In just a few weeks it will be party time in Sneek.
But we still have a lot of preparations to do….

One of the chalenges we always face is finding decent locks for the games. This year we will be using US style locks for the picking contest.

Schuyler Towne was kind enough to donate these locks and already send us some pictures of the keyways.

For impressioning we are most likely going to use corbin locks, but I unfortunately I can not confirm this yet as we are having some trouble finding 40 equaly bitted locks for a reasonable price.

And currently I am in the US, manning the CryptoPhone booth at the MilCom conference in Miami Florida, so I do not have much time to spend on the open (or this blog). But I did receive some real nice information that I hope to share with you soon ….

As organizers of the Dutch Open we feel the pressure building up. Will everything work out? Can we satisfy the people and offer them something nice? Looking at the presentations we have to offer I think we can ….

Kick off

Friday around 20:30 Paul Crouwel will kick off the Dutch Open with his presentation: High security safe opening

As regular visitors of this blog know, Paul Crouwel is a highly skilled safe technician that opened many high security safes. During this presentation he will try to open at least one high security safe. Before trying to open it he will reveal his plan of attack and then execute it. When the safe is open it is time to party 😉

And there is more Paul Crouwel will do at the Open:

Saturday 15:30-17:00 Paul Crouwel on combination lock manipulation
(second track)

This will be an intimate class with room for only ten attendants. Paul will explain the basics behind safe combination lock manipulation and hand out ten Sargent&greenleaf 6730’s combination locks for some hands on training. At the end of the Dutch Open these locks can be purchased by the students for a very reasonable fee. This presentation will also be held on Sunday after the lockpick championships (around 15:00).

Saturday 10:00-15:00 Peter Field, lock Pathologist (Lunch 12:00-13:00)

Peter Field has an extraordinary way of looking at locks. Like a pathologist, he cuts locks in many thin slices and captures the result with high quality photography. This unique methods of creating a cutaway view is world renowned. His lectures have been attended by locksmiths, security personnel, lock company engineers and Patent Office Examiners from many countries. And now we are proud to welcome him to Sneek.

He will set a Dutch Open record by giving a 4 hour(!) presentation about many of the different elements of high security cylinder lock design. Combining his unique cut-away imagery with illustrations from old patents, he will explain how engineers classify the cylinder elements, modify them, develop new ones, and re-combine them all to invent new products for the constantly evolving security market. You will leave this presentation with an outline and a clear understanding of the design constraints and functions of most of the various elements you may find in any lock cylinder.

Even if you know a lot about cylinders, or you are just starting to expand your knowledge into the field of mechanical locks you will not be disappointed with this presentation. If you had to choose only one class about mechanical cylinders to attend this year, this is the one to choose.

About Peter Field: he started locksmithing in 1960, and in 1978 was asked to join Medeco Security Locks, where he is now Director of Research. He has over 15 US Patents pertaining to high security locks, with several more patents pending.

Impressioning

Saturday 15:30-17:00 Impressioning By Oliver Diederichsen and Barry Wels.
(track one)

Impressioning is the fine art of opening a lock by filing a key from a blank. It is an ancient technique that still works on an amazing number of (high security) locks. Besides an old-skool locksmith skill it is a technique still in use today by intelligence agencies worldwide for their blackbag operational need.

Oliver Diederichsen wrote the leading book about impressioning locks (also available in English now) and teaches impressioning courses all over the world. And he introduced many locksport enthusiasts to this fine art. Amongst them Toool president Barry Wels, who over the last months successfully opened at least fifty different brands of locks trough impressioning. As the blank key is the most important weapon of the impressioning artist, Barry invested a great deal of time in finding the correct blanks for European and US locks. A search that is still going on today.

This hands-on workshop will teach and tell you everything we know about impressioning. From the very basics to open five pin tumbler locks till the more sophisticated fifteen pin dimple locks, and more.

Multiple tracks

The good news about the new location in Sneek is there are three conference rooms. This gives us room to experiment with something new. The other two conference rooms will be available for people to give small presentations. Just claim a slot on the chart (30 or 60 minute slots available) and give your presentation to whoever is interested. It is not necessary to send us an e-mail in advance, but we would appreciate it a lot if you did. Even before announcing this we had the following presentations offered:

Decoding Abus Plus/Granit locks by Jaakko Fagerlund

This presentation covers one of the most humorous lock decoding techniques I have seen in a long time. Jaakko will describe the major design flaw in the Abus plus style disc lock and explain the basics of the exploit and how it can be done out in the field. And briefly talk about the reaction from Abus.

Lever locks by Nigel Tolley

Lever locks were, until recently, found on the majority of domestic doors in the UK, and are still found on most commercial premises. They are available in everything from a one lever privacy lock, right the way up to the 7 lever Chubb 110, and, of course, with even higher lever counts in the locks found on safes world-wide.

Nigel Tolley, a UK locksmith, will be giving us a brief tour through these locks, concentrating on those commonly found on doors rather than safes, and their evolution over the years, as well as touching briefly on methods for overcoming them, plus a look at some of the dedicated tools for the harder ones. Some locks will be available for swap and demonstration.”

