Archive for November, 2006

Another mystery solved… tool identified

Friday, November 10th, 2006

Another mystery solved. Regular visitors of this weblog might remember
I mentioned something about the police investigating a ‘burglary
tool’. They had no clue what it was or could be, and asked lots and
lots of people in the lock industry. And many of them asked me.

I am sure we would have had hours of fun speculating what it could be in
Sneek at the Dutch Open today. But Eric spoiled the fun and mailed the
answer. Thanks Eric!

whatisit

Here a picture of the mystery object. If you want to find out what it
is click here, or read the comments.

Toool Amsterdam last night

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Eric Schiedel of Toool.US is in town. He is currently staying in
Amsterdam to visit the Dutch Open saturday. One of Eric’s passions is
photography. I invite you all to look at his open directory and see
some of his art. If you go there you will find some nice locks and
lock technology. And since of last night there is a toool Amsterdam
map
. Below a picture where you can clearly see Toool is a sportgroup.
On the left you see some ladies playing volleyball, on the right the
lockpickers.

sport

The atmosphere in Amsterdam was excellent last night. Maybe we should
organize more Dutch Opens….

P.s. For our Dutch readers: een PDF van het stukje uit het Parool over deze gezellige toool avond

Hong Kong Economic times about bumping

Monday, November 6th, 2006

This Bump key story is getting a little out of hand. It just popped up in China! 

Headline: 80% locks can be opened by a special-made key.

PLC, one of the biggest local lock agencies, said that they learnt this 4
years ago in an international exhibition, but they tested the loophole until
last year. As the effect would be huge, they didn’t disclose it to the
public. The Hong Kong Locksmith Society said that 80% locks could be opened,
and the situation became worsen after this news is disclosed to the public.

In our test, our reporter, who had known nothing about lockpicking before,
successfully opened the first lock with a bump key in two minutes. This
method has shocked experts in the industry, because it required no
expertise, it leaves no clues that the lock was opened and the tool looks
like a normal key.

Barry Wels, chairman of Toool.nl in Netherlands, had described the
vulnerablity is one of the serious loophole in locks, but as it would affect
the interests of some locksmiths and lock companies, people tend to not to
discuss it.  In the tests conducted by Toool.nl, some police-certified locks
were opened with a bump key. (Image copyright Paul Boven)

final preparations Dutch Open…

Saturday, November 4th, 2006

Just one more week till the Dutch Open in Sneek is going to happen.
An exiting time. And a very busy one. Today I collected 50% of the
locks we will use for the games. Since a lot of sportpickers always
want to know what they are up against here is some info:

Iseo 8209

For the regular games we bought a bunch of ISEO 8209 locks. A nice and
decent lock. Time will tell how pickable they are, but I expect each Ssdev and Toool
member to at least open a few of them.

For the finals and semi-finals we have bought ‘federal locks’. These
locks are much tougher to pick. Six pins and some of them serrated. Only
the best four lockpickers of the Dutch Open will face these locks.

federal 2* cut away lock 

 
To also give the less talented (or lucky?) pickers a chance to win a
nice price, one of the federal ‘cut away’ locks will find a new owner by
a small lottery (among with a some other nice prices!). So please join
the games! You can keep one of the official locks used in the games too.

For the real diehards close up images of the keyways are available here.
Close observers will see both keyways look similar. The Federal keyway
is a little more narrrow. Iseo keys do not fit Federal, but Federals does fit Iseo.

More on the Dutch Open 2006 coming up this weekend. You can still
register till Monday (if you are an Ssdev or Toool member).

Lost & Found: depths and spacings list

Thursday, November 2nd, 2006

Always wanted to know the exact spacing en depths of one of the
following locks? : Arrow, Corbin, Dexter, Emhart, Falcon, Ilco,
Kaba, Kwikset, Lockwood, Medeco, Medeco Biaxial, Medeco Keymark,
Russwin, Sargent, Schlage, Segal, System 70, Weiser, Weslock or Yale

Too bad. The site hosting this wealth of information decided to remove it.

Due to

 

Fortunately there is http://www.archive.org and the ‘wayback machine’. There is no escape …
Just try: http://web.archive.org/web/20050215102400/http://dlaco.com/spacing/spacing.htm

Or download a .PDF file with the exact spacings here.