Heavy rain overnight, and a lot of the snow has melted away now, so we are no longer snowed in.
Hopefully some couriers will arrive with desperately needed stock today! (We’ve now run out of our most popular security upgrade completely!)
Whether you are locked out in an emergency, or just need a lock changed tomorrow, give us a call.
Sad to report that after a week of careful driving and extreme weather, we are now snowed out (or snowed in).
With a layer of ice under 6″ of snow, conditions are treacherous, and even 4×4’s are struggling. Due to our rural location, and the lack of ploughing and gritting, we have no hope of reaching a main road. Even worse, we have had only two postal deliveries and two courier deliveries in the last 14 days, meaning that we have literally run out of the slip-resistant security upgrade nightlatches that are currently such a popular choice.
If you need a job doing, please still give us a call, as we can either schedule the work for once the roads clear, or help find someone else reliable to help you.
Stay safe out there.
For the last 12 months the Government, particularly DEFRA and NaCTSO (National Counter Terrorism Security Office) have been telling farmers and farms to secure their fertiliser.
If you are interested in having a professional security review, or even secure area penetration testing (where we, with your permission, come and try to break in) then please contact us on 0845 355 0945, or by email at your leisure.
And it doesn’t need to be your fertiliser store - we test and audit everything from homes to hi-tech businesses!
I was reading New Scientist (last weeks issue, 12/12/09), and I stumbled across a small but interesting story on page 7:
A Chinese woman used plastic surgery to fool a biometric fingerprint scanner. The appropriately named Lin Rong was arrested in Japan for being an illegal immigrant. Police report that she had swapped skin patches from her thumb and index finger to the opposite hand!
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/198634-Fake-fingerprint-Chinese-woman-fools-Japan-controls has a little more detail.
This made me think, as it does. The two most common things I do, as a locksmith, is fake a key (by picking the lock, decoding it, impressioning, etc.) and revoke a key (changing a lock, re-levering a pack, re-pinning a cylinder, etc.)
This woman revoked her biometric keys, in order to present a new set to the border controls, where they take a copy of the fingerprints of every foreigner that enters their country. This is done because you cannot revoke such biometric keys easily. And this is, as I have said before, the biggest issue with biometric security.
If she had simply used latex paint to do this, she would have been fine, and not required such surgery. But what if she had done that and used your fingerprint? There is no way you can then change your “keys” to a new set, meaning that when you go to Japan, you’d find access denied. This would baffle everyone, especially if, like me, you are a man! However, it would still require someone there with the ability to override the system, which there may not be. And, the first person to present your keys would have already long since left.
I’m pretty sure you would miss your connecting flight…
Followers of this blog will probably recall our whitepaper on combination padlocks, and the mention of the mechanical keysafes available, especially the poor security of some of them.
Today I received another keysafe. This unit is branded Asec, and also some are branded Burton. At first glance, it looks like the high security Supra keysafe unit, but with a rounded base. Retailing for about half the price, this unit is clearly a direct copy, but made in China rather than the USA. The code setting is nearly the same, the code entry, opening and reset are the same, as is the rubber weather cover design. Even the mounting holes are exactly the same, barring one additional one.
All they left out was the security!
This cheap Chinese copy can be opened without a trace in seconds, with barely any practise. It is, almost unbelievably, easier to open than the Sterling keysafe, itself an insecure joke. And, should someone be inept enough to be unable to open it, they can fairly easily prise it from the wall, due to the 2 rawlplug fixings.
Please, save yourself a fortune in insurance rises and/or the nightmare of an insurance non-payout, and don’t buy this cheap copy keysafe.
Discreet Security *only* recommend and install the genuine Supra/GE keysafe range seen at http://www.keysafe.co.uk/ . Don’t be a fool.
Here’s a report I found online, reporting on a 2-man crimewave using bumpkeys. Lasting over several years, the police had a very good idea who was behind it, and despite traiing them for 2 years theey never got them red-handed. However, when police eventually went to one of their houses, they found it packed with stolen goods! Bumping criminals caught in USA
Closer to home, I went last week to a church who had been targeted. The big old and impressive lock on the vestry door had been opened, and my investigation revealed it was picked with wires. A few hundred pounds in cash was taken. Hardly worth it - robbing a church? If there is a god, and a hell, then those criminals will really regret that choice!
