It’s over. Most people are home now, others are still in a plane,
flying back to the other side of the planet. If you will ask them how
it was the answer will probably be they had the time of their life.
Ok, maybe there are one or two out of this crowd of 100 people that
have something to bitch about. But I keep in mind they can only be
truly happy if they have something to bitch about (yes, you know who
you are). So my conclusion is that everybody is happy, one way or the other.

The image above is that of gold plated bump keys for Schlage, Yale and ASSA twin.
A gift from Babak, Eric Michaud, Eric Schmiedel and Schuyler from Toool USA.
I don’t know what to say to receive such nice gifts …. thanks guys!

There is a lot to tell about the open, and I promise to make some nice
and exclusive video available online in a couple of days. For now you will have
to do with Eric Schmiedel’s impressive photo collection (day 1, 2 and 3) and a Dutch
television item (Windows Media 16 Mb).

I now need to get some serious sleep, Wednesday I am flying to Dubai for the GITEX exhibition.

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!

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

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.

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

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)

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:

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.

 

 
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).

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.

 

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.

No need to identify what keys are used by the SDU voting computer anymore …

Today was a bizarre day. We knew the minister would come with a
statement about voting computers, but had no idea about the
content. And the news he brought came as a shock. A shock to us and a
shock to the public. He announced all SDU newvote voting computers are
banned for elections as of now! The reason for this is that the
screens of these devices leak radio signals, strong enough so anybody
with a simple receiver and readily available tools can reconstruct
what parties people vote on. And this signal is strong enough to be
received tens of meters away!

We already showed that the other voting computers (Nedap) also
leaks radio signals, and we could identify from that if someone voted
for the Christen Democrates or some other party. But with SDU newvote
things seem even worse. The end result is that the minister banned the
SDU Voting computers and in Amsterdam where I live we will now vote
with our trusworthy paper and pencil. This is an unbelievable success and
dominated the Dutch news today. All news programs had it as their
first item, and the complete country is in shock. And so am I a little…

Some of todays news videos can be found here, here and here.

 

Wow … In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is a nice article on
locksport in the US. I am glad to see the locksport groups in the US
know how to talk with the media and get their point across without being
portrayed as criminals. Read the full article here: Page 1 and Page 2.

Police claim to have made a breakthrough in the mysterious car burglaries
case in Stadskanaal. As you might remember a wide range of different
car brands and models where opened without a trace and goods were
taken from the cars. And the police had no idea what tool or technique
was used by these crooks.

The stadskanaal police today claims to have found the answer. A twenty
year old drug addicted male was arrested. Police believe he is the
brain behind this intriguing case. The answer to the question how he
did it is a little ehrm … sobering. His modus operandi was simple:
He got on his bicycle and drove around town trying to find cars that
accidentally were left open and let statistics do the rest. It is a
fact not all cars are closed, and he based his ‘attack’ on nothing
more then just trying to see if a car was left open. That is it…

Or is it? Three different sources have recently shown me a picture of a
mysterious tool. Police is trying to find out what type of tool it is
and who makes it. It seems to have something to do with car openings…
Unfortunately I can not show you the pictures since all sources do not
want me to publish it. Sorry about that :(   *update10 Nov. : mystery solved!

Update: Dutch SBS6 TV had an item about this (click here WMV 17 Mb)

Currently I took the time to relax a little and read some books. These
books are all in Dutch, except for one I recently bought at the German
lockpick championships. It is a German book by Manfred Göth named
‘Werkzeugspur’ ISBN 3-00-004285-7 (rough translation: ‘tool traces’).

Manfred is the only non government independent forensic specialist in
Germany and he is well respected for that. I had the pleasure of
meeting him once and he is really a knowledgeable person. This also
shows in his book. In it are many close up images of locks and pins.
Traces almost not visible with the naked eye all of a sudden become
crystal clear if he uses special electron microscopes to zoom in on
the subjects. The book is filled with images like the one below.

(electron microscope image of a pin with unusual marks on it)

Manfred made it clear that almost any non-destructive opening can be
identified by people with the right forensic knowledge and tools. He
is also capable of identifying if a lock was bumped open or not and
does this on a regular basis for insurance companies and their clients.

It could be coincidence or not, but over the last few weeks three
independent people asked me to look at their legal case against their
insurance company. One car theft where the insurance company claims
the car is so well protected it is impossible to steal. Just googling
for the brand and model I found at least 3 ways to steal that car…sigh.
One case was a burglary where probably a bump key was used and the
insurance company does not want to pay and one bizarre case where an
electronic locking system was bypassed one way or the other.

More info on Mr. Göth’s company and book on http://www.goeth.de/