Controversial Opinion In New Article Suggests Why NOT To Recommend Or Buy An Amazon Echo Smart Speaker

A new article has appeared that discusses the authors reasoning about why you should think twice before purchasing an Amazon Echo smart speaker.

A group of hackers at the recent hacker convention Defcon Security Conference in Las Vegas, presented a discussion about the ease in hacking the Amazon Echo and using it to "listen" (spy) on anyone speaking within it's vicinity.

Apparently (and reasonably), the researchers informed Amazon in advance about their findings, prior to making the presentation at the conference.

Amazon had implemented a patch for their top selling product after being informed and a spokesperson for Amazon advised that the vulnerability required physical access to the product, to enable the hack. The security patch was released in July.

Of concern, is the fact that the researchers DID NOT have physical access to the devices in question. They only had access to the LAN (Local Area Network).

The article appears in the source below.

The reason we include this article in our site, is because Amazon Echo devices and other smart speakers are increasingly being used to operate smart home product including (but not limited to) electronic door security products, deadbolts, alarm systems, cameras.

Personally, I feel that the article should have been worded differently and that authors should think hard before directly vilifying another company's product offering.

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ZoreX - Gun Security At It's Finest.

We first wrote about this sensational product about 2 years ago when the Israeli startup first designed and produced their working prototype. Read the article we wrote here.

A recent article in Policemag.com is showing the wide acceptance and support of this unique security product that is simple, secure and functional.

It is very well known that the USA suffers from almost unequaled gun crimes compared to many other countries. The SCOTUS (Supreme Court Of The United States) even rewrote the second amendment to the Constitution of The United States of America in 2003, to reflect a contested opinion as to the meaning of the words therein. The modification to the amendment relocated a comma in the statement and in so doing, altered the complete meaning of the statement. The decision was voted 5-4 along political party lines. The ensuing years have seen greater gun sales and an almost prohibition of other laws or attempts to increase gun control rules in the USA.

This unique product has been carefully thought through and easily provides much sought after security for gun owners who desire to keep their arms protected from their children or burglars, without costing a fortune and without any difficult process to engage or disengage the lock.

It uses a simple combination mechanism to unlock, while allowing a gun to maintain it's loaded magazine. The gun owner can operate the weapon quickly and expertly without sharing the combination (easily). This in itself maintains the security of the weapon and complies with the second amendment right for all citizens to bear arms.

This next video shows how simply the product works.


Locksmiths and Gun Smiths (2 closely related trades) continue to offer security solutions to meet the needs of gun owning customers. Everything from especially constructed high-security gun safes, to trigger locks, to padlocks and chains. But with all these available solutions, there is still too much gun crime.

Zore provides a new unique and ultra-secure product that provides unparalleled protection of your firearm. The unique combination mechanism is virtually foolproof and completely able to be reset by the gun owner quickly and easily.

Read some of the reviews in the source below.

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Price Drop On Keyed Pocket Door Lock - While Stock Lasts

As the original importer and distributor of the Lockwood 7444 Keyed Pocket Door Lock in North America, we have decided to clear our shelves and discount the product.

We drop the price today to $120.00 from the previous price (12% less).

Shipping and handling has not changed.

While stocks last!


New Pricing Exclusively available at the link in the source below.

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The Locksmith Business Is Really A Global Business - Enjoying Globalization

Pictured here are some statistics showing the depth of penetration, our website has experienced globally over the last 8 years.

This chart shows the countries that lead the world in pageviews for our business.

Our business has been going a little under 13 years now but records available through our blog platform can only provide statistics since May 2010. Having started the website in 2007, we naturally have significantly more pageviews than reported in these charts.

Naturally, the United States leads the chart and by quite a significant amount. Obviously viewers in the USA are somewhat interested in what we have to say.
But you can see that many other viewers across the world also appear interested in our opinions and writings with increasing pageviews by many other countries too.

