Every year Las Vegas witnesses a strange site (ok, there are a LOT of strange sites in Vegas, just stick with me), thousands of geeks descend on the city for three days of Defcon. Defcon, now it it’s 13th year, features talks by some of the world’s leading hackers (and some hacks, like me 
), as well as, a number of unofficial ‘contests’. One of these is LPCon (LockPickingCon), which is now in it’s third year. LPCon pits dozens of lock pickers, organized into groups of six, against the clock trying to open a standardize lock.
(sorry for the poor quality camera phone shots)
Besides LPCon, there were a number of speeches given on lock picking and physical security. Deviant Ollam and fellow pickers presented an excellent overview of lock picking and some bypass techniques in their talk (the bulk of the presentation is available at http://deviating.net/lockpicking/ ).
(sorry for the poor quality camera phone shots)
A record 67 contestants at LPCon and the large crowds attending the various physical security presentations at Defcon seems to indicate an growing interest in lockpicking and other forms of physical security compromise in the hacker community.
Your talk on safe-opening techniques at this year’s DEFCON was one of the most interesting at the CON. I hope you are getting something ready for next year.
Thank you, it was a really great experience (except for the Las Vegas heat
). I am working on a couple of ideas for future presentations and hope to be back.
I also will be speaking at the 2005 Texas Regional Infrastructure Security Conference in Austin Texas (Sept. 19th through 21st) on the potential security risk posed by lock picking and door hardware bypass techniques.