Another article on the KGB Security website shows how a fire resistant ‘safe’ is vulnerable to a $1.25 can opener and a kitchen knife. Never confuse fire resistance with burglary resistance. Check out the article and slide show here.

KGB Security (named for Kel, Geoff and Brock Phillips) in Queensland Australia has a nice article (and videos to boot) about bouncing a safe. If you aren’t familiar with bouncing, it is the technique of hitting or dropping a safe to temporarily displace the pin or bar which keeps the handle from moving. As pointed out in the article, you often get what you pay for when purchasing a $29 safe.

Check out the article and watch the videos here.

I will be speaking at Defcon 13 on two safe vulnerabilities, back-dialing and spiking. So, if you are interested in learning how to protect your safes (that sounds redundant, but isn’t), just hop a plane to Vegas during the weekend of July 29th – 30th.

You might think that the alt.locksmithing newsgroup would be a hive of leaked physical security secrets, but this is really not the case. Alt.locksmithing has long been frequented by professional locksmiths who both dismiss offhand any spilled information and spread misinformation in an attempt to confuse the readers.

However in 2000, a character called Freddie the Wire started opening talking about things which locksmiths had held as closely guarded secrets for years. The more Freddie posted, the larger the flame war became and the more Freddie responded with secrets. Suddenly information on drilling safes, bypass techniques, spiking, drill points, shimming padlocks, lock picking and impressioning was posted on Usenet for everyone to read.

No one will ever accuse Freddie of being a master of the English language and his postings should probably be rated PG-13 (at best). However, through the stilted wording and creative punctuation is a wealth of information.

Of course, Freddie’s legacy hasn’t gone away. Thanks to Google Groups, Freddie’s prose it still available today. Just a reminder once again that the Internet makes retrieving, retention and duplication of information (even locksmithing secrets) easy.

Today I was purveying the wares on eBay (purely for research purposes, I don’t have an eBay addiction, I could stop anytime I want, really). And noticed that this week (like many weeks out of the year) a wealth of information is available to the budding Safe Technician (or Safe Cracker, depending on your purposes).

Now, I must say that eBay tries to run a tight ship. For instance, they don’t allow lock picks to be sold on their service. However more obscure and complicated stuff, like safe and vault supplies & information, falls outside of their bans. Although unintentional, this is the equivalent of prohibiting the sales of handguns, but allowing bazookas.

As an example, here is everything you need to learn the (nearly) secret art of Manipulation (finding out the combination of a safe, just by moving the dial), including two practice locks:

LockMaster’s Manipulation Course With Practice Locks

If you are more into physical attacks on safes (i.e. drilling and drill points) you should check out some of these excellent books by various Safe & Vault experts:

Dave McOmie Penetration Party Book
The National Locksmith’s Guide To Safe Openings
Dave McOmie’s ‘Ask Dave’ Q&A Book

Of course, my purpose of posting these here is not for your shopping convenience (these items will be long-gone in a week, anyway) but to point out that the Internet has fundamentally changed the availability of once secret and proprietary information.

In short, anyone interested in the physical security field needs to realize that the playing field has been altered, radically.