All right. Hey, everyone. Hope y'all are doing well. Hope everyone's staying safe out there.
I'm nothing. Welcome to DEF CON safe mode. So this is basically going to be an introduction
into the world of high security locks and kind of what they look like, what they are,
how we go about picking them. So I'm going to kind of just show you a bunch of locks and
tell you some different techniques. I'm not going to go into anything super deep, but
hopefully it'll get some people out there interested in exploring and maybe even
picking some of these things. So when you talk about a high security lock,
we're mainly talking about a lock that has tried a little bit harder than your general
typical pin tumbler, wafer, lever lock to keep people out. And that can be anything from
pick resistance to physical attacks, though I'm not going to go into physical security a whole
lot here. I'm mainly going to be talking about the locking mechanisms, but high security locks
will generally be more physically resistant as well. They'll have more drill protection,
better materials in the cases, and the pins will be made out of steel instead of brass a lot of
times, things like that. So basically, high security locks are typically referred to as
locks that have more than just one standard locking mechanism. Now this can be either by
incorporating more than one locking mechanism, in terms of having two independent locking
mechanisms in one lock. Also things like adding more pins to make it basically like you're picking
two pin tumbler locks together, two or more. So there's a lot, there's a wide variety of things
that make a lock high security, but typically these are also locks that have been rated by
different industries. In America you have things like ANSI, BHMA, and UL, Underwriters Laboratories,
who put these locks to the test and make sure that they are up to standard. Overseas you have things
like the BSI, I think it's the British Standards Institute, and CEN that will rate these things in
terms of their toughness. So I can't talk about high security locks without talking about Medeco.
Medeco is kind of what I would consider the quintessential high security lock,
and it is most people's entry point into high security locks. Now Medeco, when you look at the
key, at first glance you might think it just looks like a regular key, regular pin tumbler lock,
but if you look closer you can see that there's actually angles that those
pin cuts, the bidding, is also angular. And that's because on a Medeco lock not only do the
pins have to be raised to a certain height, but they also have to be rotated to a certain angle
to allow a secondary locking mechanism, a sidebar, to drop into place.
Now the pins, there's a few different types of Medecos, but the pins will generally look like
this, which is, let's see, a bit different than you're used to. At first glance it'll
look like a normal pin, but then you'll see that it has that little slice in the side of it.
And what that is, is that's the track that allows the sidebar to fall into,
and we call that a gate. Now some Medeco pins also have false gates,
and let's see, I don't think this one does. Oh yep, sure does. Okay, so on this one the false
gate is right here. It's very shallow. I don't know if you can see it, but it actually runs the
full length of the pin, where in this one the true gate does not. And that actually
prevents an attack by a tool called a Medecoder. So Medeco's got a few different types of locks.
This is a Medeco Classic, and they will generally have the UL stamp on them,
and not a whole lot more on the face. Sometimes you'll see a 51S,
but they have pretty wide open keyways. There's not a whole lot to these things on the front.
And then in the Medeco Classic, and also in the new ones, you have things like the large
format interchangeable core, where this core can be removed, placed into another, or actually
replaced or placed into another lock. And then you have the Medeco Biaxial, which is denoted by
this little symbol right here. Looks like a couple little crescents there. And what that means is
that the pins have been redesigned. So this is a Medeco Biaxial pin, and at first glance it looks
a lot like the standard Medeco Classic pin. But if you look a little bit closer at the bottom there,
you'll see that that point isn't directly in the center. So the chisel tip on this pin
is slightly offset, which makes it what you call either a fore or an aft pin.
And that means that the cut in the key could either be a little closer or a little further
away. It makes picking these and decoding them a bit more difficult, and a lot more pins are
involved in that process. And as you can see, this one even has a little ridge at the top there to
make it so it gets stuck if you try to pick it. They also, in the top, will have these mushroom
pins sometimes. Make it a little bit more difficult to pick. Now Medecos are all over the place.
You'll see them in government installations. A lot of businesses use them. This is a four pin
Medeco that actually goes to a payphone. And it looks a little bit different, but you can see
that key still has those angular cuts on it. And this is a biaxial, and you can tell you see that
that's the biaxial symbol right there.
So they also come in padlocks, things like that. See them everywhere. They're really neat locks.