‘Back Dialing’ by Mike van der Stelt

Mike will talk about a technique to easily read the combination of a safe lock if you find a way to view the change key hole.

Congratulations if you have read all the way till the end!

More news on the exact schedule and what locks we will use for the championships in the days to come …

Stay Okay youth hostels just opened a new location in Sneek (Friesland). Just 100 meters away from the old one, a completely new hostel was build.

I remember wired wrote about the Dutch Open 2004, saying: “The Sneek Wigledam Youth Hostel appears to be nothing special, just bunk beds and a bar-and-breakfast space of unpainted wood and colorful furniture – something like an Ikea Gulag. But to a lock sports aficionado, this is Wimbledon.”

Well … the part about Wimbledon still stands, but the rest is history.

Gea Schmidt was kind enough to show me the building and let me video the tour for you. See for yourself how nice the new location is: Stay Okay virtual tour (50 MB quicktime or YouTube).

The best part is that we might end up using both locations as the old one is also still functional. We are still planning and puzzling on the schedule and the finer details ….

Reservations for the Dutch Open 2007 can already be made … The e-mail address in at the end of the video …

Tom Janssen outdid himself on a cartoon about the Dutch e-voting soap in Trouw magazine.

Maybe it will inspire some municipalities to actually use the good old Nedap e-voting machines this way …

* ‘verbeterde stemcomputer’ means ‘improved e-voting computer’

If there would be a decathlon for lockpickers, Dr. Manfred Bölker would win it for sure. Besides being one of the most skilled lockpickers on the planet, he also takes great pride in mastering all other opening techniques. But that is what it takes to become ‘master of the universe’.

And last week he showed his brilliance again by winning the 2007 German lock impressioning championships in Koln. Nothing new, as he already won in 2001 and 2004, and scored a third place in 2005 and a fourth place in 2006.

This year he made a key for the Abus C83 lock trough impressioning in a devastating time of 7:15.

And in my first serious attempt to compete in this discipline I became second. It took me 25 minutes and 5 seconds to make a working key for this lock. The reason it took so long is it took me two blanks … on my first blank I went too deep on one position.

Only three out of the eighteen people that attended opened the lock this year. Julian Hardt became third in 46:03.

Below is a picture of the original key (code 8 3 6 2 7) and my impressioned key.

(Yellow paint on blank is a security feature to identify it is an ‘original championships blank’)

A little about the lock:

In previous championships the Abus C83 lock was used. This is one of the most common locks in Germany and all Ssdev members know it inside out.

This ‘inside out’ knowledge was of no use as Abus had other plans this year. The lock was filled with special ‘black pins’ (hardened?). If I understood correctly some of them were even special SKG anti manipulation pins.

And normally the first four housing pins in an Abus are mushrooms and the last one a solid one. But not in this lock. Here the second housing pin was solid while the rest were mushrooms. Not to mention the first pin being a cut eight (normally four or less?).

Abus is a clever company. They sponsor the championships by supplying free locks and blanks, and in return learn from the feedback. I must say I admire Abus for this approach!

In less then two months we will all meet again. During the Dutch Open lockpick championships we will also spend some time on an impressioning workshop and championship. And Dr. Manfred will be there too, trying to win the only trophy missing on his chimney: that of winner of the Dutch Open lockpick games ….

* Update 3/10: Julian mentioned I made a mistake, I mentioned Abus C38 instead of Abus C83. Corrected that now. Thanks Julian!

It took them eight months, but yesterday a government appointed comity came out with their report, advising the Dutch government about the future of e-voting.

From scratch they have designed a completely new way of transparent e-voting, one that will leave a verifiable paper trail. From what we see now a decent system. A nice animation about how the new system is going to look like can be found here (or youtube).

It will take a couple of years to develop such a system, and in the meantime voting in the Netherlands will be done on paper ballots.

Of course this was big news in the Netherlands (youtube video’s RTL4 and NOS). For more news in English about this: Slashdot and Engadget wrote about it and for news in German visit the CCC homepage.

I had noticed the site of newsparkling tools in Singapore some time ago, but have just been too busy to look into it and order anything.

But ever since someone demonstrated me their nifty tool to open some models of Mul-T-lock locks I am going to place a big order soon!

So first of all there are picktools for mul-t-locks, but also tools to pick disc locks, cut-away locks and even a special bump-key set for dimple locks.

In other words: interesting stuff … I will keep you posted on what I order and if it is as good as it looks like.

I was very pleased to be able to play with one of their mul-t-lock picks for 30 minutes and shoot some video (youtube or quicktime 22 MB) of it. Unfortunately there were only two locks available, to test this tool on. I was told one of the locks was a brand new and certified one, the other was a cut-away model. And both could be opened relatively easy.

And I am not sure how long this tool will be effective. What I have learned about the Mul-T-lock company (and its engineers) is that they are continuously improving their product. So a trick that might work on a lock produced yesterday, will not work on a lock that is produced tomorrow. And that is the way it should be. You can not prevent people finding exploits to your locks, but you can do all you can to prevent the exploit to work on future locks.

