[Moderator: Interesting article, but on the fringe..]
Forwarded From: anon <anon@hotmail.com>
Locksmiths may pose a threat to Society
Attention all Security Managers, your building may not be a safe place to
store your valuables. With the growing number of lock installations it is
becoming easier for locksmiths to access your property.
Experts agree that there is no lock good enough to keep out those very
skilled locksmiths, who have been dismantling and picking locks for
centuries.
"There is no such thing as a secure lock, so someone will always manage to
get past it." said Ofar Cue, Chief Security officer at Locks and Stuff
Technologies, a company responsible for ensuring the safety of valuable
equipment owned by other people.
The number of incidents involving this sort of crime are difficult to
track, mainly because some companies are afraid to admit to the public
that they have been burgled. However in a survey taken by the Secure Locks
Institute of Phoenix, companies have seen a dramatic rise in lock-related
crime, ranging from thieves using a bolt-cutter to cut through a padlock
(termed a "brute force" attack by the industry) to highly skilled evasions
of electronic locks.
The figures that were quoted in the survey found that nearly 80% of
companies interviewed admitted to being victim to some or other
lock-related crime last year, a rise of 23% over 1997.
"Frankly, this is unacceptable." said Roger Mee, an advocate for the
strict crackdown on locksmiths.
Many organisations fear an attack from without, by the steorotypical
locksmith: a young male who has just received his first lockpicking set
for his birthday and is intent on causing mischief.
A spokesmen for a locksmiths association refutes this image, saying that
what the public sees as a "locksmith" is actually a clueless kid who poses
no threat. "There are strict but unwritten rules on how to be a part of
the secretive locksmith community, a community based on skill and not on
race, religion or sex." he went on to say.
Locksmith motives range from the thrill of the challenge, the glory among
fellow compatriots, to financial gain and industrial espionage.
"We do it for the challenge and the thrill!" says LockBuster, whose name
is a pseudonym that keeps this young locksmith from being arrested. "We
never steal anything though. But there are people out there who do. They
are not true locksmiths."
The most dangerous of motives however is revenge by a former employee.
Professional consultants who are hired to test companies' lock security
agree.
LBM (Lock and Barrel Mechanisms) have recently set up their penetration
and attack lab, and claim that none of the members are reformed
locksmiths. A spokesman for the company had this to say: "Many companies
fear an attack from outside, but the main threat is from your employees.
It is much easier to compromise a lock from the inside, a fact which
recent lab tests have proved to us."
Ima Wan King, a lock security specialist at a Georgeville lock company,
has been on the scene for 25 years. He says that he has seen the locksmith
inspiration change over that time.
The locksmith mentality, which has been "fiddle but don't unlock" was
that of the "White Hat" good-guys locksmiths who point out a locks weak
points, King said. It now also includes the desire for valuable property
behind those locks or even terrorism, such as breaking a lock in such a
way to make it unusable.
There are indications that organised crime and international terrorism has
found its way into the community. With payoffs in the millions, locksmiths
who are responsible for lock installations are handing out spare keys and
allowing easy access.
Opponents of this theory however say that this is not much different from
the recently proposed government draft requiring all locks to have a spare
key made and handed to the government for safe-keeping. This is a serious
area of contention, and raises many questions, one of which is "Where do
we put the spare key for the safe that holds all the spare keys?".
King attends some of the locksmith conventions whose participants range
from "white hats" and government agents to people who wear floppy bunny
ears and skimpy bikinis and walk around serving drinks.
But he said, "The scary ones are the ones who aren't like that... They're
pretty professional and do it for TVs and VCRs. These guys don't get
caught all that much."
-o-
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Received on Thu Mar 11 17:26:58 1999