It's definitely a fun one to get started. So they also make cam locks. Now when we're
talking about high security cam locks, the security is definitely a little lower than
your standard door locks, padlocks, things like that. Some of the padlocks actually have the cam
lock style lock involved. And these do have to be lifted and rotated, but the cam locks do not
have driver pins. So the way they accomplished that, and actually you can see this is a biaxial
key. See these are close together and that one's far away. So that's the couple fours and an aft
pin in there. So the cam locks work only by a sidebar, but the pins are a little bit different.
So instead of having that slot all the way down the length of the pin,
this pin here just has, if I can find it, there it is. Come back here. There we go.
So it's just got a little hole in the side there. So that makes it so that you have to raise it up
and rotate it to where a finger sticking out of the sidebar will poke into that little hole.
Now there's a couple different styles of cam lock pins. You have one that's got that
just that big serration around it and one like this that has two smaller serrations or three.
And I can't tell you exactly where you'll find these in the specific locks. I just know that
sometimes you find different ones. So Medeco and the cam locks, they have all sorts of format like
this here. It is a T-handle plug lock. So this one will actually go into a hole that'll block a
T-handle key from reaching in there. And then we also have the Medeco DuraCam, which is a dimple
lock variant of that cam lock. Now this is the same thing. It's just turned on its side. The key
is actually a lot stronger on these, a lot harder to break.
So that Medeco design is awesome, but when you're talking about rotating pins,
there's an even cooler lock out there. This is called the Corbin M-Heart. Now these guys got
sued out of existence by Medeco because of the design and the similarities because these pins
are rotated. You can see that in the key. Actually, it's kind of hard to see there, but
trust me, they do rotate. And the reason these pins rotate is because unlike the Medeco,
this doesn't have a sidebar, but these pins actually interlock with each other.
So let me see if I can get this apart and I'll show you that.
Oh, there goes the spring.
All right, there's the spring. So now these pins, when they come out,
are actually going to be stuck to each other.
So they have a tongue and groove system where the key, or the pin on the top, it's kind of
a dovetail. It has a little tongue sticking out and the pin, the key pin, has a groove that that
fits in. And unless they're rotated to the proper position, they cannot separate and that lock will
never open. I really wish these were still around, still being made. These are awesome locks.
And there's a lot more information out there on them if you're interested.
All right, so here, let's show this one real quick.
This is another way of doing high security, a little different, just a little lower security.
This is another one of those T-handle plug locks though.
This is a van lock and this is basically just a tubular lock that has very difficult,
it's very difficult to tension. The face is basically just flat and the key has these
little pins that stick out of them. These aren't super high security and the plug is all brass,
pins are steel, but the plug is all brass. So it makes drilling a little bit easier, but
not super easy. These are usually used in like vending machines, anything that involves cash.
They're not used as much as they used to, but they're still pretty cool.
They're used in gas pumps, things like that.
So another one of the big names in high security that you'll see
is a company called Multilock. And Multilock is actually kind of a reinvention and a continuance
of the Rav Barya company in Israel. Rav Barya meaning multi-bolt. But the Multilock, what they
did is they took a standard pin tumbler lock and said, hey, let's put pins inside those pins.
So if you look at this key here, you can see that each one of those pins,
five pin, pin in pin, so it's 10 total. But if you look, you have an outer pin and an inner pin.
So when picking this lock, you have to use a much smaller dimple flag, something that can
get into those inner pins and pick them as well as setting the outer pins. And I've actually
thinned out a pick. Let's see here. So this is one of the picks that I use
when picking Multilocks or setting inner pins. I use a pretty wide variety of different picks
for these things. And that's one thing about high security locks is you'll definitely get into
making a lot of picks because you tend to not find all the tools that you need out there.
But so this is a standard Multilock classic, which is just the standard pin in pin format
where you have the five pin in pins. And if you're interested in these,
they have been knocked off. A bunch of companies make cheaper ones. This is
a company called Btech or Boldtech or I don't know the exact name. But this is a five pin,
pin in pin, but there are no security pins, all standard. This is a very good entryway
into picking Multilocks. And this was, I think it was like 15 bucks.
But then Multilock wanted to innovate a bit further. The patent on the classic expired and
to extend the patent, make it a little more difficult to copy the keys. What they did
is involved what's called an interactive element. So this is the Multilock interactive.
And this right here is a movable element in the key that when you insert the key in the lock,
a portion or a little dimple in the bottom of the lock will actually lift that up and set the
pin higher than the shear line. Now for key copying, that's very, it makes it a lot, very
difficult, a lot more difficult. But for picking, it's actually makes it a little easier because
you always know that that second pin is going to be set higher than the shear line or at the
shear line, depending on the bidding. Got another classic here. And these tend to have some pretty
extreme bidding sometimes as low as you can get followed by some as high as you can get in the
back. But then Multilock does have an ultra high security variety that's called the MT5 Plus.