We hope to prevent the need for divine retribution, though. The new security system, carefully designed and chosen to be in keeping with the very old and beautiful wood and stone, should keep anyone unauthorised out for a very long time.
Here’s an interesting job. Called to open a door in the countryside south of Tenbury Wells, with lost keys. I tried picking it, and nothing. No movement, nothing’s working. I finally get the door open without damage, open the lock case, and see this.
Packed full of... stuff
A family of wasps had built a home inside it, out of clay!
A recent job took rather longer than might be expected from the task - “Fit a door closer”. However, due to careful pre-planning and two site visits, the actual installation went well.
The door that required a closer mechanism, to firmly lock the door for security, but also to reduce the thunderous impact of the extremely heavy, 300+ year old oak, was also rather large. Drilling the fixing holes was a careful and long operation, with drill bit clearance required every few centimetres, and lifting the door to work on the hinges required a jack more often used for off-road vehicles!
The selected high quality LCN door closers are used in top end applications due to the high resistance to wear, good duty cycle, longevity and leak resistance (a feature often overlooked on cheaper hydraulic closers) as well as the obvious need for firm and controlled latching.
Work is not quite yet finished, however. The wear showing on the hinges has dropped the door a few critical millimetres over many, many years, and so the hinges will have to be shimmed with specially made washers. Sadly, typical off-the-shelf hinge packers are rather smaller than the 32mm O.D., 22mm I.D. required, so some lathe time is still required.
Even without these additions, however, the door still closes perfectly, regardless of opening angle, while the backcheck feature prevents the door or wall of this Grade 1 listed building being damaged.
If it was as easy as pay a few hundred pounds, take a short training course and earn more money than a doctor, then doctors would be doing [locksmithing]! 1
Martin Pink, Rapid Locksmiths, Nottingham
The state of the locksmith industry is a poor one. Training houses are churning out hundreds, perhaps thousands, of new “locksmiths” every week. There are now estimated to be over 100 locksmith trainers in the UK 2, so you have to wonder where all those locksmiths are setting up, and where the mythical £1000+ a week is meant to be coming from.
If you are redundant, or leaving the forces, don’t bother becoming a locksmith. Even the best are struggling, and the phone books are full of those advertising for the small section of the market that is lock-out work.
Even if you are the best, will you afford the pages of advertising bought by the national franchises, who churn through half-trained locksmiths, paying them the few pounds they desperately need, before they go bust, whilst feathering their nests?
Or to compete against these same desperate folks when they offer to do a job cutting out the national for £5 over cost? Perhaps most tricky, is will you have the balls of steel required to stand there and tell a customer that the job you quoted at £40 will now be £250 because it was hard, or because you broke their lock, or because you have them over a barrel, because it is dark and cold and wet, or because you have to make the mortgage payment - and this was your only job this week?? - because you only did 15 hours of training before setting up?
Do some research before you start up, and you will find that (if you are in the UK) there are already many well-established outfits struggling, and time-served locksmiths leaving the profession to make more money as plumbers and joiners.
There are also plenty who did a two day course, failed to get even one job from it, and then… set themselves up as trainers! You can imagine the quality of the course, cadged from an already short course, then regurgitated to those who know no better. It’s one way of making the course pay for itself. Often, it’s the only way.
Be careful out there.
(And the same goes for those needing a locksmith as wanting to be a locksmith!)
There have been many people who have reviewed and tested safe combination locks, including large organisations such as Underwriters Labatory and the British Standards Institute. It is the same with door locks, and insurance grade keyed padlocks. However, when I was recently asked to provide a secure combination lock for a set of factory gates, there was nowhere to turn to.
After buying and testing several combination padlocks, I decided to publish my notes, and at that point, I decided that it would be worth testing some of the lower end locks too.
If you use any of the locks given a poor score, you should probably think about upgrading them if your security is important to you. The advice for opening them is limited to very basic manipulation, the kind of thing that most people could work out in a few minutes if they were so inclined. No fancy tools are needed.
I am releasing the paper as “linkware” - you may have a personal or business copy, in exchange for a link back to here. If you are a locksmith, and would be interested in a full copy of this paper, please leave a comment with your website details, and, please link to this site. I will verify it and send you a full copy of the paper to your registered email address, which contains the manipulation process for each of the locks featured. Feedback, as ever, is welcome.