Bump Keys - Discover Why Your Door Locks Are Probably Useless

By: Eric Graudins

You are about to discover something that scared the hell out of me. The locks I rely on to protect my family and my business can be opened without damage in seconds. By just about anyone, using easily found information about Bump Keys.

You don't need special tools. Or locksmith training. All you need is a normal key that you can file down with an ordinary file. Or you can buy a bump key on the internet.

Firstly - my philosophy. I don't believe in "Security by Obscurity" - where severe problems with the things that we rely on are covered up and kept secret for use by people who want to harm us. The technique of bump keying (also known as rapping) has been known for over 50 years. Lock manufacturers and criminals know all about it. While all of us poor suckers still buy crappy locks that we falsely believe will protect our families and possessions.

What's the Problem?

There is a fundamental flaw in the design of the pin and tumbler mechanisms that are used on commonly sold latches and deadlocks. Including those rated as "high security". This flaw makes it possible for anyone to open many of these locks - even deadlocks - very quickly using a technique known as "bumping" This technique does not damage the lock. All you need is a filed down key that fits into the lock, and some practice using a certain technique,

In a bizarre twist, the more expensive locks are actually easier to open, because of their tighter tolerances, and better quality. A Dutch consumer organisation tested over 60 locks that have been approved by the police as providing High Security, and found that most of them could be bumped open.

I realise that locksmiths and criminals have always been able to open locks without keys. But this technique allows almost anyone to do it. At first, I thought Bump Keying was a joke, so I spent a large part of a weekend researching it. Unfortunately I found that the technique actually works.

Imagine This. You arrive home (or at your business), unlock the door, and discover that everything of value is missing. Your new Home Entertainment system, Computers, Stereo Equipment, etc. etc. All gone. You are devastated. But that's nothing to what happens next. You call the police and your insurance company, and make a claim. The insurance company refuses to pay.

What's worse - they think you did it - because there is no sign of illegal entry, and your premises are protected by high quality locks. They might even charge you with attempted fraud. Not a nice situation for an innocent, recently burgled person to find themselves in.

This situation is apparently becoming more and more common. In Australia some companies will pay out on a theft claim where there is no forced entry, as long as the theft has been reported to the police. Some won't. (Check your situation with your insurer.) And even if your premises are not burgled, are you comfortable with the fact that someone can open your locks, come in and snoop around your house, and then leave without a trace? Bump Keys make this possible.

Bump Keying - The Proof.

NOVA is a well respected European TV program. They have made a video, which includes a full demonstration of key bumping, and comments from lock experts and police. Like I said, it scared the hell out of me - especially after I tried an experiment myself, and found that everything I had discovered was true.

I obtained a bump key, and practiced on the deadlock on my back door for about 5 minutes. After about 15 tries, I got the technique right, and the lock opened. Another 10 tries - did it again. Another 5 minutes, and I could do it almost every time. I tried another lock at home - and it opened. I then went over to my sister's house, and she was stunned when I opened her security deadlock at the second attempt. (total time taken for both attempts: - 4 seconds)

Not every lock can be bumped. I've tried 2 others without success. But experts estimate that the technique will work on the majority of commonly used house locks.

How Many People Know about This? Many Millions. There are lots of Internet sites and fully documented reports about the technique readily available on the internet. Bumping has been widely reported in Europe, and covered on several TV programs. The US magazine Newsweek also did a story on it recently, and it's all over the social contact sites that young people use.

What To Do Next

1. If you are concerned about this, go to your locksmith and buy a bump proof lock cylinder.
I understand that Abloy disk tumbler locks, and BiLock locks cannot be opened by bumping.

2. Do some research regarding the topics discussed here.

3. Take as much (or as little) action that you feel is necessary to adequately protect your family and property.

(source...)

Bilock Deadbolts - Special

For all the security conscious people out there, this is the Bilock Deadbolt. A grade 2 deadbolt available in brass, satin chrome (stainless steel), dark bronze. Supplied with your choice of keyhead colour. Choose from almost 9000 colours.
This is a totally bump proof and virtually pick proof lock. Each Bilock system is carefully designed to maximise security. Bilock offers total key control. Only a correctly authorised written request will be accepted to provide duplicate keys and only from the locksmith agent that set up the system.

Single Cylinder version $1 69.00
Double Cylinder version $2 29.00
Includes 3 keys.
Installation P.O.A.

