How to Make Friends & Influence Lock Manufacturers

Architecture and Background

Schuyler Towne & Jon King: How to make Friends & Influence Lock Manufacturers Locksport is growing up in America. In this talk we will explore four case studies demonstrating how the community has leveraged itself to bring about significant advances in the lock industry. We will demonstrate exploits discovered in both Medeco and ABUS high security locks and discuss how Kwikset's Smartkey system responded to the spread of information about bumping and how they plan to work with the community in the future.

Vulnerability Analysis

We will investigate the Robo-Key System, a new lock that has been developed in an open source atmosphere alongside the locksport community. Finally, a plea to the hacker community to help us continue the work we've started researching locking systems as more move into the electronic and digital realms and fostering positive relationships with the manufacturers. Schuyler Towne is a competitive lockpicker, TOOOL member, and Executive Editor of NDE Magazine.

Exploitation and Demonstrations

He has spent the last year trying to resolve the ethics of responsible disclosure in physical security and bridge the gap between locksport and lock manufacturers. Jon King is a locksport enthusiast currently serving in the US Navy. He has no experience as a locksmith nor does he hold any professional certifications of any kind.

Remediation and Defensive Strategies

Instead, he enjoys what most locksmiths do not; the hacker spirit. He spends his free time analyzing and defeating high-security mechanical locks. For copies of the slides and additional materials please see the DEF CON 16 Archive here: