I guess I will postpone my vacation to Russia for a little while…
In the comments of the Russian lock article an interesting discussion
was taking place. People who call themselves a Russian lockpick
sportgroup, fans of locks and lock manufacturer had spicy comments
about me. They did try to invite themselves to the entire Dutch Open
weekend. I kindly told them people I never met before are not welcome
to the closed part. I guess this was one of my best decisions this
year (so far).
It took them a little while, but now they found a reason why they were
not welcome: I am on the payroll with ASSA abloy group and am nothing
more then a puppet on ASSA abloy strings. In their fantasy story they
drag in Russian thiefs, the Mafia, the KGB and even narcotic abuse.
Truth of the matter is I think they are just disappointed.
Disappointed I did not want to be the ‘independent expert’ to publicly
scrutinize the Yale lock that competes with them on the Russian
market. Personally I could not care less if it can be bumped or not.
If a company wants to hire me to publicly attack competitors locks I
kindly say no. It is just not ethical. If I was in it for the money I
would have gladly accepted, but I did not. And of course they are
disappointed they could not bluff their way into Sneek. I assume in
their area they do not hear the word NO often.
All in all it is a very sad rant. And for me they show not to be
security professionals. Professionals do not get carried away by
emotions, but act … professional. The way they personally attack me
on me being a little bit too heavy is also rather … sad.
And for the record: I do not smoke…. never did.
Coming back to being on the payroll of ASSA Abloy: I have an income
and do not need support from anyone. And I take pride not to be ‘for
sale’. If you make such claims please back them up with facts. There
simply are none because I am always very careful when it comes to
taking money from the lock industry. Even when testing locks for the
biggest and richest lock companies I rather receive a nice cut-away
lock instead of money. And all the companies I work with know that I
will not hesitate to publicly show attacks to their locks if I
discover them. Of course I will give them 3-6 months time to fix it.
But I will always publish them.
All in all a very sad attempt to damage me and my reputation. So far I
think it only works counter productive. In showing this unprofessional
attitude, and publicly complaining I do not want to be hired to test
the competitors locks as an ‘independent expert’ for them.
And the website they put up. It is weird. They seem to be in war with
the entire world. Look at the ‘independent lock fan group’ handing out
heads of pigs as trophies… brrrr …. it gives me the shivers.
I can advise everyone to at least look at this link and click around a little:
http://locksclub.nm.ru/com/new_290506en.shtm (* Mirror)
For me this is the end of this conversation. Unless there are claims I
feel are worth to comment on I will not spend time on these people
with their tinfoil hats and conspiracy theories. For me this case is
closed. I only deal with rational professionals.
(* that was fast … minutes after my postings the russian pages went down. Here is a mirror)
(** that was even faster …. site is back up again. Was it a glitch or they figured it was no use?)
Hi Barry,
Don’t worry about the ‘overweight’ remarks that these idiots made. I think you are gorgeous!! 🙂
Anne-Marie
Wow. Just wow.
I saw the origional post on LP101 of this Russian….. umm Club, before it got deleted. I agree with you, these people seem far from professional. Sounds like some crazy theory they cooked up.
Good thing you didn’t let them in, I poked around the page and found some other stuff. Pig heads and porno, what a weird club. :\
You sure did the right thing, I just hope their spamming stops.
Best of luck,
John
Heh. Never thought of handing out animal parts for prizes. What’s that I hear? New Lockpicking101 prize? Sheep stomachs! Yeah! 🙂
Barry, glad you can take it all with a grain of salt. When you put yourself out there, there’s always gonna be those that wanna throw mud. Good, professional response to it all.
Cheers,
Josh
Hrmmm, photoshop is an interesting tool, especially when the pig has a little bit of the nice wrapping paper left on the top fold of the ear on the right side.
http://toool.nl/mirror/mirror/treshev02_.jpg
Oh well would have been funny if it were true.
It´s sad that this pretty sport-hobbie of lockpicking is so near of the interest of this kind of people…
Personally i met a lot times with them in my job, and i think that barry´s choice is the best.
Cute, I’d seen the text of the Russian awards page circulating as a joke… But I guess they’re not joking.
Eric Michaud: I think they indeed used photoshop to edit the head of
the pig in the hands of the people on the image. I assume the two
people you see on that page are victims of their damaging campaigns as
well. All in all pretty intimidating stuff if you ask me.
Anne-Marie: Thanks, I needed that 😉 XXX
All: Thanks for your support on this (that also came in via mail and PM)
sounds scary, glad you didn’t go
Dear Mr. Wels,
We have read your diary carefully and want to correct you.
You have mentioned more than once that you get messages from People who call themselves the Russian lockpick sportgroup or lock fans and lock makers”.
You might refer to poor knowledge of English, but your information is not quite true.
The locks.ru portal has many users, and each of them has their own e-mail address.
Uniting all users under one name by their IP address alone is incorrect, as each message is signed by a certain name.
It is a corporate site.
You personally and your behavior are criticized by the Lock Fan Club, a public organization, your colleagues in breaking locks for sport.
And this criticism is their right according to the rules of internet democracy.
If you, Mr. Wels, do not like their criticism of you, you can put them on your spam list and not read the mail.
Or expose their messages to pre-moderation, as you have done already.
But we will not close them the internet access as you demand.
The world is big now. It is bigger than your personal sports club in Amsterdam, and everyone who lives in this world is allowed to tell you everything they think of you.
You should get used to these rules of democracy somehow.
You will have to cope with them however much you dislike it.
Agree (in your mind) that there are experts in the world who are much better than you.
Experts and lock fans who use the internet for learning only rather than for making money on lectures about bumping and selling conclusions.
If we were you, we would advise you to open a worldwide forum about bumping and lock breaking for peaceful purposes.
With respect to you,
The locks.ru portal
Russia, 06.12.2006
Dear Svetlana: The troll(*) season is over. I never withheld postings
on this weblog, nor asked people to delete anything. I do know I will
not waste anymore of my time on anything that comes from Russia
(except nice locks). So end of story, no more replies from me unless
it has a strict foundation and is based on real facts. I do have a job
and a life and refuse to keep defending myself against your silly
claims. Instead I will use the time to write articles on locks and
lockpicking, or other lock related issues. All the best to you.
(*) Troll: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll
barry is the best lock opening EXPERT in the world and its his hobby not his job,and real trophys are cut away locks and gold bump keys not pigs heads,and for the record barry, russia is freezing you dont want to go there,you keep up the great work barry,this is the best blog ive come across theres more to lock opening than just bumping as you show on this site top man have fun martin
This Club exists as DAFOR OY company’s fans, personally it is A.Goncharenko (AKA Svetlana and many more nicks) and this guy was banned on all Russian locks forums, and therefore created own crazy site.
Please do not mix all Russians with this guy.
Vladimir: Sorry, you are right.
I had read some of this before, but the link comes up again in this weeks blog entry. I guess Vadimir finally told us what’s bothering the guy. Weird blockheaded thinking, ignorant and ultranationalist. To mix up a country with a lock. I thought only the US had millions of these types, but actually, this guy has an excuse, he came out of a totalitarian society, where blockheaded thinking was taught in school. Where did limbaugh and orielly learn to be ignorant? (limbaugh and orielly are americas most famous and rich demagogues) millions of people who think like the russian, if it can be called thinking, actually, its selfinvolved emotion trying to impose a personal fantasy on reality, and make others play along.