They also have the MT5, which is like this except no slider track. But what this is,
is this takes the five pin, pin in pin design, adds an interactive element as a sixth pin at
the back here. And then it also has a slider track where five sliders need, they're unsprung,
five unsprung sliders need to be moved into place to allow this lock to open.
I'm actually looking at that, it looks like four, but I'm pretty sure it's five.
So this is a very difficult lock to pick, something that maybe you will aspire to in the future.
So other companies, like Sargent, decided to instead of doing multiple locking mechanisms in
one, they said why don't we just add a bunch more pins into this lock and put three pin tumbler
locks all around each other. So this lock here is a dimple lock, and it's actually got three rows
of pins, two that come in at 90 degrees from the side here and one that comes in here directly at
the top. So you can see that key has bidding on all three sides, and it's actually got it on all
sides because it's a reversible key. This is called the Keyso, and these are incredibly difficult to
pick, incredibly tight tolerances, very nice lock. This is, it looks like a strange format,
this was actually their answer to interchangeable cores. I don't have one of the standard Keysos with
me. So then this, this here is an actual Keyso. Keyso became a brand. I don't really know the
history behind that, but if anyone feels like looking it up, they can. Keyso is part of the
Assa Abla group. This is a 2000S, which means it has the Omega element, which is a different type
of interactive element down here. So in addition to having bidding on all three sides of the key,
this has a spring-loaded pin in the tip of the key. And what this does is it sets a pin inside
the lock, but then when you turn the key, the pin actually pushes in here. And if you don't have that
spring-loaded feature there, the lock won't open because that pin will get stuck on the side of
the key, won't be able to move in, and it will prevent the lock from opening.
Now these Keysos, the Keyso brand locks, are actually a little bit easier to pick
than the Sargent Keysos I've found. Still not easy by any means though.
So when you're talking about companies that put a lot of pins in things...
um let's see here... so there we go. One of the companies that tends to come to mind is Kaba.
Kaba is not part of the Assa Abloy group. Assa Abloy tends to own like most of the companies
out there anymore, but Kaba is not part of that. This is what's called a Kaba 20,
and this has the ability for 21 pins to be in this single lock here.
This one I think has, let's see, 6, 6, and 4, so it would have 18... 16. So this one has 16 pins
in it. Most of them have 18, 17, 16, something like that. Kaba tends to remove pins for master
keying. It's interesting. But this lock here has four rows of pins. It has two rows coming in here
at a 90 degree angle, and then two rows coming up at a diagonal at each side there. And those
diagonal pins are actually very strange when you pick them. They feel kind of pillowy. It's an
interesting feeling to pick them. You got to get used to it. So in terms of dimple locks,
this is one that kind of took a... kind of made a lock all their own. It's called a Banham,
and it's got two rows of pins, but there are no driver pins in this lock.
And if you look at the key, this key actually has holes in it. And the reason for that
is that the way this lock works is that the pins actually oppose each other. This is one of the
cores. And you have a pin on this side and a pin on this side, and they touch each other.
So when you move them this way, the pin on this side sticks out into the Bible.
When you move them this way, the pin on this side sticks out into the Bible.
So in picking this lock, basically what you have to do is get in there and move all the pins
so that none of them are protruding out of the plug into the Bible, even though they're all
touching inside, which makes it very difficult to get a pick in between them. You can kind of see
there them sticking out into those chambers, and then when they all fall into the right spot,
you can rotate the key. Now these are generally just found in England. You don't see them very
much in the States, actually at all, unless it's a collector. But it's a very expensive lock.
Very fun to pick, actually. But it's definitely something new to learn.
So this here is another part of the Assa Abloy group. This is Zeiss Icon. This is a super cool
lock. This is the WSW-W10. Now what these guys have done is kind of what a lock that I'm going
to show you in a little bit also did, but they took sliders and integrated that in with a dimple lock.
So on this lock here, you've got your six dimple pins that come in on the side of the key,
but then you've also got your slider tracks on the side.
So this lock has a total of 10 slider cuts on both sides,
but there's actually only five to seven sliders in each of these.
But let's see if we can get this open. This one's a little sticky. There we go.
