LockCon

A Toool.nl representative will be present at the hostel from 17:00 on to greet the guests and assign them a room.

Dinner will be served a little late because some of the attendees will be arriving from the security show in Essen. Please be advised that the kitchen stays open till 20:00 this evening especially for LockCon. People arriving after 20:00 will not be served dinner! Maybe this evening will be the start of the safe combo-lock manipulation contest, but that is still a little unclear (It is a dynamic event ... remember?).

A presentation by Peter Field. People who were fortunate enough to see Mr. Field's presentation last year know his unique way of presenting things: he combines patent drawings with very detailed images. We are honored to have him as a speaker again, and are real curious what kind of exotic locking techniques he will display this time. Since Mr. Field is a member of the lock industry (Medeco), he will not discuss any opening techniques. As he told us last year: "I am here to talk about locks. How to open them is up to you ....". Lets see if he can break his previous record of a five hour presentation!

In our humble opinion, Michael Huebler is a rising star in SSDeV and the locksport universe. One of a new generation of lockpickers that is not simply interested in locks but also very active setting up (research) projects. I am already looking forward to his presentation about the X-09 safe lock. The X-09 is one of the most secure safe locks currently available, and many military secrets are safeguarded by it as we speak. Michael will show you its features and explain why the concept and mechanism is quite secure. Of course he will bring an actual lock that will be taken apart, allowing participants to have a look at the lock's inner working and see the mechanism in motion. He prepared a simple electric "tool" allowing the lock mechanism to be operated with the back cover / electronics removed. If time permits, Michael will also give (small) presentations about the Axis lock (click here Image:The New Master Lock Combination Padlock V2.0.pdf for a new version of the technical article) - including a computer simulation Image:MhVisualizer V2.0 p.swf, and his very interesting 'The Open Source Lock' project.

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, and talk about a rather exotic high security lock by the Polish company 'Gerda'.

Like for instance: Lever lock picking by St. John Goldfinger (and hopefully Nigel Tolley, Jord Knaap and Paul Crouwel). St. John is one of these people that mailed me out of the blue last year and was granted access to the Dutch Open 2007. This year he is not only attending workshops, he is giving one too. The title of his workshop: "Lever lockpicking, theory and practise". Hopefully he can work something out and join forces with UK locksmith Nigel Tolley. Nigel also offered us a presentation on lever lockpicking: Nigel Tolley, a UK locksmith, will be giving us a brief tour through lever 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. On top of that, I know Jord Knaap and Paul Crouwel also are preparing a small demonstration on some high security lever lockpicking. So it seems to me the Friday night will be filled with lever lockpicking and safe opening. Yes, LockCon is a dynamic event for sure ...

Barry Wels wrote the foreword for the latest book by Marc Tobias and Tobias Bluzmanis about Medeco. The title 'Open in 30 seconds', 'Cracking one of the most secure locks in America' says it all. Of course this book will be for sale at LockCon at a reduced price (just like the CD set Marc offered a few years ago). The price is so low that we're not allowed to publish it on this website, but it is an extremely good deal. It is recommended you mail Barry if you want to have a copy as Marc will ship a box of books at the end of this week depending on the number of pre-orders. And about their presentation: Mark and Toby will tell in great detail how they cracked the codebook that is used in many non-masterkeyed Medeco locks out there. It is mind boggling, but they managed to bring the large codespace of this 'seemingly random' code-book back to just four trial keys. It is by far the most sophisticated attack on a high security lock I have ever seen. And after this workshop I think you will agree that Marc and Toby did what everybody else thought was impossible ....

Here we will put Marc and Toby's theory to practice. Especially for LockCon, we organized a keymachine that can cut axial keys, as well as a large number of Medeco bi-axial locks, parts, pins and keys. LockCon visitors can get Medeco Bi-Axial locks, pins, keys and parts at greatly reduced prices, and use the machine to cut keys the way they like. At the end of the day, people will feel like kids in a candy-store ...

Ray gave a very well received presentation at Hope about handcuffs and how to escape some of them. His presentation at LockCon will be aimed more on european handcuffs (like for example british Chubb cuffs and of course also the dutch LIPS ones our local police uses). Ray's presentation will take an hour including questions, but the 'after-talk cuff picking session' will last till Dinner at 18:00. LockCon visitors who have not escaped the cuffs by 18:00 will have their dinner spoon fed ....

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-school locksmith skill it is a technique still in use today by intelligence agencies worldwide for their blackbag operational needs. The championships speak for themselves: who will be the fastest filing a working key this year?

The closing ceremony and distribution of the prices for the Dutch Open lockpick championships, the impressioning championships, the safe combination-lock manipulation contest and the Toool 2008 ongoing lock competition.