Author: Bjørn Madsen

Today I was reading lock related periodicals as I am wont to do when time weighs heavily and I came across some interesting information regarding masterlock.  Nobody thinks of this company as producing anything that could be called high security as everybody knows somebody that can open their combination locks using a pop can or by listening to the clicks and writing down numbers and doing a small amount of number crunching.

Apparently masterlock did a study on bumpkeying locks and figured out a way to prevent it.  Unfortunately the changes they made to their locks make it even easier to pick them.  You can turn the plug after setting 3 of the 4 pins!  They have always been easy to impression as well.  The silly part is that their locks are now being marketed as “high security” and “ultra security” at Home Depot even now.  Of course, none of this will stop anybody who has a $35 bolt cutter found farther down the store a few aisles, or even a digging bar that will fit in the shackle.

The best security against bumpkeying to my knowledge without buying better locks is to retrofit your locks with higher tension springs and spool pins or serrated pins.  These won’t stop bumpkeying but they will require about ten more taps which is enough to make burglars think twice in the middle of the night.  A well-lubricated Kwikset lock with no security pins only requires one or two taps, for comparison’s sake.

Some days we start at 5am and don’t stop working until after midnight.  There’s plenty of time for a nap in between jobs though!

Today I only had a few jobs and it left me some time to reflect on increasing door security (these are the things locksmiths muse about). A common mantra amongst the security conscious is that your total security is only as good as the weakest link in the chain. A good lock is only as good as the door and the door frame if somebody kicks your door.
The good news is that you don’t have to be a locksmith or a genius to improve your door security. You can certainly call a pro and get it done right probably, but you can also just buy a strip of steel and cut holes in it and screw it into your doorframe. One of my favorite sites has a walkthrough for how to do this.

Illustrating the idea is this wonderful video from a “master locksmith” in Atlanta:

I can also install a door jamb reinforcer for $60.  As mentioned above, you can do this yourself by screwing a strip of steel with holes for your strikes.  Or you could buy this thing for the same price as I charge to install one.

Don’t use kwikset smartkey!

I just bought this great key copier from a guy in Port Angeles who is getting out of the business.  I don’t know what he paid for it, but it looks like it must have been about $1000 after shipping.  He sold it to me for considerably less because he lost a retainer screw for the key stop that guides you where to put the key for copying.  It is the same retainer screw used in kwikset levers so I had a spare put in right fast.  A few small adjustments and I am in business.  The very first copy worked in my door.  I got curious about all of the various dials, though I think most of them are self-explanatory.  I wanted to make sure I understood this thing before I did something that would harm it so I emailed lockpicks.com and asked for the manual which they emailed to me.  Now I am in turn posting it so that anybody else with one of these doesn’t have to go to all the fake manual sites that are actually adwords spam farms like I did.

Many of you may have read in the news about the US government’s tracking of your internet and phone activities.  Some of you may use the common refrain, “I don’t do anything illegal, why should I care?”  I am interested in security and privacy.  My business has revolved around this from building fences to installing locks and modifying current locks and doors to increase security, and by way of increasing security, increase privacy.

My interest in secuirty and privacy extends to computers, and I am going to share a few tips on how to increase your security and privacy on your computer in the next few paragraphs.

Obviously you want to install a password on your computer, and probably want to install a password on your screensaver as well.  This makes it impossible for somebody to easily get your data if they break into your house and your computer is running.  To further improve this security aspect, have your computer housed in a desk that locks shut, and buy a computer case that has a locking door.  Also put a password in your BIOS.  And when you leave, lock your doors and windows.

To further improve your security, consider encrypting your home directory.  All of the major operating systems offer this feature.  This means that if somebody takes your hard drive home with them after a break-in, they can’t recover any data that was in your home directory without attempting to crack your password (you did pick a password with letters, numbers, and symbols in it, right?)

Use a different password for every website that has your personal information.  For forums or websites where you don’t care if somebody steals your password, use the same password but use a fake name.  Keep all of your passwords stored in a password keeper program like keepass.  Save your passwords in firefox but put an administrator password on your passwords that is difficult.

Put a password on your router and make sure it is wpa or wpa2 and has letters, numbers, and symbols.  There are rainbow tables for l33tsp3@k so don’t trust that.  Make sure that you install a scriptblocker like noscript and disable third party cookies.

Now that everything is encrypted and password protected, you may want to consider installing a proxy if you are concerned about google et al. knowing where you are browsing to.  Installing tor is a great way to anonymize what you are reading.  Install tor and then install foxyproxy in firefox and then run the tor wizard.  Then browse away.  One caveat: if you use tor, the NSA will automatically be barking up your tree.  The NSA probably also runs a few tor exit nodes as well out of interest in what people are using anonymous proxies in the USA for.

Don’t use smartphones.  They record everything you do and everywhere you go.  If you want to be private, use a dumbphone at the very least, and preferably use a landline only.  Who knows, all the warnings about testicular cancer and brain cancer from cellphone use may turn out to be true and then you would be ahead of the game.  If you do buy a smartphone, register a new email address with it that you don’t trust, and use cash when you buy a phone plan that is month to month, like simplemobile.  If you want to be really really private, buy the burner app and buy a new phone number to give out.