So you've got your dimple pins up there on top, and then you've got your sidebar here,
and all your sliders there on the bottom. Now if you can see how that nub is only sticking
out on that side, you could also have one that's on the other side, and that makes things like
master keying a lot more approachable without having to add security vulnerabilities into the
lock. So you can have multiple sliders that have different pegs on either side
that allows you to use the same key. Now these sliders are incredibly difficult to pick.
They have six false gates and one true gate, and those false gates are just absolutely tiny.
So it makes determining between them... well, the true gate is also very tiny,
so it makes deciphering which one you're picking very difficult.
Let's get this guy back in his place here. There we go. And there are spool pins in the top of this.
There we go. That sidebar doesn't like to go in. There we go.
I think there are three spool pins generally up in the top of the bible,
but the dimples are not the hard part to pick on this. The sidebar definitely is.
Now in terms of sliders, the company that generally comes to mind is EVVA.
They, again, are not a part of the Assa Abloy group. EVVA does incredible work with slider locks.
They have a bunch of really neat ones out there. This one here is called the EVVA 3KS
and this has 12 sliders in it. Each key has three tracks on the side. Those notches you
see on the top are just a passive top bar for key control, but each of these sliders
alternating inside has a different peg sticking out. Some just have a singular peg that goes into
that deep track, and then others have parallel pegs that ride in those parallel tracks there.
These are all unsprung sliders, which the key basically traps them, puts them in the right
position, and allows the key to rotate. This is a strange format. It's a Japanese mortise cylinder.
You can see here they have these little divots in the key, and what that's for
is all high security locks have to be key retaining. So when you turn it, little pegs
stick down into those divots and make it so that even in certain biddings that are kind of flat,
the key cannot be retracted unless the lock is locked. Now what you see here is what's called
a security card, and many high security locks will come with these cards that makes it so that
you cannot get your key copied unless you have the proper security card. And this one I'm not
really worried about because I'm not going to be using this so I can show you this, but if you take
this card into a locksmith you can get the keys I just showed you reproduced. Sorry about huffing
and puffing there, I'm kind of leaning over a desk here, but I'll have some whiskey and catch
my breath real quick. Now this is not a super high security lock, but I wanted to show it anyway
because it's really neat. It's got eight sliders in it, four on either side. Each one of them has
a sidebar different on each side, and for some reason for the life of me I cannot get this thing
open. And I swear it doesn't have false gates. I've only taken a couple of the sliders out, but
I just get a really deep false set and it will not open up. I don't know why, but this is called
a tray lock and I got this on ebay for I think 20 bucks or something like that. But great little
lock, tons of fun to play with. If you're just getting started I wouldn't necessarily recommend
going after this one, but if you do, more power to you.
Now this is another pure slider lock. Let me see if I can find it here. There we go.
Kind of like the EVA-3KS, it is springless. It doesn't have any springs in it. This is called
the ASSA Desmo. This is obviously part of the ASSA ABLU group. Now what the Desmo is, is ASSA
they make cam locks, they do padlocks, they have I think some oval cylinders,
but this is meant for
to basically to use where it's going to get a lot of use, maybe some dirt, not a lot of
maintenance. It's supposed to be a very low maintenance lock. I found that a lot of these
will actually jam up over time and makes it really hard to turn the key. I haven't figured
out why, but I'm hoping they fixed it in the new Desmo Plus, but I'm not completely sure about that.
Now this one here is an 8 slider Desmo. This has four sliders on either side that have a sidebar
on both sides interacting. Each slider has two false gates and one true gate that are exactly
the same width, just a different depth. Makes it a bit difficult to judge between them.
These come in 6 and 8 slider variants. So we have a 6 slider Desmo here.
This actually doesn't have anything in it, so I can just pop it apart and show you.
Now these also, if you look at that key, you might notice that cutout,
and that is your key retaining feature on these guys. So when you put the key in and turn it,
a lot like the 3KS, this has little T-pins that push in and trap that key in there,
so you can't remove it when the lock is open. So this is the Desmo's sidebar here. Let me get one
out. So it's just got that little teeny shelf there that fits into the side of these pins.
So that there is a Desmo pin. And you see it's got the two false gates and the one true gate.
And that sidebar slides into that true gate and that allows it to retract.
So these are the T-pins and springs that I talked about that actually go in and trap the key in
place. So you can see a couple in there that the springs are wrapped around. The spring goes inside
the T-pin and that's also what pushes the sidebar back. You can see that's where it goes right there
in the sidebar channel. So ASSA, the Desmo, is kind of like the sidebar to the ASSA Twin.