LIMITED SPECIAL OFFER FOR THE NEXT 30 DAYS
BILOCK SINGLE CYLINDER DEADBOLTS $80.00 EACH

(Missouri residents pay sales tax @7.5%)
NOT INCLUDING SHIPPING

Email requests preferred.

You will receive a signature authority form to return. Unreturned forms will be unable to purchase additional keys in future.

USB Storage Solution

Following up on their CurrenKey ultraportable flash drives, Lacie has a new storage solution that will have you losing even more keys then you already do. This one takes the form factor of…keys.

These miniature microSD card readers offer 20MB/s read and 10MB/s write speeds. PassKey supports microSDHC cards, and both iamaKey and itsaKey are avaialable with 4GB or 8GB of built-in storage. It won’t start your car or get you into your home, but it may still scratch a lottery ticket and they are shock-proof and Windows ReadyBoost-compatible.

(Thanks SlipperyBrick)

Chesterfield MO Property Crime Rise

KPLR Channel 11 news in St Louis reported tonite on the alarming increase in property crimes in the cities of Chesterfield and Wildwood, today.

According to police reports, vandals apparently went on a crime spree, stealing 2 cars, breaking into houses, stealing purses and keys and going on joy rides in said vehicles knocking over 19 mailboxes in their path.

Chesterfield police report they have no concrete leads at this time.

Master Key Systems America are securing homes and businesses in the greater St Louis region. Our conveniently located Creve Coeur workshop and especially equipped service vehicles are staffed by competent and qualified technicians with over 25 years international experience in many facets of the physical security products and services industry.

As a neighbor, I am mortified that such crimes are occuring on my doorstep.

Protecting yourself, your family, your colleagues and your properties is vital in maintaining your property value, protecting insurance policies from increasing and the true well-being of everyone.

Method of entries, according to police reports, suggest burglars kicking in doors, accessing open garages and unlocked cars, taking pocket books and keys.

The daring burglars are becoming more desperate during these recent economic times and all citizens need to be wary and secure their properties.

We offer some unique and high quality, aesthetically appealing alternatives to maximise your security applications, including the Strikemaster II frame strengthener, Bilock Extreme Security deadbolts and locksets, Baldwin products and other unique products to help you provide your family and properties with the best defense from intruders.

(thanks KPLR11)

Warmer/Colder Find It All - Wireless Key Locator

A new product just released, widens the market of products in it's category.

The Find It All, offers a unique perspective.

Remember when we were children, we used to play the warmer/colder game? Where someone would hide something and make you look for it, giving you clues as to whether you were warmer (closer) or colder (farther away).

This new product, cleverly brings that old game to a reallity with this innovative method of a glowing light that increases it's strobe as you get closer to your desired object.

The set consists of 2 sturdy key chain tags and 1 very robust flat tag, so you can attach one key chain to your keys, the other to your phone and pop the flat tag in your wallet or purse (of course this is just a suggestion, it's entirely up to you exactly where and on what or who you choose to attach them).

Unlike other systems that are either a receiver or a transmitter - the Find it All Key Finder tags are both, so if you've got one, it will find the others for you. Clever huh?

Product Specification

Product dimensions (2 x key fob): 0.8(H) x 3(W) x 7(D) cm / 0.3(H) x 1.2(W) x 2.75(D) inches.
Product dimensions (1 x flat fob): 0.6(H) x 4.8(W) x 6.9(D) cm / 0.25(H) x 1.9(W) x 2.7(D) inches.

The Ultimate Key Finder set includes 2 x key fob receiver/transmitter units and 1 x flat fob receiver/transmitter unit.

Each fob is a two-way device, capable of signalling any other fob to beep and flash, helping you locate the lost item attached to it.

The flat fob comes with a lanyard and double sided tape for attachment to items such as a mobile phones, wallets, purses, bags, MP3 players, iPods etc...

To locate a missing object attached to a Find It All Key Finder fob, simply locate one of your other Find It All Key Finder fobs and enter the code corresponding to the item you are searching for. If the missing fob is within range (up to 10 metres / 30 feet) it will begin to beep and flash.

Find It All Key Finders also feature proximity detection, whereby the rate at which the fob used to locate another fob is flashing represents the distance between the two fobs. Therefore, the closer you get to a missing item the faster the LED light flashes.