Listed herein are the top 10 countries and number of pageviews since May 2010,

 Here is a chart of the last weeks pageviews, to show that other countries are also showing interest in our articles too,

These are just the pageviews for the top 10 countries listed, as reported by our blog administration and just for the last week to Saturday 6/23/2018.

Writing a blog, I have found is the simplest method for new original content to fuel our exposure to the world wide web.

We have written well over a thousand articles since inception, on many products, services and locations that offer merchandise and expertise to help consumers, businesses, residents, governments, builders, building managers, real estate agents, aged care centers, hospitals and medical clinics, churches, temples, synagogues, universities and colleges to gain quality services and products at competitive costs.

Interesting too, is the amounts and types of differing operating systems that have found their way to our website.

Here is a chart that shows, over the last 8 years Windows operating system is by far the most popular choice for our visitors.

Obviously a Windows user still enjoys the full benefits of the modern day computer user interface, significantly more than other operating systems, but you can see that mobile operating systems are also putting in a good show too.

Interesting to note in the chart, is the prevalence of iPhone over Android. This may be due to significantly more iPhones used in the USA (and our other charts above showing USA as the largest geographic group viewing our pages)

It is quite well known that Android OS is far more widely used and adopted outside the USA, probably because it is more competitively priced than the Apple options.

Our final chart here depicts the usage statistics of pageviewers by browser choice.

You can see the period in the upper left of the image, May 2010-June 2018.

As mentioned above, we have been operating our business since December 2006 and the website since June 2007, so we are actually missing data from the early years (before 2010). We expect that our numbers will be significantly higher than what is shown,

You can see that Chrome enjoys a significant lead in market share, of pageviewers seeing our pages.

The number of browsers is an interesting statistic too. I had not heard of some of them (and I consider myself quite informed).














So, why do I post these images of the charts displaying readership of our site?

I post this details to show potential advertisers and post sponsors the value of your advertising or post sponsoring through our website and blog.

Restaurants require bums on seats and plates of food sold.

Cinemas require tickets sales of films and cartons of popcorn sold.

Locksmiths and hardware manufacturers require eyes and ears on their offerings and a dedicated site that offers almost 7,500 pageviews a month and across the world, can provide you and your offering a wide readership.

Contact us to learn about our sponsored posts and how (for a small fee) you can enjoy additional direct marketing for your product or service too.








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Morpho - Contactless 3D Facial Recognition Interface

We first discussed this product, way back in February 2008.

The Vision Access 3D Facial Recognition Interface was subsequently acquired by Idemia, a French company specializing in biometric access control devices. 

Under the company's brand name Morpho, they offer some different products tailored to the financial, telecommunications, identity, security and IoT (internet of things) industries.

With modern day technological products continuing to evolve, the market is flooded with many styles and types of devices to whet our appetites.

Morpho are part of a €3BN annual turnover company that has been around for many years and has earned a reputation for quality and longevity.

Based in France, they employ over 22000 people worldwide, with representation in about 55 countries, including the USA.

With customers desiring more efficient and higher quality access control systems, Morpho are the cutting edge industry leader in biometric products.

The Morpho 3D Face Recognition Interface (pictured above) works like shown in the video below...

The ability to enjoy hands free access control, using a local database of authorized face images offers commercial locations a superior and professional experience that is incredibly secure and very easy to manage,

Check the source below for more on the company.

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iOPEN - New Smart WiFi Operator Switch - A New Access Control Product

iOPEN is a relatively new product, currently exclusively sold by US Gate Supply of Southern California.

This exciting new product is designed to operate with about 90% of the current brands of automatic garage doors, mag locks, electric strikes and automatic gates available in today's markets.

This product is different to the wireless options otherwise being bandied about the markets, in that it is actually hardwired to your current product.

This product enables you to simply download the appropriate app from Apple's App Store or Google's Play Store.

Some pictures of it's uses include...

This is a typical residential garage door. You can see the app open on the users smartphone.

This an image of a type of gate you might find in upmarket real estate or perhaps a gated community.


