Locksmithing Blog

It is quite old news that you can pick up the keystrokes from a target PC with a USB dongle, a PS/2 connector, or a bit of keystroke logging software, and it is also a few years since the majority of wireless keyboards were decrypted, meaning that it became trivial to eavesdrop on what a person was writing onscreen by looking at the radio transmissions from the keyboard. There is also a technique called “TEMPEST analysis” which records and displays what you see on your screen onto another PC.

Tempest is a sly reference to the storm of different electromagnetic (EM) radiation that comes out of a typical computer system. You see, every time an electron moves, there is an electric and magnetic feild that results. For a room temperature metal object, there is radio emmission in the millimetre range. (This is now being used for “see through your clothes” imaging cameras. I’ll post about that another day.) Warm things give off infra-red radiation. Very warm things glow.

Beyond that, to move the electrons around your PC and send signals, the electrons move back and forth, and give off some EM radio waves. These are longer wavelength, and travel through walls and air just fine, though they are very weak. The wires on your keyboard act just great as an aerial, so some people have been working on methods for reading these signals.

The videos below show this being done.

Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Keyboards Experiment 1/2 from Martin Vuagnoux on Vimeo.

Compromising Electromagnetic Emanations of Keyboards Experiment 2/2 from Martin Vuagnoux on Vimeo.

This isn’t something the “average person” should worry about, is what you normally hear when something like this is revealed, but who among us is average? As to the answer, well, currently there doesn’t seem to be one. Fortunately the range is short, so keep an eye out for people pointing satellite dishes at your house, and you should be fine. The other option is to make it a little harder for anyone trying. Buy a good keyboard, with a shielded cable, and make sure your PC case is done up properly. This will reduce the EM that is able to escape, and so make reading it even harder.

We are happy to report that Discreet Security are now the preferred locksmiths for the National Trust for our local area. So far I have only visited the lovely Croft Castle. If you are in the area, it is worth a look around.

Keeping your skills up-to-date is vital for a locksmith. The rate of change of a lot of things is far faster now than fifty or even ten years ago, and locksmithing is no different. Electronic and digital locks are now common, and locks are evolving rapidly to defeat threats from things like bumpkeys and slim-jims. The modern car is amazingly high security. Take a mid-range saloon, and you will find that, if made in the last 5 years, it probably has automatic deadlocking from the keyfob.

If you lock your keys inside, you can smash a window (and pay the insurance excess!) to get them back, or you can call a locksmith. If you’ve locked them in the boot, or lost them entirely, smashing a window won’t help. You won’t be able to open the boot from inside, nor even the doors, as the deadlocking means only a key will do.

If your key has been stolen, then you need not just a new key, but you also need to have the old key removed from the system, before the thief comes and takes your car away using it.

Currently we are trying to gauge the returns on investment of getting the latest programmer equipment for car keys. The kit is very, very expensive and we would need significant investment in order to do on-site key programming. However, we have just invested in the latest tooling for non-destructive picking of the latest car locks. If your keys are locked in the boot, then we can attend and pick the lock without damage using the correct tools for the job, and do so at a reasonable price, and get you on the road again. We can also do a “next day” service for additional car keys

Please call and ask for details, should you need a spare key for your car.

I helped in the execution of a warrant yesterday, one where the previous attempt to get in had left the lock butchered and inoperable after about 2 hours without access being gained, and two pretty big holes through it. I spent some time working on this one to open it and sort it out, before replacing the lock and fixing the handle. (Click the images for the larger versions.)

Once inside the alarm tripped. And that brings me to the real subject of this post.

I silenced the alarm within 20 seconds. I used most of the time the trigger gave the normal user to punch in the code to insert my ear plugs, and still had it quiet within 10 seconds of the sounders going off. It wasn’t some amazing magic trick, nor anything destructive. Take a look at the alarm panel, and see if you, too, can work out the code digits. (Again, you can click on the image for a larger version, but you might not need to!)

I figured that 4, 6 and 0 figured in the code, and since most codes are 4 digits, the fourth try turned it off. Not really rocket science on this one!

If you get into the habit of changing your alarm code every time you notice the digits you are using are starting to wear or get dirty, then you will effectively stop this trick cold. And, if you have an alarm or safe that are insurance rated, you should get your codes changed every 6 months regardless, to comply with the insurance requirements.

