furthermore, Toni started a new streak of several hundred lock in 2022, as well.

The last two locks of the lockpicking streak by Toni are both sides of the same DOM Plura.
Lockpicking collage of the special picks from Toni from the first 365 locks.

I’ve used the January challenge as a good excuse to learn a new skill. For example, in 2018 I’ve impressioned a lock a day in January. In 2019, I’ve impressioned a dozen, and picked locks for the remaining days.

It’s very easy to start the challenge, and then let it drop when that one lock doesn’t open. So to help you along, here are a few tips and tricks.

  • Don’t set the bar too high, as the difficulty isn’t as important for your daily lock.
  • Try to incorporate lockpicking in your daily schedule, for example to pick your lock while waiting for public transit, or during a coffee break.
  • Plan out your month so you have enough easier locks for the busy days of the month.
  • If you challenge yourself with an F3D, have a contingency when it doesn’t open that quick, as someone on YT.
  • Skipping posting is better than skipping a pick.
  • Lastly, share your picked locks, no matter if it’s a steak or not. Celebrate the victories will help you stay motivated.
The two rings are easier locks than the box on the right, but at 25g each, you can’t beat the cores of Master Loto for weight. Toni took a box of these to keep his streak alive during holidays abroad. (Do check the country’s stance on lockpicking, though.)

With picking a lock a day, you built the lockpicking muscle memory. We as Toool advocate for using the three O of out name, oefenen, oefenen, and oefenen. Which is the Dutch word for practice. In English, you could say to pick locks over, over, and over again.

If you are inspired, please join the UKLS forum, and start sharing your picked locks. I would like to extend the invitation to any lockpicking streak, also if your streak starts on another date. Next to practice, share your achievements with the community.

This Kibb is my 1st pick of the year.

Pictures from Toni have his copyright. The rest are CCBY4.0, as per usual Toool Blackbag license.

Recap of 2023

Friday, December 29th, 2023

Hi all, I want to take the opportunity to look back at the year 2023, and discuss our achievements of the last year. The first post on Blackbag of the year was on a modified electric heater. While the post was off brand (as in: not a lock), it helped several pickers to save hundreds of euros on the heating bill. I’ve used mine ever since.

Our first event of the year was in February, a luxurious hacking experience at Hackerhotel. It was a good conference where we talked with our friends from other Dutch Hackerspaces. The talks were everything from community discussions to creativity and security topics. Toool hosted three impressioning workshops a day, and Jan-Willem gave a talk on experimental lockpicking techniques. Which includes, analysis of the Bowley Rotasera, and lessons learned on the Kromer protector.

Wendt hosted a well received lockpicking competition end of March. Walter and Henri competed, and several others joined for the exposition and side events. In case you have missed it, Wendt invites you to join their open house 2nd and 3rd of March 2024.

In May Toool was at the last HITBSecConf2023 in Amsterdam. Toool has hosted the lockpicking village for HITB Amsterdam from the beginning of the conference, and we made great friends along the way. It is truly an end of a decade. The lockpicking village has always been one of the more consistent and popular side events at the conference, and we hosted it again with great pleasure.

During the summer, several Toool members from the Netherlands went to Defcon and visited the lockpicking village hosted by Toool US and to promote Locksport. I, myself, went to the Chaos Communication Camp in Germany. This is the largest German hacker camp hosted by the Choas Computer Club. Jascha from Sportsfreunden der Sperrtechnik, SSDeV set up the lockpicking event, which was a great success. I’ve run a few sessions in English, it was good fun.

LockCon was in October hosted at the Westcord Hotel in Garderen. We hosted close to a hundred guests from all over the world. Where in the three days we ran four competitions, a dozen talks, and many locks picked. It was great to meet our friends again. The recap of the event is worth a read.

ACF organized their annual festival in December. Walter traveled to Paris for the event and competition and won the third price. Walter shares his thoughts in this post.

Next to all these big events, we went twice at Tkkrlab, Hack42, and several other small events. On average we have run a side event a month. Furthermore, we hosted a lockpicking meetup almost every week, as well as published several blogs on locks, tools, and more, here on Blackbag. In case you have missed them, here are the highlights.

Walter looks for interesting locks and published a series of small unusual locks. For example, Walter found a 28mm double euro cylinder from Keso which is unique as it is operated with a standard length key. This short 6-pin euro cylinder from Dom is also quite clever. The Evva Elus is also a curiosity. Given the lock has electromechanical master keying.

