Locksmithing Blog

New regulations to clamp down on unfair trading

This is great news, and will help put a lot of the rogue traders out of business. And there are few places with more cowboys than the “Driller Killer” locksmiths, whose work I am so frequently seeing. Even some of the large locksmithing organisations support drilling as the first resort, as they see the profits of their members as being more important than offering value for money. The ICL are different - we replace your lock for free if we destroy it (as long as it was working beforehand) so that quote won’t suddenly be “and another £40 for the new lock”.

Details:

On 26 May, new regulations affecting all UK businesses that trade with consumers are set to come into force, if they are approved by Parliament.
The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations will protect honest businesses by targeting the underhand practices of ‘rogue traders’.
The new regulations will ban 31 types of unfair commercial practices outright. They will also establish a general principle not to trade unfairly, use aggressive selling techniques or mislead consumers, helping to close loopholes that have previously been exploited.
For more information on the new Consumer Protection Regulations, please visit the following website:
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/unfairtrading

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

Finally we have had time to stop locksmithing and sit down to update the Discreet Security main website, following our move from the North West to the West Midlands. We also now have tenburylocksmiths.co.uk and bromyardlocksmiths.co.uk as well, which should help with the search engines and getting our new area more aware of our services.

We will try and fit you all in!

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…

The new car opening tools have arrived, and very nice they are too. So, if you are locked out of your BMW, Lexus, Volkswagon Passat, Audi, or other high-end car, give us a call! Even if it is deadlocked, we can probably get you in, and without (pointlessly) smashing a window!

I read someplace* “Statistics shows that 70% of companies that are bugged by a competitor without being detected goes bankrupt in 24 months or less.”

So why don’t UK companies even consider it?

I’ve heard a few anecdotal tales from people regarding strange things that have happened, from competitors turning up to jobs at the same time as they have, to phonelines oddly being diverted or dead at random times, yet no-one seems to ever think that this could be the actions of another causing them bad luck and lost revenue.

If you have started to notice odd things, like getting a “call back” from someone who spoke to someone else, even though you work alone and never got a call, your customers getting competitors calls right after yours to undercut your quote, or other odd instances where something doesn’t seem right, then it might be worth getting in touch. If you make just £5 per call, and one of your competitors is stealing even one of them a day, then you could be losing out on  a lot of income. If they poach a repeat customer by carefully underpricing you, you could lose out on thousands.

A quick  bug sweep of your car, home, office or company vehicles, to find and remove audio and even video remote transmitters, could prove to be very worthwhile. And it need not cost a fortune!

* Ok, it is on a US site trying to sell anti-bug equipment, but the point still holds, in my opinion. After all, they sell bugging equipment as well as the jammers!

It’s that time of year again, where we survey the market and decide what area would be most profitable and useful to expand.

Hence we have just ordered a new selection of high-end car tools to try out, all the way from Australia. Assuming they are as good as they claim to be, we will soon be able to ensure a clean and relatively quick opening of 90% of the newer ‘laser’ type locks on cars made after about 2000, with absolutely no damage and no mess, and without the ever present risks of bent linkages and shattered glass present with some of the rougher methods that some other locksmiths might be forced to try!

It has been weeks since the last update to the Locksmith’s blog here, so, since this Saturday morning is quite quiet, and I have time to sit here and type something, rather than being on the phone or out and about (or both!) I thought I would post about the Skype attack.

No-one is yet sure what has happened, except perhaps the Skype people, and they aren’t telling. I’ve read a few interesting theories, and learned a bit about Skype, too.

This graph is made from a log of the Skype “Users online” RSS feed, and shows that the number of users spiked quite dramatically right before it all started to go wrong. The timing is a bit out for your typical cyberattack, which generally takes place just after everyone has gone home on a Friday night, to really mess up the Mondays of support staff returning from the weekend. This kicked off way too early for that, on the Thursday.

What is interesting is the way that Skype actually operates. Rather than being truly peer-to-peer, as we have been told so many times, it turns out it is not. This isn’t really a big shock, since how do you check for credits and genuine log-in details otherwise? However, the way Skype seems to have routed traffic through some corporate networks is rather interesting, as is the news that Skype keeps a log of the last 200 people (in the registry!) to call back should it lose a direct connection to the log-in server. So, you might end up becoming a super-hub, when your 300 corporate users lose that connection to the internet because something goes wrong, and you, leaving Skype dormant, simply fire up your back-up modem. Suddenly, 300 users worth of bandwidth are trying to proxy through you, and your already painful 56K becomes totally DDoS’d by log-in requests that you weren’t even aware of.

Personally, I no longer trust Skype totally. The encryption we heard so much about when it was launched now seems to have a major backdoor, if everything is being routed through the central servers. After all, we only have Skype and eBay to vouch for it being encrypted end-to-end, and it seems fairly likely they can access the data. And the German government has stated it can intercept the calls.

A better solution for corporate data is something like Cryptophone from the stable of Barry Wels. Proper end-to-end encryption, and fully open source code, with no central server. And you can carry it with you, rather than being tied to your PC.