High(er) Security

This lock was designed for hotels and similar facilities.  It uses a plastic card with a series of holes punched in it,  or more accurately 2 cards – one that the hotel uses to set the combination to the lock, and the second card which is given out to whomever rents the room.  This allows the hotel to quickly and easily rekey the lock after they lose a key, or whenever they feel like rekeying the lock.  There is also a mechanical override cylinder mounted below the lever handle(I don’t have one, so no photos of it but it is a 7 pin cylinder with security pins.)  The lock body is made of mostly plastic, and there are 32 pin stacks that interact with the keys, as well as 2 more(that only interact with the hotel key) that keep someone from just inserting a blank card into the lock when there is no hotel key in the back to open the lock.  The pin stacks have ball bearings at the very top that interact with the rent keys, allowing smoother operation as well as less wear on the lock.  The lock interacts with the door hardware by pushing slightly back when the proper key is inserted, this move a small brass piece into position on the spindle which in turn allows the latch to be retracted, the handle will turn with the improper(or no) key, but the latch will not retract.  All 32 pin stacks must be at shear for t he lock to open, which means the rent key has to push down all the pins that the hotels key lets through.  The rent key must also have holes where the hotel key doesn’t, so that the pins it does push down will go down all the way.

Photos here: http://sfi72.com/locks/Vingcard/1050/

This is a pretty big lock – the locking assembly it is mounted on is meant for “lower” security applications in prisons(and similar facilities) in kitchens etc.  A few interesting notes about this one, as is common on mogul cylinders there is a big steel disk in front of the plug, there is also a long brass rod that unscrews from the back, this rod goes through all the pin chambers and holds everything down – makes taking the pins out very easy.  In addition there is a interesting cam, so that the lock can interact with the bolt(which has a very strong spring.)

Photos: http://sfi72.com/locks/ASSA/Twin%206000%20Mogul/

Got this in recently(today), very nice lock, nothing special as far as security goes – 6 pin Yale cylinders without any security pins.  Either can be picked open to operate the lock, and without too much trouble.  All of these things aside the lock just looks really awesome, and was a complete pain to put back together after I erm… temporarily misplaced my plug followers(I’ve since found them.)

Photos: http://www.sfi72.com/locks/Yale/Bicentric

Recently got this in the mail, very interesting lock and a lot of fun to play with.  It has a completely round keyway, which allows you to put the key in any direction you want and turn it till the pins drop into the key, it also makes tensioning it for picking rather difficult.  It has 5 active pin stacks, all with mushroom drivers, and a 6th pin stack that uses a special pin and a ball bearing to help the lock ‘click’ into place when it is in the usual closed position, the 6th pin does not interact with the key at all.  The key pins are tapered down at the bottom, and the pin chambers in the plug have material in the way so that the pins don’t go to far down in the keyway, since there is nothing else there to stop them.  The key appears to have some type of insert in it, which I’m assuming is how the keys are cut.

Pictures here: http://www.sfi72.com/locks/Maxis

So I lied again, its been a few weeks and I pretty much forgot I had a website to update. Haven’t been doing a ton of lock related stuff recently, though I’ve been picking Medecos like crazy….I decided to pick the like 12 Medeco classics I had laying around, and I’m making decent progress on them – will post a picture when they are all open. Also working on some ASSA stuff, but thats for later. I am going to try(again) to post more often, which shouldn’t be too hard since I’ve got a lot of new lock stuff to play with recently.

Figures, i say I’ll post every week then i go on “vacation”(long story) and i end up not having internet for 12 days:/. While i was gone I managed to get my 826c open … http://www.sfi72.com/826c_open.jpg

Also I got a bunch of tamper evident seal samples:
http://www.sfi72.com/seals_sample1.jpg
http://www.sfi72.com/seals_sample2.jpg
http://www.sfi72.com/seals_sample3.jpg

Been playing around with the ones in the 3rd photo a lot, they all seem fairly easy to shim open, will be doing some work with better things to use as shims instead of aluminum can material.

I got the lock off of Ebay, made in Brazil. It is pretty cool, has hardened pins in the front of the plug, and the first key pin is made of steel to make drilling harder. The sidebar is pretty much ornamental though, when picking the lock generally the back of my hook hits some of the sidebar pins, and in the 30 seconds it takes to set the top pins the back of my hook manages to set the sidebar pins. I suspect with some high quality machining, and a decent keyway this could actually be a pretty tough lock.
More Photos of Lock

Just a quick note, I am vowing to try to post at least once a week – that does mean that all my posts probably wont be breakdowns and some will be just a few pictures of a lock or some other random thing, but oh well. Also, I am currently working on a breakdown that I think many people wil be very interested to see.

TuBAR is manufactured by Chicago Lock, a company who is known for several other designs, including the infamous Duo.  This specific cylinder is designed for vending machines, and in my opinion is much better than the standard tubular locks seen on a lot of machines. The face of the lock shows a keyway and the 8 pins, the key can only enter the keyway in one direction. The key has 8 different cuts that vary in depth, each cut depresses its pin to its own depth. The pins in this lock on not split, the only thing keeping the cylinder from rotating is the sidebar. Each pin has several false gates, and one true gate that the sidebar “crescent” can fall into. The pins are held in place by very strong springs, which make manipulating the lock extremely difficult, as the pins have a lot of pressure on them, so they don’t stay set. The face of the lock is actually a separate part from the rest of the pin chambers, it is made of a harder metal than the rest of the brass body. When the lock is opened, the key is retained by a small lip inside of the lock housing, which also has a groove cut into it to hold the sidebar. The sidebar comes in two parts, there is the crescent, which interacts with the gates on the pins, and then there is the actual locking bar which keeps the lock from rotating until the crescents have fallen into place.

Mul-T Locks are produced in Israel, and are considered high security.  The classic is not as secure as the later versions, though without the specialised tool or a lot of picking experience it is still difficult to open.   The lock uses a “pin in pin” dimple system, that operates much like a regular dimple lock, however inside of each of the 5 pin stacks there is a seperate pin stack.  Both of these must be raised to the proper level for the lock to open.  As you can see, the key has cuts to bring the outer pin stacks to the correct level, as well as a small bump in the middle of the cut that raises the inner pin stack.  Each pin stack is complete, with its own spring, driver, and key pin.  The spring and driver pin for the inner stack is held within the outer driver pin, and the inner key pin is held inside of the outer keypin.  When the correct key is inserted, the inner pins are at the same level as the outer pins, and the plug can rotate, with the wrong key all 10 pins are not aligned and the lock stays closed.  Conventional picking is made more difficult because the outer stacks have to be picked before the inner stacks, and it is easy to unset an outer pin while trying to set its inner pin.  A Chinese company called H&M designed and sells a tool to make picking these locks much easier, It uses a special tip to pick the pins, as well as guides and precise measurements to ensure that the tip is properly alligned over the pin stack.  The classic is also vulnerable to bumping attacks, it is one of the harder locks to bump, but still possible.  If you are looking for more information on other Mul-T locks, check out datagrams paper at http://lockpickingforensics.com/articles.php .