I’ve written quite a bit for blackbag, for example on the cutaway collection from Qikom. Furthermore, in a collaborative work, I’ve 3D printed keys for the Abloy Protec2, as well as analyzed the yet unpicked Dulimex PRO-LINE padlock.

Henri wrote about a clever implementation of multi tenant lever locks. These and other lever locks are quite rare here, sadly. It’s a wonderful, but forgotten technology, which still has a place in high security systems in the UK and Italy. Hopefully, Henri will write more about those in a future Blackbag post.

To end this list, we like to suggest reading a post with in depth technical knowledge. The report in the LockCon 2022 impressioning competition. The document can be quite useful for pickers interested in impressioning.

If you see something you like, please leave a reaction below the post. It’ll help grow the brand as well as motivate the writers to continue putting in the effort. If you want to share your project on Blackbag, do reach out as well.

Best holiday wishes from me and the rest of Toool,
May many locks open for you in 2024 🙂

Jan-Willem Markus
Secretary of The Open Organisation of Lockpickers

Progressive Disc detainer

Sunday, December 17th, 2023

In learning lockpicking try to get all advantage you can get. A good first step is to learn as much as possible about the lock. For example, You should disassemble and reassemble the lock a few times, but looking at pictures on the lpubelts or lockwiki are good options as well. The next step is to assemble the lock with fewer locking elements, pick it, and increase the difficulty after each success. This is a well understood practicing method for pin tumbler locks, call progressive pinning.

I’ve built several progressive locks for myself and for teaching lockpicking to others. Of some locks, I’ve got a keyed alike set. In this way, you can practice the locks without the (sometimes tedious) opening and reassembly of the locks. For the practice session, just work through the locks in the set.

For disc detainer locks we aren’t lucky as the locks don’t function well without all the elements. The locks consist of a stack of code discs and spacers and all live in a partially cut hollow tube. If you have several of the same lock, you can use the spacers from one lock to fill the progressive lock. This technique worked well for an attempt to pick the Rosengrens 32A81 lock.

Disassembled Rosengrens 32A81 Safe deposit box lock.

Dmac shows an clever alternative for regular disc detainers in this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehHG-BhgdMs He is replacing part of the disc stack with a properly sized tube to take up the space of the missing discs. The tube allows the key to operate the lock and has enough movement to move freely and not impede the sidebar, but small enough so the sidebar doesn’t drop in the core. This is a clever trick which is certainly worth testing.

In this post, I propose an alternative solution which is more generic, and will most likely work for all disc detainer, lever, and wafer locks. I’ve designed a spacer to fill the lock. The spacer shape can often be reproduced from the original lock parts in most CAD packages within hours. As a proof of concept, I’ve designed the spacers for the Anchor Las and laser cut the parts at Hackerspace Bitlair in Amstersfoort.

My process is quite straight forward: Measure the part, design it in OpenCAD, determine the laser parameters, cut the part, test the part. Then adjust and repeat the steps until satisfied with the results. (Or when you run out of material/time/money, whatever comes first.) It is like CI/CD, but in hardware, with an iteration cycle of about five minutes.

In the table below, I’ve captured the measurements of the core from the Anchor Las 833-3 padlock.

ItemSize
Disc pack20.51 mm
Disc1.395 mm
Spacer0.5 mm (calculated)
Core13.92 mm
Sidebar1.97 mm
Key width5.1mm
Spacers stack0.5 mm + 0.28 mm
Anchor Las measurements with a micrometer.

Getting the dimensions into OpenSCAD isn’t too difficult. I did however reuse someone else’s code for a partial circle, which isn’t trivial in this scripting language. (The code will be on the bottom of the page)

Laser cutters are amazing machines, and I’m always excited when finding a new use for the tool. My go-to materials are acrylic, Delrin, and the occasional sheets of triplex. While, acrylic isn’t the most robust, it makes for great visualizations. POM (Delrin and Acetal are the brandnames) is an engineering plastic great for key gauges and other locksport tools. It also so happens to work great for lock replacement parts.

To get the part the correct size, we need to compensate for the kerf (laser cut width). While it can be measured, I chose to do trial and error: change the kerf compensation in the Lightburn laser software and measure the parts with a micrometer. After I was satisfied, I ran a small batch of a hundred rings, just so there are enough to play with for me and other community members.

At the hackerspace, we actively share lessons learned. For this one, I’ve found putting a sacrificial material below the Delrin greatly improved the cut quality. Half the power and speed, with two passes also worked well. The laser parameters are saved to the Bitlair wiki for others to use in the future.

