Anyone heard of the Stanton Concepts RKS?

[Manipulation]

It's a cool little lock I saw at DEFCON yesterday and it's like a safe lock. It has six wheels and a sidebar that presses into gates in those wheels. Each wheel has one flat spot as a false gate type of thing. It was at the security snobs booth and the guy was pretty confident it couldn't be cracked. They sell it on their site and have great views on the internal workings https://securitysnobs.com/Stanton-Concepts-RKS-Robo-Key-System-Cutaway-Cam-Lock.html To dial the combo, you have a little dial you stick on the front and take off when you're done. To open after the combination is set, turn the whole dial thing not just the dial itself. That pushes the sidebar into the wheelpack.

I was thinking it can be manipulated. Just use hard tension by turning the whole dial thing and slowly pick up each wheel. The tension pushes the sidebar onto the biggest wheel. When that wheel is picked up, there will be a significantly more drag because of the sidebar riding along that wheel. Now you know the indicating wheel. To find the gate, just run that wheel around and when the drag goes down, you know it's either under the real gate or the one false gate. Count the number of numbers it takes for the drag to pick back up. Keep turning the wheel until you find a second spot and count how long it takes for the drag to come back. The flat spot on the wheel is a wider area than the gate go the two should be easily distinguishable.

I don't think this method will work for the other numbers since that wheel has to be parked and in order to find the other numbers, it has to be moving. I will be going back to test my theory and let you all know how it goes!

[MBI]

It's an impressive lock. I doubt it's absolutely uncrackable, but it's gone through a couple of design upgrades during it's development after consulting with some industry experts. I bought one of the cutaways; it's one of my favorite locks.

There were a couple writeups about both the lock and it's development in NDE Magazine. I forget which issues, maybe #4 and #5 but I'm not sure.
http://www.ndemag.com/

I'd suggest buying one, and see if you can make your ideas work. Keep us posted with your progress!

[MrWizard]

Wow that is a very cool lock never seen that before. Did you get the auto dialer too?

[GWiens2001]

Had the opportunity to play with one of these from Snobs before forwarding the lock to someone overseas. It is very well made, and manipulation would not be easy. To start with, all the wheels have false gates around their perimeter. Also the lock is indexed, so at each number there is a definitive drop-in, making feeling the difference between the true gate and the false gate more subtle than I could feel, even seeing inside the lock. (It was a cutaway).

Gordon

[Manipulation]

Thanks MBI! I'll read up on it. MrWizard, I didn't actually get the lock. I'm just messing around with it at the Security Snobs booth but if it was in my price range, I would totally get it!

[rai]

how much do they want for those and what types are they, deadbolt, cabinet, etc

[Oldfast]

Outta my price range for now... but looks very interesting.

[Manipulation]

Rai, they have a cutaway version and a padlock version at the booth but they arent selling any here. I looked online and only the cutaway is available and for $200! The cutaway is in the form of a cabinet lock.

[GWiens2001]

Have not seen the padlock version. Would like to get one, though. The cutaway version that I saw before had a manual dialer to enter the combination.

Gordon

[MBI]

The one I bought is a cutaway cam lock from the first production run, with a manual dialer.

The USB-programmable autodialer was out of my price range but it has some interesting potential.
One example: look at the rampant theft from cargo holding areas at ports, shipping yards, or in transit, much of which is suspected to be inside jobs from people with keys or unauthorized copies of keys. If you secured a cargo container with an RKS puck lock, you could encode the auto-dialer so it would only be able to open a container at certain times of day, and only if the container is located at certain places. That way even the person carrying the dialer couldn't open the container except at certain pre-specified times and locations. Even if the person had a manual dialer they never see the combination since it's encoded inside the auto-dialer.

The inventor made some open-source developer kits for the dialer in the hopes that the hacker community would embrace it and see what ideas and applications they could come up for the software, with but I don't think it caught on within those circles like he'd hoped, at least not yet. The auto-dialer the manufacturer developed was the size of a very large cell phone, so not what you'd call super-convenient for everyday use, but as I understand it, the technology exists to be able to fit it into the size of a kubotan keyring.

rks robotic dialer.jpg

I was excited when I first saw these locks. When they were first developed over five years ago I had high hopes for them. I wanted to see them make rim locks so I could install them in deadbolts in my home. Imagine stepping up to pick or bump a lock and seeing this "keyway".

rks dial interface.jpg

I asked about the possibility of it happening but unfortunately there hasn't been enough demand yet to do a production run in rim or mortise cylinders so I ended up going with Abloy Protec 2.

Stanton Concepts who makes the RKS is one of the first (if not THE first) lock manufacturer who actively sought input from the lockpicking and hacking communities in the development of his product. I really hope he's able to make it into a big commercial success because it would be fantastic for the reputation of the locksport community as a whole and vindicate the faith he put in us.

Sorry to rant and rave about the RKS but the possibilities this locking system offers intrigues me more than just about any other lock I've ever seen.

(all images were used with permission from www.securitysnobs.com)

[GWiens2001]

Does anybody know where somebody can buy one of these locks that is not a cutaway? I, and three other people I know, want to buy them for use. I will have to save up enough money to buy one of the cutaways for my collection, too.

Gordon

[MBI]

Does anybody know where somebody can buy one of these locks that is not a cutaway? I, and three other people I know, want to buy them for use. I will have to save up enough money to buy one of the cutaways for my collection, too.

Gordon

Are you just looking for a non-cutaway cam lock?

From what I've heard he only does small production runs as demand warrants, but I'd suggest calling Security Snobs to get more accurate info as they're the only place I've seen them sold. I imagine they could get you the answers you're looking for.

[GWiens2001]

Thanks, MBI. I'll give Mitch or Nick a call.

Gordon