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Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 9:09 pm
by huxleypig
A very rarely spoken about subject, it is the lockpicking elephant in the room! I gave this talk at SHA2017 a couple of weeks back.
I give a shout out to our own Keypicking :hbg:



Link in case the video does not show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCO7dv6uMKo

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 1:28 am
by ratlock
Great presentation.

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 1:34 am
by Gingerbread
Beautiful talk!

You could almost feel the audience trying to lean around your hands to get a look at the Abloy tool...

Good show...

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:26 am
by mastersmith
Well done Hux! I really enjoyed your presentation dude.

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 6:33 am
by insatiableOne
great skill set! how about the gubermint ripping off the patent offices, (allegedly)


I'm a mechanic and fabricator, just go kick some dirt with my current level of picking level.. but improving:)

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 9:25 am
by mseifert
Nice Talk .. First I have seen from the aspect of Black hat ..

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:28 pm
by huxleypig
insatiableOne wrote:great skill set! how about the gubermint ripping off the patent offices, (allegedly)


I'm a mechanic and fabricator, just go kick some dirt with my current level of picking level.. but improving:)


Lol, I always said the government get first dibs on all the patents filed! Has there been a case of them doing that then? Stealing the ideas? I know that both the UK and US hold a list of patents that could be a 'threat to National Security' that are not allowed to be released. I think it gets reviewed every year and breaking the secrecy could land you in jail. Oh yeah, did I mention, you have to pay for the privilege! Patents are nothing more than an 'ideas register' that is government stamped. So long as you have a record of your inventions (that would admissible in court) then ultimately, you have as good as a patent. Many locktool makers do not patent stuff because of the public nature of them.

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 3:55 pm
by Patrick Star
Considering what you can find in very much public patents - perfectly repeatable procedures for manufacturing chemical and biological weapons, for example - I'd be very much intrigued by what they could possibly be holding back :D

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 11:07 pm
by Lauren
Hux, I know the anxiety you must feel, trying to be the first to come up with a unique tool (something that you can call your own), just to find out that you re-invented the wheel. As a locksmith tool inventor, I wouldn't dream of ever patenting anything. Many of my tools I kept in the dark for years. There's too many sharks waiting to bite as soon as you go public. And yet, there will always be that persistent urge to share your inventions with the locksmith community or even the lock manufacturers that needs to be somehow satisfied. Great video.

Lauren Arndt

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 2:54 am
by Jaakko Fagerlund
Greets to Camlock company, I'll be making a tool for your stupid octagon shaped locks. Yours truly, Hold-My-Beer

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 7:14 am
by Tok36
An interesting talk. Thank you for the post and keep up the good work.

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 4:47 pm
by Josephus
Lauren wrote:Hux, I know the anxiety you must feel, trying to be the first to come up with a unique tool (something that you can call your own), just to find out that you re-invented the wheel. As a locksmith tool inventor, I wouldn't dream of ever patenting anything. Many of my tools I kept in the dark for years. There's too many sharks waiting to bite as soon as you go public. And yet, there will always be that persistent urge to share your inventions with the locksmith community or even the lock manufacturers that needs to be somehow satisfied. Great video.

Lauren Arndt


For my part I don't have anything novel to offer the physical security world. Different field, otherwise the same. I have sat on some things for years now. The pile is growing.

There is this handwritten one-word warning always up on my desk to keep things in check: Furtive.

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 6:07 pm
by selim
very nice Hux

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:41 pm
by huxleypig
Josephus wrote:
Lauren wrote:Hux, I know the anxiety you must feel, trying to be the first to come up with a unique tool (something that you can call your own), just to find out that you re-invented the wheel. As a locksmith tool inventor, I wouldn't dream of ever patenting anything. Many of my tools I kept in the dark for years. There's too many sharks waiting to bite as soon as you go public. And yet, there will always be that persistent urge to share your inventions with the locksmith community or even the lock manufacturers that needs to be somehow satisfied. Great video.

Lauren Arndt


For my part I don't have anything novel to offer the physical security world. Different field, otherwise the same. I have sat on some things for years now. The pile is growing.

There is this handwritten one-word warning always up on my desk to keep things in check: Furtive.


Lauren, it is such a difficult dilemma, isn't it? Merely saying you have a tool that does x or y is enough to alert others to the fact that it is possible, which could lead to losing the idea, without ever even publicising the tool itself. And yet I really, really hate having to keep my best work hidden from view...but that is the reality right now and it is so very fucking frustrating. I know it is easy to say this, but you should see some of the stuff I have squirrelled away. Completely new NDE methods (or should I say, completely new NON-PUBLIC methods) of opening pin tumblers and lever locks and disc detainers...all sorts of crazy shit.

Josephus, I too sit on ideas and tools for years sometimes...but again, this can be a bad idea; I have an MCS opening system that has been sitting in Lockfall Towers for a few years, waiting until such a time as I can leverage it. But the fantastic Draukan found the same vulnerability, put it up on Youtube and now not only have I had to find a new method, but all that work and all that 'sitting on the tool' has been for (effectively) nothing now.

And yet doing the opposite, and making your work public can lead to even worse consequences. Like my Abloy Classic Pick/Decoder - it was only up here on KP for about 3 weeks and it had already been declassified from its secret status and for sale to the public. I asked everybody I knew if such a thing already existed and to a man, everybody said "no". I scoured long and hard, searching for any clue that the tool might already exist. There was none. So, confident I was doing something original, I embarked on a 6 year-long process that cost me a LOT of time, energy and money. Guess fucking what, it was there the whole bastard time. And not just the Safe Ventures tool either. Some of the guys I asked are/were (RIP Chris Belcher, you were a massive inspiration to me) very old, respected toolmakers from the UK, a couple of which do work for intelligence agencies. Nobody knew a thing about it.

I often equate it to artwork (because I consider the design and creation of locktools a form of artwork); imagine Mozart spending years writing his life's masterpiece. He unveils it at a grand ceremony to many plaudits. Then, a week later, Johan Strauss knocks on his door and tells him that his wonderful oeuvre is a total rip off of his own work, composed many years before. Whilst I do not place myself in the relative league of Mozart, I think my point still stands. I found the whole thing very distressing. I found it soul destroying.

So to summarise, it is not something that I will ever let happen again. Any stuff that I have shown since then are old versions of tools, very early prototypes or heavily redacted/obfuscated. Many of my concepts/techniques are still completely in the dark. So how do you get around this dilemma? Keep making stuff that only you will ever see or get to use? That is such a waste. I hate the way many of the government secret stuff never sees the light of day, if I were the inventor of some of that incredible stuff, I'd have to be pretty damn well compensated for that.

Jaakko Fagerlund wrote:Greets to Camlock company, I'll be making a tool for your stupid octagon shaped locks. Yours truly, Hold-My-Beer


Lol, shhh Jaakko, their revolutionary re-design of the tubular lock centre-post is FAR too complicated to make a tool for!

Re: Black Hat Locksmithing - When Locksmiths Go bad

PostPosted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 1:21 am
by MartinHewitt
huxleypig wrote:And yet doing the opposite, and making your work public can lead to even worse consequences. Like my Abloy Classic Pick/Decoder - it was only up here on KP for about 3 weeks and it had already been declassified from its secret status and for sale to the public.

In my opinion this is not a bad consequence. This is a great achievement! Because now the public knows what can be done with the locks, what certain people were able to do in the past and has a more realistic knowledge how secure the lock is. It is very sadly that the people who know want to keep the public dumb.