All good things come to an end. And a good thing it surely was! The attendees, from all over the world, were very happy with the way LockCon turned out. We are already looking forward to next year!

I would like to thank Abus for sposoring the cylinders and blanks used for the impressioning championships. Then there were several companies who have sponsored prizes for the winners. M&C sponsored a whole bunch of their cylinders, but one really stood out: it is their new Condor cylinder, a cutaway version of it, but huge and fully functional! On the picture you see it, next to a regular M&C cylinder to give you an idea of the size. A real eye catcher! Sparrows Lockpicks sponsored coupons in worth of $800, Peterson gave away several of his famous picksets, Knaap Junior gave away polo shirts and Tokoz gave away some cylinders. Thanks!

All prize winners also received a plaque in the form of a working model of a pin stack, as per the design Kenny McElroy:

And here’s all the winners:

The second day of LockCon is also over. In between all the talking, lockpicking, lock swapping, socializing and such, there was time for workshops and lectures. Jord gave a workshop lever lock picking, to prepare attendees for the championship tomorrow. After that, Peter Field discussed techniques used by lock manufacturers, with his wonderful pictures that show the working in fantastic detail. Next, Jan and Michael talked about their adventures milling EVVA 3KS keys. Eric came across a certain motorbike lock that needed opening and he decided to use a decoder for it of which he explained the working. The evening was ended by the premiere of “American Lockpicker”, a documentary about Schuyler Towne by Ben Hartman.

And we had also time for the lockpicking championships. A whopping 48 people competed. After 8 rounds, 6 people went through to the semi-finals and three of those played the final rounds. It turned out to be very exciting, with all three contestants opening all three locks within the 15 minutes they had for each lock. In the end, Christian was the fastest and thus became the winner. Here you see him in action:

The first day of LockCon has come to an end (at least, the official program). We had a talk by MH and Lucas about Chinese locks. What threats do they try to protect against? What new techniques are being used? Featuring the famous “free spinning lock” and the “chain-key lock”. Jord Knaap had some interesting stories about his work as a safe opener. He also showed some very new safe opening techniques. Deviant talked about keyed-alike locks in the USA. Who would have thought that when the policy (or taxi companies) order keyed-alike cars, they are actually all keyed alike? Jimmie and Cocolitos talked about newly designed picks that work really well on many types of locks. Ray disassembled some wireless locks and found some interesting vulnerabilities (including a 0day). Kenny taught us all about OpenSCAD. We will not go into too much detail. The event is invite-only for a reason ;-).

And we had also time for the impressioning championships. Abus kindly sponsored a bunch of Abus C83 cylinders and key blanks. After a first round, the first six went to the final, all having to open six new locks. The winner was Alexandre, Oli became second and Jord third.

Here you see the winner in action:

Although the desire to be at LockCon is normally not related with the official program, we do get some questions about what lectures will be given. So, we have made a (preliminary!) program. You can download it from here: lockcon2016.ics.

Apart from competitions in lockpicking, impressioning and lever lock picking, lots of socializing and generally having lots of fun, these lectures/workshops are planned:

• Contemporary Chinese Locks by MH and Lucas Zhao
• Bypassing electronic safe locks by Jord Knaap
• Keyed-alike industrial standards by Deviant Ollam
• OpenSCAD by Kenny McElroy
• Surfing the wave! (a pin lock picking tools analysis) by Jimmie & Cocolitos
• Elements of Cylinder Design by Peter Field
• CNC Milling EVVA 3KS Keys and decoding the Masterkey System by Jan Morawek and Michael Weiner
• AccuReader by Eric Scaillet
• Why safe lock manipulation works by Jaakko Fagerlund

Things are moving along rather nicely. The registration has opened and a lot of the usual suspects have already registered. We are however still missing quite a lot of our regular visitors. Please do not forget to register, because we have a limited number of rooms. Just showing up on the day will probably mean you cannot get in anymore!

Lots of people are submitting talks. We love it! Keep them coming! People who have submitted a talk will be contacted later, when we have a preliminary schedule. There is room for lightning talks as well.

There is a logo for LockCon 2016 as you can see. This year, we have decided not to print shirts, to avoid a pile of left overs once LockCon is over. Anybody want to buy a shirt from 2014? This year we do have shirts, but they are printed on demand and you can order them yourselves. We offer these on a non profit basis via the shirt shop of our good friends at Hack42. You can order either a man’s T-shirt, women’s T-shirt, mini person T-shirt or a hoodie.

If you want to use a different (local/cheaper/DIY) printshop, feel free to use the logo above.

The weekend of September 30 – October 2, the LockCon conference will once again be held! This time, it will not be in Sneek, but in Garderen, in Hotel Overbosch Garderen. Garderen is less than 2 hours from Schiphol Airport when using public transportation.

LockCon is an invite-only conference. Members of Toool NL and affiliated lockpicking groups can visit, as well as people that have visited LockCon before. Others need to be endorsed or need to convince us they should be there 🙂

Registration is not yet open and the price is not yet known. This post is for you to take note of the date, and also to ask if you are willing and capable of giving a lecture or workshop at LockCon 2016. If so, please let us know at lockcon2016-submit@toool.nl.

Apart for the interesting lectures and workshops, the Dutch Open lockpicking and impressioning championships will also be held during LockCon as usual.