This was ASSA's, not their first step into high security, but definitely their first step into
ultra high security. The ASSA Twin was, I think, the first patent, maybe not the first, but the
first sidebar patent by Bo Wieden or Boveden, depending on where you are, how you pronounce
things. He also, I think, is responsible for the patent on that WSWW-10 I showed you a few minutes
ago. So the ASSA Twin, basically what they did here, is they took a standard pin tumbler lock
and then put a slider lock on the side. Now this is kind of like, the pins are kind of like the
Desmo, except without this part here, you just have that there, except it extends this way. So
you have two false gates on either side of the true gate, and the bidding is actually on the
sidebar itself. So the shelves in the sidebar will be at different heights depending on the bidding
of the key. This one has the original gin bottle shaped spools, which is definitely one of, I would
say, the hardest locks to pick I've ever encountered. This is an incredible lock and definitely something
to aspire to. They also generally have pretty insane bidding also. So the ASSA Twin's been
upgraded a few times. The patent expired and they put out different features. There's one called the
V10 that has the same ideas as the WSW to where it'll have a peg on one side or the other, and
you have 10 tracks that can raise them to different levels. And the last rendition is this here, well
actually not the last, I think the DP is the last, but this is the ASSA Twin Combi. Now what this is
is basically the same deal, except the sidebar pins, not only do they have to be lifted, or the
finger pins on the sidebar, but they also have to be rotated to the correct position. So this lock
is kind of like having a 6-pin ASSA with a Medeco on the side. These are incredibly difficult to
pick. I've never actually gotten a Combi open yet, one of the few locks that I have that I've not
been able to get open. These things are incredible. It's an amazing work of mechanics. I'm very
impressed with the way they did this. This here is just a double Euro of the Combi.
Another example of their incredible bidding. And you can see those sidebar are kind of sweeping.
They're not directly up and down to set just vertical height,
but they also kind of sweep to set those horizontally also.
Rotationally I should say.
Now while I'm showing ASSA, I guess I'll show this guy here. This has an ASSA core in it.
This is what's called a mogul cylinder. These are used in prisons.
As you can see, it is much bigger than your standard mortar cylinder,
and obviously that'll make it a lot tougher. These are made of, I think, case-hardened steel.
Might be full-hardened steel. I'm not completely sure about that.
But this is actually replacing another lock that was basically just a beefed-up mortar cylinder.
This big, but just five standard pins and some couple spools, things like that.
But this incorporates that ASSA twin. It's the ASSA twin 6000. This is the 851 keyway.
But it puts the ASSA twin 6000 into that gigantic form factor for prisons.
And while I'm showing you that, prisons also use lever locks. This is a lever lock key from a prison.
I don't have a lock to show you, unfortunately, but
I don't know why, but everything in a prison is bigger. Well, I do know why. It's to
make them a lot tougher, but I think these are pretty cool. I'd like to get one of these soon.
So, I guess Schlage wanted to be part of the party with the ASSA twin, so they went ahead and created the Primus.
Now, this is not nearly as difficult to pick as the ASSA twin line, but it's the same concept.
So, you have basically a Schlage lock with a Medeco on the side. Same deal as the Combi.
Where you have those sweeping sidebar fingers that need to be lifted and rotated to the same height.
Or not to the same height, to different heights, I'm sorry.
But this is Schlage's entry into the high security game. These are incredibly neat.
I actually had to make a pick. And actually, while I'm at it, let me show you these real quick.
So, this is my ASSA twin Combi pick. One of the ones I use. I don't know if you can see that.
So, you can see that little U-shape in there. And that's to actually hook into and lift up those finger pins and also be able to rotate them.
So, I think this is the one I used for the Primus. Oh, no. Actually, it was this one. I'm sorry.
Goes the other direction. But if you get into high security locks, you'll definitely end up making a lot of your own tools, like I said earlier.
But this here is my Primus pick for the sidebar pins.
All right. Oh, I didn't show this earlier. So, another lock that decided to take high pin counts
and take it to the extreme. This is the Maurer Crypto. Looks a little weird because I happened to
brick it while I was trying to take it apart at one point, but I will fix that eventually.
This actually has 18 standard pins, or 18 pins. It's got 6 on the side.
6. So, here. We got 6 coming down from here, 6 coming up from here, and then another 6 going
in this way at the corner. These pins are very tightly packed in there. It's really
hard to get in there with any tool to pick them individually without oversetting others.
