My poor macbook died. I keep backups, so no harm is done, but it sucks to have to work on an old company windows machine for now.
So my posting is going to be a simple one today, using some images I uploaded to blackbag before the crash. One of the things I wanted to share is a couple of pictures taken at HAR from the by now famous ‘transparten lock’. These one, two, three, four images give you a much better idea how nice this lock is than in my original posting. And many people took the opportunity to play with the lock at HAR. If you have large demo locks like this please let me know!
One other thing mentioning was the round the clock presentations at HAR by my good friend Till. He demonstrated a system to copy mechanical keys called ‘quick key’ (made and designed in Berlin). It uses some sort of two component kind of rubber to make a mould of a key. Till showed that with a little effort almost any mechanical key can be duplicated. He even managed to copy a high security popular French safe lock key.
And to keep in line with my dead macbook … at HAR I have seen the most bizarre picktool case EVER…..
Hope to be back on a Mac sunday for a new update on BlackBag ….
I suppose the metal is one of the bismuth componds, but what is the molding material? Has Till tried this with strips of foil wrapped gum, they come flat and long and are pretty good for taking an impression of a flat key, as well as that they are universally available, and you can carry five strips in a package. you can use them with the foil on.
just wanted to bring your attention to http://vision.ucsd.edu/~blaxton/sneakey.html key decoding via photo
@Andrew Most people are aware of the Sneakey project, its been about a year since they released their findings. For some reason several websites only recently found out about it.
The key copying is done using a low temperature melting alloy. There are literally hundreds of various types, some poisonous, some with issues like higher temps, excessive shrinkage or being too soft or weak.
The moulding is done using a 2 part silicone rubber compound, such as Siligum, and is easily available.
The case is actually the hardest part to do! You really want to make a solid steel or aluminium case with pegs to ensure good alignment.
NKT: Case the hardest? Aluminum and steel machines very nice and making a block with four aligning pins is very easy task 🙂
If you want to know about the low melting point alloys, I suggest looking in here: http://www.gizmology.net/fusiblemetals.htm
62.5% of bismuth and 37.5% of tin makes a nice alloy that melts only at 94 degrees Celsius, and it doesn’t contain anything hazardous. I’m not exactly sure how soft it is, but tin and bismuth are quite soft both, so…
Hey Jaako,
I said hardest – I didn’t say it was hard! 😉
I got my hands on a kilo of suitable alloy within 90 minutes of looking online for some, and I already had the siligum. That sets the bar for the case making difficulty pretty low to *not* be the hardest part!
I went for a harder and stronger alloy that melts at about 135 C and is non-toxic.
Did you get my email yesterday?
Hey NKT,
could you please send me (or post it here) the link for the stronger alloy (I´m only finding the Alloy70 type -__-) and where I coul buy it?
alloy@trash-mail.com
Thanks a lot!