Each receiver/transmitter fob unit requires a CR2032 battery (included).

(source...)

Poor Service

Recently, I have been called out on numerous occasions to repair/replace products on clients doors that were previously worked on by untrained and unknowing handymen, attempting to provide services without the knowledge, training or experience that professional locksmiths have spent years acquiring the knowledge for.

A particular example is this:

Client call us to rekey their locks on their home. We inform of our price structure over the telephone. An appointment is booked and our technician arrives early to the appointment.

The estimated cost is given again, prior to receiving the "go ahead" from the client.
Locks are removed from the doors and taken to the service vehicle for re-keying.

Upon inspection of the cylinders, many of the interior parts (the tumblers and springs) are missing. Prior to "fixing" the cylinders, our technician consults the client as to how recently the locks were worked on. The client responds that they were worked on by a handyman/carpenter just days before, but as the locks werent working properly, they decided to have a professional repair after the handyman refuses to honor any perceived warranty.

Due to the problems caused by an untrained "handyman", the cylinders take considerably longer and require more parts to "fix", yet the client has already been quoted a cost, so switching prices midway is unethical, inappropriate and not in the best interests of our company.

Repairing the cylinders does not take too much extra time, but due to the quantity of cylinders, extra time is multiplied by the quantity.

The client is always very happy with our services, because we honor our words and provide value for money.

Still, many customers choose to do business with an untrained person rather than call a trained technician, because of the price to value perception. It is true that sometimes you can benefit from having a handyman "also" do your locks....but they cannot and often do not (or are unable) to warranty their work. There is an old saying, "Pay peanuts and get monkeys", this should apply to anyone seeking to "cheap out" on their families or their colleagues protection.

Ezine Articles

I recently had an article published on respected Internet site EzineArticles.com.

It is an honor to have been accepted into a community of authors and people who have had an article published publicly.

Why join an article publishing site?
The exposure and free advertising that come with perception as an expert in your field are enhanced tremendously by third party facilities that are prepared to scrutinize your works and content and have them available to a broad cross-section of the world wide web.

It is another attempt at gaining a wider exposure, without necessarily paying for it.

What You Get For Sending In Your Best Quality Original Articles:

• Boosts Your Personal and Business Credibility:
  Getting published in EzineArticles.com boosts your credibility and begins the trust cycle with your readership. For many authors, being listed with EzineArticles.com is an excellent way to get started, especially if you are a published author or hope to be published soon. There is a book inside each of us waiting to come out.



• Builds Brand Equity & The Brand Called You:
  Having your articles featured in EzineArticles.com builds brand equity for you, your business, and your expertise. It begins or reinforces in your customers' and prospects' minds what you can do for them.



• Surges in Traffic to Your Website Like No Other Site Can Deliver:
  This is caused by the ezine publishers who come to our site throughout the year to pick up quality articles for their email newsletter or website in addition to our end-user base of millions of people who are looking to immediately benefit from your expertise. When your articles get picked up for reprints, you will often get a surge of traffic as your articles are introduced to their email list members or audience.



• Massive Exposure To The Hundreds of Thousands of Unique Visitors That Come To EzineArticles.com Daily:
  Your articles may be viewed by the (MILLIONS of visitors) that use our site every month! We work very hard to deliver a positive, fast and end-user obsessed experience that keeps our fan base returning for more.



• Receive Quality and Relevant Leads to Your Website:
  People who read your articles and click on your link(s) found in your Resource Box at the end of each of your articles are highly-qualified prospects by the very nature of how they found your website.



• 7-10 Times More Effective Than Regular Advertising:
  You become known as the expert by your article and this endears potential customers to you before they even visit your website. There is no better way to "pre-sell" your prospects than article marketing.



• You've Got A Head-Start on The Reciprocation & Trust Cycle:
  Your prospects are pre-sold as you have already begun the reciprocation cycle by giving first, through your expertise in your articles. When they visit your site, your qualified prospects will already know something about you and feel endeared to reciprocate, or at least check out your products.



• Market Your Business With No Face-To-Face Selling:
  Having your articles in EzineArticles.com allows them to pre-sell your ideal target prospects without you having to make any cold calls or face-to-face sales appointments to sell your products or services. It's not so much about making sales directly as it is qualified lead generation. We get the pre-qualified visitor to your website and then it's up to you to convert or monetize those visitors.