This is a super neat lock, but another incredibly difficult one.
But that's more in tune with the Cabas, things like that.
So, the Australians, when they got into high security, they decided to create this guy here.
It's called the Bi-Lock. So, instead of saying, let's just take one key and put a bunch of pins
on it, they said, hey, let's put two locks side by side. So, you can see this looks like literally
two keys just glued together. There's different bidding on either side.
And this is not a standard pin tumbler, both. What this is, is it's more like that Medeco cam
lock, to where you have 12 pins, and they're lifted, but there's things in there that prevent
them from rotating. But they do have a hole in the side, and that side bar, or both the side
bars, have little fingers that stick out and stick into the holes in the side of those pins.
They will have false gates, false notches, false whatever you want to call it, and true.
Doesn't like to... I'll fix that. But basically, it is two Medeco locks side by side,
without the rotation. And, oh, I guess... I forgot that I can just take this guy apart for you.
There we go. So, there are our side bars, and that is kind of what the pins look like there.
They have that point, but unlike the Medeco, these aren't angled.
And let's go ahead and see if I can pop one of these side bars out. There we go.
So the side bar's got those fingers that stick out of it,
which sticks into the holes in the sides of the pins.
Definitely a neat idea. All right, let's get this guy back together there.
Oh, that's right. Another thing I wanted to mention about this,
since it's not a standard pin tumbler, by-locks don't have to worry about max. So,
you can see here, this goes from the lowest possible to the highest possible, to the lowest
possible, to the highest possible, lowest possible, highest possible. So, there's no
maximum adjacent cut specification for these. So, trying to get your pick under that lowest
possible to pick that highest is incredibly difficult. There are a couple other high
security cam locks that I don't consider very high security, but they're still kind of neat,
and kind of an entry level into high security. This guy here is called a bell lock. This is
actually what they use in parking meters. I can pop this apart for you real quick.
So, this guy basically is like a split wafer lock, where you have half wafers that pick up
and down in different directions, and they basically fit into these channels here. But
this is more like a wafer lock. Not very easy to pick, but not incredibly hard either. Definitely
a fun one to get started. And then another high security wafer lock here, this is called the
Chicago Duo. So, what they did here is they took your standard wafer lock that has cutting on the
top and the bottom, and they added a side track here that sets four more wafers. So, this thing
I think has like 14 wafers in it. Maybe a couple more. I think it's 14. It's also got profile
wafers. There's a lot going on in there. It's pretty difficult to figure out where you're at,
but not the hardest thing in the world. Pretty neat lock though.
Alright, so this guy here, another high security lock. This is not very high security in terms of
picking, although it's not easy to pick. It only has three rotating discs inside of it,
but this is definitely made to withstand the elements and be incredibly beefy.
This is called the Sergeant & Greenleaf Environmental Padlock. So, it was originally
designed for the railroads, who had problems with their locks freezing up and seizing because of
dirt and grime, and also had a lot of vandalism. So, they reached out to the Sergeant & Greenleaf
Company, who designed this lock for them. And these are pretty cool. They're kind of antique,
so if you find one, I'd suggest holding on to it. If you can get one with a key, that's even better.
But the military also used these for some of their warehouses and other things like that.
Now, in terms of disc detainer locks, Abloy is definitely going to be your quintessential
high security disc detainer lock. And I'll show you those in a second.
But you've got a couple other contenders here. This is a company called Takigen,
and I'll be showing you another one of their locks in a few minutes.
Um, it's a company out of Japan that makes manufacturing parts, industrial parts,
all sorts of stuff. This is their disc detainer lock. This is their actually lower security
variety, but they have higher security ones. But this is not going to look like your standard disc
detainer key. And that thin curved keyway makes it so that all of your standard store-buyable
disc detainer locks don't fit. You gotta make your own. And disc detainer locks is definitely
going to be where you're making your own tools more than anything else. I've had to make all of
those to pick different locks. Each one of them was designed for a specific lock. This one was
for the Takigen. This is actually for an Anchor Lass, which is this guy right here. This is your
security card for the Anchor Lass. And this is one of the very few disc detainer locks you'll
find that only has bidding on one side of the key. And you have to put this key in a very specific
way. It'll only go in one way. And then you rotate all those discs to the right spot and it'll open
right up. But, like I mentioned before, the quintessential high security disc detainer lock
is going to be your Abloy. This is the Abloy Classic. It's got a half moon looking key that
again has bidding only on one side of the key. Which means the key can only go in one way but
it's obvious by the half moon there. And same deal, when you rotate the key it's got to rotate
a full 90 degrees to set all the discs into place and then rotate the rest of the way.