Discreet Security Solutions offers this service, along with many other locksmithing and security related services. We will probably find security issues you weren’t even aware of, but that could be exploited to leave you and your business or home in a far worse state than when you locked the door and went on your way. And, normally, there are low-tech, low-cost solutions to your security problem. Give us a call on 0845 355 0945 or drop us a line today.

In many states in the USA you are required to have a bond (a fairly large sum of money) as well as insurance and a background check in order to legally trade as a locksmith. Of course, just like in the UK there are those who bring my profession into disrepute, by over charging, bait-and-switch (quote a low initial price for the opening, but then make an excuse and drill the lock out, and charge through the nose for a replacement), or simply doing a bad job (and I’ve seen hundreds! See some of the other blog posts.) They also have the problems with out-of-town (or out-of-state) call centres who pass themselves off as local, but merely take a cut and pass the work to the local guys. Driven by price alone, they frequently overcharge, and often insist that good locks must die to meet the profit targets they set, whilst still being steeply priced.

Well, in the US at least, some locksmith associations are fighting back. The Associated Locksmiths of America, Inc. (ALOA) have a “Report a phony locksmith” link on their website.

“This is a great tool for consumers to fight back against these scam artists,” says ALOA’s Executive Director, Charles W. Gibson, Jr., CAE, “We were asked by the state Attorneys General to help them identify consumers who have been defrauded. Being linked directly to their complaint procedure will ensure a quick response from the state’s top law enforcement agency, and faster convictions for these unscrupulous companies.”

Full story at:

http://www.therealyou.org.uk/go.pl?id=180018

Well, it is rare for a door to require the use of the drill. However, yesterday was one of those days. Until yesterday, only one lock had been drilled all year, a deadlock on a door in Wolverhampton. Yesterday, I jinxed myself. I had a 10:30 and a 12:30 job, with an hour and three quarters drive between them. Yes, a slight gamble, but, as I jinxed myself fully, I said “Yes, it’s tight [for time], but when’s the last time I had a two hour door?”

About 10:30 I am walking around the town centre,  toolbox in hand. At 10:40 I am on the phone, and at 10:50 I’m back in the van driving down a very small alley. Great, so I’m now already looking at being late even if things are easy. I park on a loading bay about 100 yards away, and cross my fingers. I walk to the job site, and find that 15 minutes before I’d been standing 20 feet from the door, on the phone with the guy I’m meeting! Bah!

So I get onto the opening part, and find that it is a pair of right facing lever locks, both to the latest standards, and it is a brand new, as yet un-painted door which is mostly glass, and properly fitted to a new shopfront. Alas, although I have the tools and ability to pick over 95% of the British Standard insurance rated lever locks without issue, this was a new one, and I have yet to beat this type on the door or bench! Great. (Though I have only had to open, er, two this year, and they are the subject of this post!)

So sadly, it was the drill first. This is quite a challenge on the right, especially if you don’t want to destroy the lock entirely. I wanted the original keys to work too. I set to drilling the middle lock first, as it was easier to reach. About 20 minutes later, I had got through, and 5 minutes after that the bolt came back with a nice click. On to the top one.

I had to get help with this one. I simply couldn’t reach high enough and push hard enough for the drill to bite, so I had to get a brace for my back! Once it started, though, it was fine, and again, after another short while I was nearly there. However, because of the angle and height,  and the difficulty of driving this type of lock, it took another 15 minutes before that opened.

Once in, I quickly stripped down and sorted out the locks, but then the big issue is how to re-lock them? This required drilling another hole. However, without the door or hardplate anti-drill protection in the way, this went quite quickly.

Handsfree kits are great for this work, too, as I was able to keep everyone updated on my progress, and my ETA for the second job, without slowing down. This was hampered more than slightly by the agent I was meeting at the next job having a mobile number that didn’t seem to work, though.

When I finally signed the job off, I’d been there for almost 2 hours! Typical…

However, it turned out I didn’t need to help out at the second job, as the customer was in for that. Also glad that I didn’t wipe out the van as it fishtailed on a wet bend on the way home. That would have made a bad day far worse!

If you haven’t heard of the line of keysafes from Supra™ then click on the link just there.