You can also connect the product to your Amazon Alexa smart speaker or your Google Home smart speaker.

With the growing smart product market becoming an ever more staple of modern living, products that operate through the IOT (Internet Of Things) architecture framework are becoming the new sought after commodities.

For a professional, keeping abreast of products and industry updates, new technology and items aimed at improving our and our customers lives, is an important attribute in today's business age.

I like the idea of this new product and i think it could certainly see traction across the wider consumer marketplace.

Amazon Key, which we have mentioned a lot in recent times, purports to offer would-be Amazon shoppers the opportunity to enjoy new delivery methods from Amazon. We continue to warn consumers that using services like Amazon Key, can potentially reduce any security you may currently enjoy and even potentially increase your insurance premiums.

This new product might mitigate the threats posed by granting delivery drivers access to your home, by only enabling them to access your garage door, allowing you to keep the door connecting your garage and house, locked.

Apparently the app can allow for separate devices to operate through the one app, meaning your one smartphone now becomes the remote control operator for multiple separate entries.

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To Touch Or Not To Touch...

Yesterdays article, "Has Tapplock Collapsed?" is seeing viral circulation and obviously is hitting a nerve.

We have continued to write multiple articles over the last 10 years about pro's and con's relating to biometric and specifically fingerprint access control products.

As you can see by our above link about fingerprint products, there are many options available across the wider marketplace, hoping to cash in on the fingerprint recognition phenomena, as well as conflicting arguments i have suggested, that fingerprint access control also comes with severe limitations.

Our first foray into biometric fingerprint products was with the Bioaxxis Thumblock Deadbolt. Bioaxxis unfortunately couldnt survive the early years of the burgeoning fingerprint controlled door lock market. Their product was stellar. It worked very simply and was self preserving, even though they suffered from the debilitating issue of security control.

Specifically, the need to reduce or turn down the security of the image recognition of the scanner to enable sufficient operations of the product. This unfortunate attribute contributed greatly to the products demise and I suspect the wider market too.










The Tapplock article further reinforces the current-age issues relating to quality control. There is a penchant in recent years, especially since the beginning of the modern internet era, (Circa 1995 - And the beginning of Netscape Navigator - The beginning of The World Wide Web), to design and build new products without an element of care - but to quickly release to market to capitalize on new money. This unfortunate realization shows that the modern era, while showing significant improvements to our lives, is also moving far too quickly for our own benefits.

Bioaxxis also came out with their commercial product a year later. The Bioaxxis Thumblock Handle, with Key, Fingerprint, Proximity Pad and Digital Pad Entry, checked off multiple desires for total access control.

We installed and sold about 7 of these fabulous products until we recognized that biometric fingerprint access control technology was seriously flawed and the best market for the promising technology was in the aged care arena, where elderly users (who were constantly losing their keys and their ability to remember PIN codes) couldnt (for the most part) lose their fingers. The issues about scanner sensitivity almost killed the fingerprint market and combined with poor quality, rushed to market manufacturing from cheap manufacturing facilities abroad, has even seen stock market darling and leading technology company Apple, remove the readers from their most popular product the iPhone.

Touch control products have made their way into many aspects of all our lives, but I suggest that security is not one that we will see to continue, due to the obvious shortcomings.

I believe that facial recognition technolgy, Iris scanners and voice recognition will enter the mainstream far more rapidly and with better security features than fingerprint technology could have ever hope to achieve.

Key Cutting Across The World

Key cutting shops pop up all over the world.

The following images are of key cutting enterprises around the world. We have visited a lot of similar businesses in the different countries we have lived, worked and visited.

Feel free to add your images in the comments section. Post are subject to moderation.

If you recognize any of the locations, please mention where they are. Thanks.

You can see that key cutting goes hand in hand with hardware and locksmithing, but also engraving and other general mercantile many people require.

I have no doubt this shop in somewhere in England.

Talk about a hole in the wall!