Back home, I’ve assembled the lock with the spacers and found them to be slightly too large. The sandpaper took off the difference quite easily. After reassembly, the lock works great with the key and it’s hard to distinguish from a lock with a complete disc pack. (I see options for a trick lock).

I’m looking forward to picking it, and will have others play with the lock as well to gather feedback on how the parts affects picking. As I expect the Delrin spacer have noticeably more friction than metal on metal, it will likely be beneficial to keep code discs in between original spacers. Furthermore, the lock works fine without a shackle and won’t brick on you without one.

Above are the minimum parts required for a functional front tensioning training lock.

I’ve picked the lock a few times with six random code discs. This is nine spacers of 1mm thick, and six of each code disc and metal spacer. After which, I quickly progressed through the other configuration, and picked the unmodified lock an hour later. As the spacers are thinner than discs, I’ve used the remaining metal spacers to fill out the remaining space.

At the moment we do not have a repository of lock parts, but we will likely create one soon.
In the meantime, the script for OpenSCAD is attached below. When you create your own discs, please share them around.

// Ancher Las spacer V2.1
// 20231213 Jan-Willem CCBY4.0
// OpenSCAD 2021

// F5 render
// F6 generate
// Export as ...

$fn = 100;

projection() // make it flat
difference(){ // substract the keyhole and gate from the disc
    union(){ // create the disc
        cylinder(1.4,11.4/2,11.4/2, center = true);

        // code for a part of a circle
        // https://openhome.cc/eGossip/OpenSCAD/SectorArc.html
        radius = 13.2/2;
        angles = [35, 145];

        linear_extrude(1.4, center = true){
        points = [
            for(a = [angles[0]:1:angles[1]]) [radius * cos(a), radius * sin(a)]
        ];
            polygon(concat([[0, 0]], points));
        }
    }

    //key hole
    cylinder(1.4,7/2,7/2,, center = true);
    
    // gate
    translate([0,-11.5/2,0])
    cylinder(1.4,3/2,3/2, center = true);
}

Copyright CCBY4.0 Jan-Willem Markus, Toool NL

French Open competition

Sunday, December 10th, 2023

Yesterday, the yearly “Festival ACF” was held in Paris, France. This is a combination of lectures, workshops and competitions held by the ACF (Association des Crocheteurs de France), the French Locksport group.

I believe this must be the 4th or 5th time I visited. It was good to meet old friends and make new friends. The first lecture I saw was from a pentester, talking about a red teaming assignment (that did not involve physical security). Next was a historical overview of pump locks from Fichet-Bauche.

After that, the lockpicking championships were held. About 25 people participated. In the first round, people were seated at tables with at most four people, each having to pick three cylinders in less than 5 minutes. I got an Opsial, a Thirard (which felt very cheap) and an unbranded cylinder. The Opsial was my first and I made the mistake not to try and rake it. I spent too much time picking and though I made not even make it past the first round! But in the end, it was me and Wesley both going through, thanks to our quick raking of 2 (me) or 3 (Wesley) cylinders.

The second round I had 2 opponents, and the cylinders were more difficult, a TESA TE5, a Heracles and a Vachette V5. They needed to be picked in under 10 minutes. I opened them all and my opponents opened none, which meant I was in the final!

There were 4 people in the final, having to open 4 locks (BKS 6-pin, DormaKaba, Heracles with a horrible keyway and a GeGe). I needed to relax and try to open something, as I hoped to get a plaque to take home with me. The BKS I could not open, but the DormaKaba I did open in 13’11, so just within the 15 minute time limit. And that was the only one I opened.. Nitiflor opened the DormaKaba as well as the GeGe, Wesley opened just the GeGe (in 9’20) and Hadrian did not open any. Too bad I could not open the GeGe as well, as that would have yielded second place. The final result was: Nitiflor #1, Wesley #2, I came third and Hadrian fourth. But that meant I got a plaque!

The ACF had gotten some really nice sponsoring resulting in nice prizes. Nitiflor got the wonderful Multipick ARES disc detainer pick, Wesly the Kronos electropick, I got a Flipper Zero. And some more goodies including some cylinders (DOM iX TECO, M&C Minos) and a manual pickgun.

I hope to return to Paris next year, and maybe win another plaque. Although my scores are declining, in 2021 I became first (and second in impressioning), in 2022 I became second, this year third. I see a downward trend 😉

Walter.