Now this is the Abloy Classic. Basically their lowest security lock.
They've got a ton of other ones. This is the Disc Lock Pro which has bidding on both sides of the
key which allows you to actually turn this either way and it's got a few other features in there
that allow that to happen. Most of them will just be reversible so you can open it by putting it in
either way. But this also has a disc locking system. The little ball there is actually a ball
bearing or little divot there is a ball bearing inside of there that will not allow any of these
discs to turn until that ball bearing has been depressed. That is an anti-pick feature and also
it makes it so that you can't damage it by rotating some discs out of order and things like that.
Abloy has even higher security varieties like the Pro-Tech 1, Pro-Tech 2,
things like that but I don't have examples of those unfortunately.
All right so this is the other Takigen lock that I wanted to show you.
Next couple locks I'm going to show are Japanese high security locks and the Japanese kind of
tend to go all out on their high security locks. They go pretty crazy
and they're really cool locks generally. So this is... I don't know the name of this to be honest.
It comes out of a piece of equipment that I work on. It is a parking in-lane pay station
so this basically protects cash and credit card data and things like that. But this kind
takes high security to another level. This thing is both high security in that
it is very hard to pick. I think this is an 11 pin. Yeah, it's an 11 pin lock
where you can see in there. Yeah, so there are five or six. I think it's five pins coming in from
the left side and then another six coming in from the top right at a 45 degree angle and they kind
of intersect like this. So it's incredibly difficult to get in there and pick pins without
oversetting other ones. Not only that, but you have to get tools in here. And as I'll demonstrate
with these tweezers, it's a little big. Actually I can do it a little better with a pick. So trying
to get a pick in there to actually pick this thing, you have to make specialty tools to get
in there. But not only is it difficult to pick, but it's also very physically secure.
This thing is made out of some pretty hefty materials. Let's see, so it's got
this gigantic cam on the back.
And not only do you have to defeat one, but you actually have to defeat two of these.
So you got one on the top and one on the bottom.
But this is actually one of my favorite locks in my collection. I love this thing.
It's a hell of a challenge. All right, so another Japanese high security lock company
is Miwa. And Miwa makes some really awesome locks. One thing I haven't talked about yet
is magnetic locks. So this is a Miwa magnetic lock that actually goes to the
Sega arcade cabinets, the old Sega arcade cabinets. They call them a candy cabinet.
And this is actually a kind of a dumbed down version of the Miwa 3800, which has dimple
pins up top and then four magnetic sliders internally. This one only has three magnetic
sliders, two that come from the left and one that comes from the right. And they're stepped,
so you have to pick each one of them a couple times. Definitely not an easy task. You need
a magnetic pick and basically you pick this thing by sound. So you gotta listen to what
pins are binding, which ones are not. You attack the one that's binding and make it jiggle.
And that's actually how you pick most of these locks is by doing what's called the jiggle test.
Actually, let me show you here with this Desmo sidebar. So when picking a lot of these locks,
if they have multiple locking mechanisms in them, you can usually isolate. So with the Medeco,
and Medeco is one of the few ones that you can actually choose what binds first. With the Medeco,
you tension it clockwise, the driver pins will bind first. And if you tension it counterclockwise,
the sidebar will bind first. So you tension it clockwise, pick all the top pins to shear,
and then the sidebar will engage. And then you worry about rotation of the pins.
And whenever you're dealing with a sidebar with gates, something that doesn't involve driver pins,
you're going to do what's called the jiggle test. So you're going to go through the lock
and set these to either a false gate or a true gate. And then you're going to tap each one with
your pick and see if it jiggles. Because if you see, there's barely any room, but there's just
enough room for this thing to move around a little bit. So when you tap it with your pick,
you'll actually feel it jiggle. So when you're binding in a false gate, eventually that will
stop any rotation or any jiggle because you're putting pressure on it. But when you get to the
true gate, it will always jiggle in the true gate. So that's actually how we pick the majority of
these locks is by what's called the jiggle test. So let me show you here another lock from Miwa.
This is a really cool lock. This is the Miwa PR. And this is actually rotating wafers in there.
