lockpicking

35 Articles

Teardown: An Electronic Master Lock

April 29, 2015 by 35 Comments

[rohare] has an interesting teardown for us over on the keypicking lock picking forums. It’s a Masterlock combination lock – specifically the Masterlock 1500eXD – and yes, it’s a completely electronic lock with buttons and LEDs. Think that’s the mark of a terrible lock? You might be surprised.

The first impressions of this lock were surprisingly positive. It was heavy, the shackle doesn’t move at all when you pull on it. Even the buttons and LEDs made sense. Once the back of the lock was drilled open, things got even more impressive. This lock might actually be well-built, with a ‘butterfly’ mechanism resembling a legendary padlock, actuated by a small but sufficient motor. Even the electronics are well-designed, with the programming port blocked by the shackle when it’s closed. [rohare] suspects the electronics aren’t made by Masterlock, but they are installed in a very secure enclosure.

The teardown concludes with a fair assessment that could also be interpreted as a challenge: [rohare] couldn’t find any obvious flaws to be exploited, or a simple way to break the lock. He concludes the most probable way of breaking this lock would be, “knowing some trick of logic that bypasses the codes on the electronics”. That sounds like a good enough challenge for us, and we’re eagerly awaiting the first person to digitally unlock this physical lock.

3D Printing Lock Picks

December 1, 2014 by 24 Comments

Over at the 23B hackerspace in Fullerton, CA, [Dano] had an interesting idea. He took a zip tie, and trimmed it to have the same profile of a lock pick. It worked. Not well, mind you, but it worked. After a few uses, the pick disintegrated, but still the concept of picks you can take through a TSA checkpoint was proven.

A few days after this demonstration, [C] realized he had a very fancy Objet 3D printer at work, and thought printing some pics out would be an admirable goal. After taking an image of some picks through the autotracer in Solidworks, [C] had an STL that could be printed on a fancy, high-end 3D printer. The printer ultimately used for these picks was a Objet 30 Pro, with .001″ layer thickness and 600dpi resolution. After receiving the picks, [C] dug out an old lock and went to town. The lock quickly yielded to the pick, and once again the concept of plastic lock picks was proven.

Although the picks worked, there were a few problems: only half the picks were sized appropriately to fit inside a lock. Two picks also broke within 15 minutes, something that won’t happen with traditional metal picks.

Still, once the models are figured out, it’s easy to reproduce them time and time again. A perfect lock pick design is then trivial, and making an injection mold becomes possible. They might still break, but they’ll be far easier to manufacture and simple to replace.

Paperclip Lock Picking Sets

August 6, 2014 by 78 Comments

Lockpicking has become a trademark skill of hackers all across the world, and is regularly taught at hackerspaces and maker faires. But a lot of the time, the sets have already been made or bought online somewhere. However, [Sean] has demonstrated how to create a lock picking set with ordinary paperclips in the video embedded at the end of this post. Wikihow also has these awesome instructions on how to build them.

What’s great is that the material for these picks are easily found. There are other ways to fashion a set together. For example, street sweeper bristles can be used. And electrical metal tape is a good material as well, but these paperclip sets are, by far, the most accessible. Pretty much anywhere that has office stationary supplies will have mounds of these little metal clips lying around.

But how well do they work? Have you made a paperclip lock picking set before?

If so, let us know in the comments, and tell us how well they did.

Continue reading “Paperclip Lock Picking Sets” →

Toorcamp: The Lock Picking Village

August 17, 2012 by 2 Comments

The Open Organization Of Lockpickers (TOOOL) ran the lock picking village at Toorcamp. They gave great workshops on how lock picking works, provided a lot of examples of security flaws in popular locks, and let everyone practice with their locks and tools. Lock picking is a bit addictive, and I spent quite a bit of time at the village.

TOOOL is an international organization that aims to advance the general public knowledge about locks and lockpicking. If you’ve ever wanted to know more about locks, you can check out their list of chapters to see if there’s one in your area, or send them an email to see if there’s other lock picking enthusiasts near you. Their detailed slides that were used for the village are also available.

[Eric] from TOOOL worked on building a lock picking installation called the Labyrinth of Locks. The first prototype of this consists of locks enclosed in 3D printed enclosures, and lit by LEDs. The goal was to string them up in the woods and challenge people to find and pick the locks. MakerBot Industries printed the orange and flower shaped enclosures that the LEDs and locks were mounted into.

This is a first prototype, and [Eric] plans to expand on the idea and use it at other lock picking events he attends. It’s a neat way to mix lock picking and an art installation into an interactive activity.

Picking Handcuffs With Laser Cut Keys

July 21, 2012 by 18 Comments

At this year’s HOPE conference, German competitive lockpicker and security researcher [Ray] gave a talk about escaping high security handcuffs that are probably being used by your local police and other LEOs. He’s doing this with 3D printed and laser cut keys because, you know, security through obscurity never works.

Two years ago, [Ray] gave a talk at HOPE on 3D printing Dutch handcuff keys (you can listen to his conference as an .MP3 here). This time around, [Ray] copied the keys of Bonowi and Chubb handcuffs, very popular brands for American police. After obtaining a key from each of the two brands, [Ray] broke out the calipers and micrometer and designed his own versions that can be printed on a RepRap or Makerbot, or just laser cut from a piece of plastic; the perfect material for sneaking one through a metal detector.

The .DXF and .STL files for the handcuff keys will be available on Thingiverse shortly. We’d suggest watching this Thingiverse account (nevermind), as they have the files for [Ray]’s earlier Dutch handcuff key.

Hackaday Links: July 1, 2012

July 1, 2012 by 22 Comments

Opening really old lock boxes

[Barry Wels] is a locksmith. One day, he got a call from a museum that had a few 17th century strong boxes that needed to be opened. After a little probing with an endoscope, he decided they could be picked with a little bit of spring steel. So, what’s in the box? [Barry] is going to send in an update in a month or two.

An awesome Geordi La Forge VISOR. But don’t take my word for it.

[DrewSmith007] made a replica of Geordi’s VISOR from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Bonus: it’s autographed by Levar Burton.

Free mirrors for your laser cutter

If you have a laser cutter, your mirrors will get damaged, and they’re very expensive to replace. [Phil] sent in a neat tip: make your own mirrors from hard drive platters.

A proper M.U.L.E. remake

Combine Settlers of Catan with M.U.L.E.. That’s what this Kickstarter is trying to do, and it sounds freakin’ awesome.

This game is so cool

A few months ago, I mapped the surface of a video game moon. Since then, Kerbal Space Program had a huge update with a brand new moon. Over on Reddit, [InsanityCore] started mapping this new moon, so I rendered it. Go give [InsanityCore] some karma. He did all the hard work.