Seriously, Discreet Security Solutions is now an accredited installer for Supra keysafes, a task which we fulfil with our high levels of care and no little pride. Over one and a half million of these keysafes have been sold in the UK since they were introduced, and they keep safe hundreds of thousands of people’s keys. In the event of an emergency, say a fall or a fire, those attending can quickly gain entry without damage.

Of course, even if you are not a typically vulnerable person, one of these mini-safes will save you the cost of a call-out should you lose your keys. We don’t charge quite as much for a call-out as one of these safes costs, but then it won’t take you as long as it takes us to get to the scene and help you get in! And, of course, should you call some other locksmith, who can say how high your bill might turn out to be?

If you live in the Discreet Security catchment area, give Supra a ring, and just a few days later you get to meet me (most likely) and we will get your spare keys locked up securely, somewhere more useful and more secure than your bedside or kitchen drawer!

Regards,

Nigel the locksmith

Hey, you can’t keep a good man down, as they say. No sooner was I settled down here in Hereford & Worcester, than I was missing the job. So I made a call, and bingo! Off we go again!

So, Monday and Thursday last week, I was back out on the doors. First, one kebab shoppe. I don’t really like them. Kebabs seem like a great idea after several pints, but have you ever braved one while sober? Even a shish kebab doesn’t seem the best idea in the world, but a Doner? And then you read about a guy in Blackpool who gets done for the murder of his under-age girlfriend, the body was never found, and they only caught him because he boasted to a friend that they never would because the body had been ground up and served… Urgh! Then, one of the warrant agents tells you that they cut the guy’s shop off a few weeks before. Glad that wasn’t me, and lucky for the agent that the afore-mentioned sicko was already behind bars, and separated from his kebab knives.

Anyway, since that day, I’ve only set foot in kebab shops, with their mystery “meat” machines and, to date, common lack of shine to every surface, on professional business - of putting them out of business. If you ever want to go on a diet, go round the back of a few kebab shops. Spending an hour kneeling in the remains of the vomit and droppings of the night(s) before whilst opening the door really is one of the worst things about the job.

I had parked on double yellows about 40 yards from the shop, and we had seen them raise the electric front shutters while we did introductions. So we walked right in, the agent, the sparky and me. Apparently the gaffer is out the back, so our gaffer heads off for a chat, while I start chatting to the sparky. Every few minutes I look out to check for traffic wardens, and so, after about 20 minutes, I say to the electrician that I’m just going to move the van, just in case. Not really sure where the agent is, and the guy from Blackpool, as well as the many other places we have been where you can hear the owners and occupiers creeping about upstairs.

I’m a few minutes moving the van, as the nearest parking was a brisk minute away, around a corner. My heart, I confess, leapt, when I saw the shutters were down, and there was no electrician in sight! No one behind the counter, and no sign of life. Urk! So, I walked around the back. It was a typical kebab shop rear, so I stood well back, and tried to work out how the heck the door would have worked if I’d had to open it, since there was no lock at all, just a plain wood face, while I phoned the agent to check everything was ok. Straight to voicemail. So either off, or he was on the phone, talking to the office. If he was talking to the office, he wasn’t dead from a meat cleaver. If it was off, then his killers were smarter than the average. And where was the electrician?

I tried the agent’s phone again. Perhaps needless to say, everything was, in fact, fine.

On Wednesday, I got a second run for the same day, at 10am, starting a single opening 40 minutes away from my original run, booked for 10:30. I must say, this is fairly typical, but I sorted things out, and arrived ten minutes early. I chatted to the electrician, who sat in his van to protect against the rather vicious cold. It looked like they were in, so I relaxed a bit. The agent arrived, on the phone, and, as Sod’s Law states when you have a tight deadline, the owners got in their car and drove off! Wah! Nice lever lock on the door, and no time to play with it. Then the agent arrives from his car. “The computers are down. I can’t get the go ahead, so we’ll just knock on the door and see if they are in.” In unison, the sparky and I said “They just left. That ‘V’ reg that nearly ran you over a moment ago? That was them.” “Oh”, says he. “Probably for the best then, since what could we do if they *were* there? Let’s go.”

So I was on time for the next run, which was nice, and the cleaners let us in, so I got another easy day!

I’m dreading Monday, though. I’ve no job sheet and it’s a new agent and company, with a day of British Gas warrants. BG are a tough taskmaster, liking to give you 30 doors in a day, and all of them “hard”. Fingers crossed!

