The Final Solution to Medeco3 Locks

[frog]

A biographical article on premium-brand lock-picker and security expert Marc Weber Tobias, now famous for cracking Medeco's high-profile high-security lock, used by governments around the world for very sensitive places (see: the Pentagon). A very interesting read, with videos showing his nimble fingers at work. Excerpted from http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-06/ff_keymaster?currentPage=all

"But Tobias isn't crazy. Far from it. He's a professional lock breaker, a man obsessively—perhaps compulsively—dedicated to cracking physical security systems. He doesn't play games, he rarely sees movies, he doesn't attend to plants or pets or, currently, a girlfriend. Tobias hacks locks. Then he teaches the public how to hack them, too.

Like many exceedingly bright people, Tobias has the exhausted air of a know-it-all. Over dozens of dinners, he has walked me through how to pick simple locks ("Uh, is there something wrong with your hands?") and bypass combination dials ("A brain-damaged monkey could do it faster"). He has described how to outwit security technologies like motion detectors ("Duh"), face-recognition software ("It's stupid, even if you think about it!"), fingerprint scans ("What child came up with that?"), and heat sensors ("You can get this one—maybe").

We've covered key card hotel locks over seafood, in-room credit card safes over sandwiches. While we ate a decent steak dinner, Tobias used the house crayons to diagram one of the largest jewel robberies in history; over dessert, he showed me how a person less honest than himself would pull the heist again."

[Phreakazoid]

  wow i wouldnt expect simple everyday techniques to work  on something they use for high security

[Magus]

I read this not too long ago.
Actually, I was going to post a link to it on here but I guess I forgot.

It's pretty funny how Medeco apparently didn't expect the guy to hack their lock,
But then they started freaking out and changing everything the second that he did.
I mean, seriously, did they really think that NOBODY would ever figure it out?!

[RTF]

I've had the pleasure of meeting Marc Tobias a few times.  He's just as much of a force of nature as the article makes him out to be.

[Shib]

I am not that impressed.. the M3 has a side bar that can be bypassed, you will still have to pick each pin but it makes it much easier for aliging the side bar. I have also seen a tool that will rotate the pins into the correct alignment (the medecoder). As for the bumping, I am not that impressed. They have uncovered a way to narrow the number of bump keys down to about 9. So if you try all 9 bump keys generaly you will find one that works.

[frog]

I am not that impressed.. the M3 has a side bar that can be bypassed, you will still have to pick each pin but it makes it much easier for aliging the side bar. I have also seen a tool that will rotate the pins into the correct alignment (the medecoder). As for the bumping, I am not that impressed. They have uncovered a way to narrow the number of bump keys down to about 9. So if you try all 9 bump keys generaly you will find one that works.

You didn't understand the article, did you. Oh well, YOU SOUND AWESOME AT LOCK-PICKING!

[gangals]

Fr0g! Oh I've missed your replies.

[trevelyn]

Fr0g! Oh I've missed your replies.

Gangals!! I've missed your replies!


oh and awesome article Frog, a few days ago i got to go out to my gf's restaurant and pick 2 locks, that they lost the keys for, which kind of sparked my interest once again in picking.  This article you shared inspired me much more, thanks.

EDIT:
LOOK PROPAGANDA!
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/hr23tpWX8lM&rel=1" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/hr23tpWX8lM&rel=1</a>