Time will tell ….

* Update 27/09/2007: Time did tell, and fast!

Yaron from Israel wrote in the comments that the tool seems to work well ‘in the field’ and that already burglars have been arrested in possession of this tool. Yaron was kind enough to scan the newspaper article (in Hebrew) and translate it in English. Thanks Yaron!

Yesterday I visited the German impression Championships in Cologne (Germany). But more about that later. For now I just am proud to be able to show you what Julian Hardt wants to share with you….

Julian worked on ‘comb picks’ for some time and created some pretty impressive ones….

For those new in the field: A comb pick is more a bypass tool then it is a pick. The whole idea of this tool is to lift the pins and lift them all the way up, out of the plug. If all pins are cramped up in the housing of the lock, there is nothing blocking the sheerline and the plug can rotate.

Besides creating comb picks for some of the more populair padlocks like Viro and Abus, he also made a comb pick for the Abus XP1 family. As some of you might know, the XP1 has a very difficult keyway. The pins are more or less trapped in the key profile, and if you want to pick it you have to approach them from the side. A very tricky and delicate lock. But Julian’s comb pick also is a piece of art!

Julian was honest enough to mention the comb did not seem to work on all models he tried. Sometimes the length of the top pin plus the bottom pin and the spring is just longer then the canal in the house of the lock. Still I really like the design and skills involved to make it…

I am sure the visitors of this humble weblog will enjoy this video (YouTube) showing you all about Julian’s comb picks (Quicktime video 45 MB).

Personally I am just very curious how long it will take the lock-tool industry to copy this concept and come out with a set of comb picks. I am putting my money on less then six months before the first ones show up on the market, maybe even sooner ….

Place your bets (in the comments) ….

Steffen is having some sort of blog too. On the internal pages of www.ssdev.org he writes nice German articles that are worth the read.

And trough a TV item on discovery channel he found out what ‘blackbag’ truly means. I must admit, the TV item he found is pretty neat! It shows a gentleman by the name of Mr. Ed Tickel, an FBI legend when it comes to opening locks. And in the video he demonstrates his favorite opening technique: impressioning!

And for those of you who wonder how NDE (non destructive entry) operators spend time on a lock in a busy street: He answers this in an amazing story on how he made a key to a lock while he was hiding in a big refrigerator box. Thinking about it, this makes a lot of sense. The hole in the box should not even be bigger then a hand, and if you are afraid evil mobsters will shoot trough the box, you can even have it armour plated….

One other retired FBI agent was a so called ‘wire man’. He was responsible for planting the microphones and camera’s. A job that nowadays would include the installation of keyloggers and knowledge on how to back up other peoples hard drives…

For more information, just google for ‘Operation Strawman’. Unfortunately there is not much background info I could find about Mr. Ed Tickle. And that is too bad because I would not mind inviting him as a speaker for the Dutch Open lockpick championships on 23/24/25 November 2007….

The full video with the interview can be found here (68 MB .AVI)

Yesterday I finally collected my MacBook pro. While I am still busy installing software on it, I could not resist to try out the video editing software. First attempt can be found here (Quicktime 15 MB).

And a couple of weeks ago Paul Crouwel and Rob Zomer organized a safe cracking weekend. People from all over the globe gathered at this ‘invitation only’ party to share knowledge on the holy grail of safe cracking. Some pretty serious safes were cracked by the attendees (like a GJ Arnheim, Rosengrens European, LIPS VS 80, Victor (build in +- 1910) a LIPS VAGO and so on).

Paul used this weekend to try out some of his new tools. Amongst them were some strongarm hardplate drill-bits, a mini drill rig that allows you to apply perfect drill tension and an ITL2000 safe combination dialing robot.

Especially the mini drill rig and strongarm drill bits came out real well. Before they got the drill rig, a more primitive (yet effective!) method of applying pressure to a drill was used.

One other tool that was used was a thermic lance. Pretty spectacular to see (and smell) in real life. (click on image to see quicktime video 18 MB, or here for youtube)

A lot of interesting discoveries were made over the weekend and we are currently working on an article for the Savta magazine to list some of them.

For us the biggest surprise was to find one of the safes still was filled with jewelry! Fortunately the owner of the safe was present and was happy to receive his goods back undamaged.

Just a few kilometers away from our party some other safe owner was much more unhappy. A jewelry shop in a black market hall was burglarized, and some extreme brute force was used. The thieves must have used a pretty hefty grinding wheel (diamond blade?) to cut a hole in the side of the safe. The sad thing was no insurance company could be found to insure the poor entrepreneur because of the location of the market. And the security guards responsible for the place received multiple alarm calls but never bothered to thoroughly investigate why the silent alarm kept going off. Very fishy if you ask me …

A news item (including Rob Zomer’s expertise) can be found here (Quicktime 15 MB) or on youtube.

It is a good thing all 15 of the ‘safe cracking weekend’ attendees have a solid alibi…

P.s. I am curious if you think quicktime video is prefered over my old Windows Media files …