I went, I saw, I (mostly) conquered.

This was my third Dutch Open, and this time, I made it into the final. I’m the first UK person ever to do so, and I’m quite proud of that, and my overall performance was very pleasing, what with the lack of practise in the previous weeks, due to the upheaval of relocation.

I’ll just run through the  rules and procedure, for those of you who are interested.

Everyone enters their name on a slip. This is entered into the random draw, and the pairs are drawn randomly. Your first pairing is against everyone else in the contest, and the second name called moves to the first name called. You are then presented with your two locks, and you take one each. Which one doesn’t matter, as will become apparent.

You may put your tension tool(s) in the lock before the timer starts, but not any pick. You then start, and you have 10 minutes to open the lock. Once open, you call “Open!” and note your time, which is called out to you. You pick head-to-head, which adds significantly to the pressure.

At the end of the time, you swap locks with your opponent, as well as note how he did. (Yes, it’s the honour system - you could probably cheat, but the random draw makes that really hard.) Then you go again. At the end of the round, if neither lock was opened by either of you, there is no score. Otherwise, the opener of the most locks wins. If you both opened the same number of locks, the faster time wins.

My scoresheet. If it doesn’t have a dot, it’s in seconds. And yes, my first opening was in 2 seconds of the start of the first half of the first round, and was the first lock of the competition!

This sterling effort got me to the required 5 points in the 6th round. Andre and another chap were already there, and Julian, Eric and I got there at the same time. However, the final required 4 people, not 5, so we went head to head, with 3 locks in rotation.

So here’s the back of the sheet:

In retrospect, I should have written smaller to get it on the one side!

Suffice to say, Julian (Germany) and myself (GB) got through the pick-off, beating the USA’s Eric S.

I didn’t get the times for the final in full.  I lost the final by 6 seconds, putting me in the race for 3rd or 4th place, rather than 1st or 2nd. If I’d just got that last lock open… In the final head-to-head, I again lost, despite opening the high security Zeiss-Ikon in just 3 seconds. I just couldn’t get the Pffenheim. After a full 15 minutes trying, I ran out of time. (I did, however get it after another 8 minutes during the second leg!) But that didn’t count for anything, especially since my opponent opened it in under 4 minutes, to his obvious shock!

Well done to the three who beat me - André Matuschek (who was the only person to beat me on the way to the final) was third, Peter Danilov came second, but really Julian Hardt deserved to win (again!). He got a 2 second opening at the same time as I got my 3 second opening, but he opened all final 4 locks!

You can read more about the entire event, and the days before it, at Barry Wel’s blog, which is called “Blackbag” and is also found on the sidebar links.

It’s been a thrilling three years, and an exciting ten months. I’ve been hit (once), sworn at a few times, been told the guys I work with are idiots, scum, or, on one occasion, drunk (the agent wasn’t, and he handled the situation really neatly) and taken a good beating. Ok, I added the beating for effect. However, I’ve been pretty scared a few times, and I’ve worn a bullet-resistant vest more than once.

However, it has been a great time. I’ve been locksmithing for 3 years now, and I’ve been warranting for ten months, and though exhausting, it has been the best time I have ever had, probably even better than university. I’ve pulled in just over £3K as a locksmith in my best month (before the dreaded VAT) but pulled in only £250 in my worst month, and against fixed expenses of about £2K a month inc. living expenses, it has been a somewhat rollercoaster ride.

Now, the ride has come to an end.
I’ve been given an great opportunity to move on, and, though the day-to-day job won’t carry the ever-present “Is there a nutter with a knife behind this door?” thrills, my new wife and I are happy to be giving it up. Yes, a few regrets, and I’ll never get the book written now… but, in the medium and long term, moving house and setting up in a totally different business is for the best, we think.

If you want a locksmith, as of Wednesday the 31st, I won’t be able to help you, unless it is non-emergency. However, I do have a friend in Blackpool who can probably help you,  and a very good chap in Bolton. So feel free to give us a bell. The phone numbers are still live for the future, heck, I’m still paying for the advertising(!) so give us a call. Until the house is sold, I’ll be around to give advice, open doors by appointment, and patch up the damage that some naughty man with a crowbar did on Saturday night, before absconding with your quad bike…