Looks like a regular dimple lock, but it's not. There are wafers that are pivoted on a shared
hinge on the top. And they're like crescent shaped and they pivot in the sidebar and the
gates are in the bottom. So the sidebar pushes in, it pivots till it hits the right gate and
the sidebar drops in. Now these have 10 and 11 wafers, depending on if they're master keyed or
not. And they also have false gates and serrations on those wafers that make them, it just gives you
a lot of different feedback in there. So trying to find yourself into a true gate, not the easiest
thing in the world, but it's definitely doable. Also that keyway definitely restricts your movement
in there. So you got to find a pick that pretty perfectly fits under certain, under the wafers
without over setting them. Because if you look right here, see there's three dimples right here,
but there's actually four wafers right there. So that spot there is a max lift wafer. So that's
got to go all the way to the top. And then this one here is almost a zero lift wafer. So you got
to get underneath that one and set that one as high as it can possibly go. So there's a lot of
difficult navigation you got to do in this thing. Makes picking these very interesting. But
they're tons of fun. Miwa makes actually a few locks on this rotating wafer design. The U9 is
one that the key looks different. It actually looks more like an Ingersoll key where it
doesn't have dimples. It's actually got cuts on the key on both sides.
But yeah, so the Japanese make some crazy, crazy high security locks.
So now you can have high security lever locks as well. And in safe deposit boxes, instead of saying
hey let's put two locks into one, they literally said hey let's take two locks and put them into
one. So this here is a Sargent and Greenleaf version. This is the 4440. This is a Sargent and
Greenleaf safe deposit lock. This here is the Mauer Mosler 5700 safe deposit box lock. Now this
is what's called a dual custody lock where two people will need to have a key. And this is what's
called the guard key and this is the user key. So you have to insert the guard key first to activate
the user key. And this one actually doesn't turn all the way until I turn the guard key a little
more. There we go. So basically what this allows the bank to do is when you come in, they'll put
in their guard key, turn it, you then put in your user key, turn it, they can then remove their guard key
and leave you to do your thing. And then when you're ready to go you re-lock it with your user key
and get out of there. So those are just standard lever locks. They generally have false gates but
some of them don't. Actually I think that Mosler has serrations that the the fence and the gate
fit into. So you'll have a serrated fence and it'll lock into serrations when you try to move it into
place. So other high security lever locks that I'm a little bit more familiar with are here.
These are payphone locks. So this here is the Western Electric 29A. This is a five lever lock
that protects the electronics portion of the payphone.
And you see that split in the key there and what that is is a blocking plate that sits in between
the three levers in the back and the two in the front which makes it very difficult to get to
those back levers. Not the hardest thing to pick but you definitely got to get used to it and get
your technique down to get that open. This here is Northern Electric. It's a Canadian company.
The coin vault lock for theirs which is actually a pretty similar to the 29 where it's got a
divider in there but this one the actuator is separated from the plug so when you turn the plug
the actuator doesn't turn until the plug is about here and then by the time you get a pick in there
you get stuck because I'll do another video on this in the future but it's very difficult to
Now this is one of my favorite locks in the world, and one of the reasons for that is because I am the only person in history to pick this lock on video.
Or actually to pick this lock in any sort of documented fashion.
I'm going to be doing a video on this lock only, also for DEF CON, which will air tomorrow.
Tomorrow night at I think 6, I'm sorry if I get that wrong, but I think it's 6 o'clock tomorrow night.
And this is the Western Electric 30C.
So this lock, until I picked it, was considered unpickable, and unpicked.
Basically, what this lock has is, not only does it have 8 levers, all with false gates,
but it also has a blocker mechanism, that when you turn the key to this point,
that blocker mechanism moves in and locks all the levers in place before the fence ever gets to the gates.
So when trying to pick locks, generally what you do is put tension on them, which will bind something up,
so then you can then move them and find where they need to be.
But this one, before anything binds, they're all locked into place.
So I had to figure out a very special way of picking this.
And I did, and actually you'll probably be underwhelmed when you figure out what I did,
but if you feel like checking it out, it'll be on tomorrow.
But yeah, so that's about it.
High security locks are kind of my passion, if you couldn't tell.
I love everything about them.
I do have a YouTube channel. It is very difficult to find. It is just a nothing symbol.
But if you look on YouTube and search Western Electric 30C, you will find it.
If you want to look at any of these any closer, I have most of the locks I showed you today on that channel.
And picking them, taking them apart, talking about them, things like that.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed that.
Sorry if it was a bit rusty and rough at first, but it is what it is.
I appreciate you all. Take care. Stay safe. Thank you very much.