• You May Receive Free Ads in Targeted Ezines:
  Your author Resource Box at the end of the body of each of your articles acts as an advertisement for your business. When ezine publishers come to our site to pick up and reprint your articles to their newsletter base, you essentially get free ads in their newsletter. The better quality you put in your article, the higher your chances are of increased distribution by the ezine publishers who use our site to find quality content to send to their thousands or perhaps even tens of thousands of permission-based members.



• To Be Recognized as an Expert Author:
  When your articles are accepted in EzineArticles.com, you become recognized as an EzineArticles expert author. This adds prestige and perceived value by others when they view your articles in our site.



• Editorial Integrity - Your Articles Share Expert Company:
  Every single article submitted by the tens of thousands of expert authors who call our site home for their articles have been reviewed by our human editors who double check each article for quality (grammar, spelling, no dead links, etc). This ensures the company your articles keep has integrity.



• Improve Your Sales: (even if you're only selling an "idea")
  While this is not the only reason you should submit your articles to EzineArticles.com, it is a great one. It does not matter if you are selling products, services, or an even an "idea". EzineArticles.com can help improve your sales by bringing your business quality traffic and leads via the links in your resource box below the body of your article. Article visitors often turn into customers.



• Optimize The Promotional Mileage Out of Your Existing Article Archive:
  If you have already produced a series of quality articles, why not submit them to our expert community to get even more ROI from your efforts?



• Find Customers That You May Have Not Been Able To Reach Before:
  Every article you submit to EzineArticles.com is like casting a wider net to reach new customers and traffic that would have never found your articles or website before.



• Get Continual Traffic To Your Website For Many Years To Follow For Free:
  In the majority of cases, your articles will be in EzineArticles.com for at least an initial 180 days (6 months); however, many ezine publishers and webmasters who pick up your articles for reprints, including your resource box, will display your articles and links for many years. This means surges of traffic this year and many random spikes and continual traffic over the next decade. We have no intentions at this time to remove any articles after the 180 guaranteed-inclusion days, but reserve the right to keep our site fresh by removing articles that are no longer current.

Today, it is fundamental to business success to enjoy a presence on the world wide web. You can pay $$$ for that exposure or with a little patience and confidence in yourself, you can become an author and have your words of wizdom work for you instead.

My most recent article can be found here: The Trouble With "So Called" Experts

I also have had 2 other articles published:

Lock Bumping - The Truth!

How Much Does It Cost To Change Locks?

Master Keying - How it Works

BiLock's completely interchangeable core lock system (QCC) enables a lock

combination to be changed in seconds, provides second-to-none key controls, offers fast and efficient maintenance and large, virtually unlimited master keying system capabilities!

So-called "Master Key" systems have almost become a generic term. Real Master Key Systems that can incorporate Because it offers switch locks, perimeter locks, filing cabinet locks, garage door locks and virtually any lock on the market today are much rarer, and BiLock is very rare. BiLock offers virtually infinite combinations with tightly controlled security, it gives both the locksmith and the end user confidence and flexibility. It is the Company's understanding of what a true Master Key System requires that has positioned BiLock at the forefront in todays security market.

The BiLock key system utilises up to 12 chambers with 4 depths per chamber. The numerical sum of these combinations gives 16,777,216 actual key combinations per profile. Powerful Master Key Systems can be generated from these combinations. It also makes possible an authentic and convenient one key system for each individual user authorised to access any particular area, building or group of buildings.

Authorised BiLock agents use a computerised master key generation system, which allows them to build seriously complex Master Key Systems without compromising system security.

Master Key Systems America, a family owned company, have been servicing, manufacturing and installing BiLock Extreme Security Key Control Systems for over 20 years. Our conveniently located workshop and especially equipped service vehicles are staffed by competent and qualified technicians. Our use of the World's N0# 1 rated master-keying software, Promaster 5, complements our ability to design and maintain even the most complex systems.

Combining BiLock with our ranges of premium hardware, offers the discerning commercial or residential property, total security and key control protection.

With BUMP KEYS, being discussed very often across the world wide web and instructional videos abundantly available, to teach how easily the keys can be made and lock systems attacked, NOW is the time to thwart any chance of being a victim of bump keys, by installing the widely proven and oldest 100% guaranteed bump proof pin tumbler system on the planet!

(source...)

Call Us TODAY for your confidential estimate! (314)-266-1533