Don’t use social media like facebook and tumblr.  These are made to track you.  There is a reason you don’t pay for them: you are the product.  Your information is sold to advertisers to fund the expensive bandwidth and maintenance of these websites.  My rinkydink website hardly anybody visits costs a fair amount a month, so I hate to know what facebook pays per month for bandwidth.

If you follow all of this advice, the NSA will most likely be very interested in your behaviour.  If a lot of us follow this advice, the NSA will have difficulty tracking us.  They may remedy this situation by increasing their budget from congress but free software programmers will no doubt up the ante by releasing new and better tools for maintaining your privacy and security.  Good luck with maintaining these hard-to-find and disappearing facets of a free country.

Read this post and it will save you a service call from a locksmith.  Consult yourself for the best way to improve security in your home or office.  I sell locks to increase your security, but I will level with you: they are not the whole part of the story.  Criminals and most people in general are like water: they typically take the path of least resistance.  If you have an amazing $400 Mul-T-Lock deadbolt, they will go through the window.  They may also go around the house and kick the basement door in.  They won’t stand around picking your locks.

Therefore, when budgeting for a security increase, look at the whole picture.  Do you have a balcony with an open door or window near a tree?  Do you have large windows near your door that criminals could simply walk through?  Are your doors hollow-core, thin, and lightweight?

There is a saying that locks only keep honest people out.  I would like to amend it by also saying they keep lazy criminals out.  You can work to keep slightly less lazy criminals out of your house by making sure you have a good door, and a good door frame, for your lock(s) to work in concert with.

If you have windows in or near your door that allow a criminal to reach the thumbturn of your deadbolt, you should consider buying a double-sided deadbolt or get rid of the windows.

If you are concerned about people kicking your door down, consider getting a metal or heavy wooden door that opens out with concealed hinges.  To prevent bumpkeying or bumping your locks, consider hiring a locksmith to add heavy-duty springs to your locks.  Ensure that your doors are well-lit and that all doors have the same level of security.  It does little good to install expensive security if your neglected basement door is hollow-core and has a cheap “defiant” lock from home depot on it, and is in a dark stairway.  This is ideal for thieves to pry open without direct line of sight from neighbouring houses.

A final warning concerning overall security of your home: where are your keys?  Criminals know where people usually hide their keys and will check flower pots and door mats near the door.  They will also obtain keys from lowlives that work in concert with them, perhaps changing your carpet or installing a new garage door opener.  If you gave them a key, consider that key in the hands of the public.  To prevent them coming back with that key, whenever I rekey somebody’s house i recommend that they leave one doorknob in the back of the house keyed differently than the rest of the house.  Then, if you leave the deadbolt unengaged, workers can enter using the doorknob at pre-arranged times.  When they are done, simply use the deadbolt.  They or their friend cannot get in by simply unlocking the doorknob.  They will have to either kick in the door (difficult with a well-installed deadbolt with long screws reaching the stud in the wall), pick the lock (most criminals are not this savvy) or bump the lock.

Another possibility for this scenario is to have one lock be an LFIC lock, which means that you can easily change out the cylinder to allow temporary access with a different key.  When you want to disallow access with that guest key, change back to your home cylinder.

We can discuss these possibilities over the phone at no charge.  Or, if I have piqued your interest we can do a walkthrough of your home and discuss the best way to increase your security and therefore your peace of mind.

Anybody can open a car in under a minute if they have a few tools and practice.  It will usually set off a car alarm.  However, criminals who are really smart or have really smart bosses can also quickly and easily unlock your car and disable the car alarm.  If your car uses the keeloq or pkes systems, someone can copy your wireless transponder signature and unlock your car remotely just like you do.

You’ve already heard it but it bears repeating: don’t leave valuables in your car!  Especially not in view of windows.  It would be terrible if somebody smashed your window with a concrete block to steal $5 to fund their drug habit.  You have to pay hundreds of dollars to fix it, and you will NEVER get all the broken glass out of your car!

Why would I link the papers above?  A lot of the locksmithing and security world practices “security through obscurity”.  They like to put their heads in the sand and hope that criminals don’t learn their tricks, but with the internet criminals will find out and they will do it really fast.  Therefore, vulnerabilities must be published and talked about in order to allow people who own property protected by vulnerable security to fix it, and also maybe to shame manufacturers using shoddy security models to update them.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before software hackers eventually turned to the comparatively low-hanging fruit of automotive security.  The people who are consistently hacking ssl have turned their sights on the radio signals that allow one to open a car, and they have succeeded according to film footage in this article.

In the footage, people walk up with some kind of wireless key fob and open every vehicle of certain makes they point it at and steal lots of stuff without setting off any car alarm.  Car manufacturers appear to be stumped, as do security experts.  If there is a way to do this, the criminals that developed it aren’t sharing and they didn’t get it from some place like hackaday where exploits are discussed.

This is hard because the wireless key fobs use rolling codes to unlock the door which means that the thieves must circumvent the rolling codes or they must somehow record all of them.  You cannot brute force these because I believe the rolling code cars will stop listening if you do.

The current thought on how this is accomplished is either a taser or a bug zapper or something putting out a big spike of electricity to act on the solenoid in the car’s door that operates the lock.  Time will tell.  Until then, don’t leave anything valuable in your car!