Understanding the Importance of a Reliable Safe
Lessons in security: Why Choose a Safe for Secure Storage?
When you need a secure storage space, a safe is the first choice. But what makes a safe and reliable? This article explores the answer from a hacker’s perspective rather than a consumer’s. What a hacker avoids is where an engineer can find the foundation for perfecting their product.
Insights from Hackers: Enhancing Safe Security
Learning from Skilled Locksmiths
If I were a hacker, nothing would be better for developing my knowledge and skills than observing skilled locksmiths at work. Locksmiths encounter various requests and objects in their daily work. Customers ask them to duplicate keys, open locks, or safes with lost keys, forgotten codes, or dead batteries. All these tasks require extensive knowledge and skills.
The 10,000-Hour Rule in Mastering Safe and Lock Security
In the book “Outliers” published in 2008, Malcolm Gladwell wrote, “10,000 hours is the magic number of greatness.” The principle suggests that 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” is necessary to become a world-class master in any field. Safes and locks require even more than that because new products constantly emerge based on real-world problems. If you stop learning, you get stuck and eliminated. The knowledge base of safes and locks is continuously expanding, and it relies on the latest scientific research.
The Journey of a Locksmith: Skills and Challenges
The Path to Becoming a Master Locksmith
Many street locksmiths have worked there all their lives, while 10,000 hours equate to about ten years of work. It’s unlikely they started as geniuses in unlocking; their practice, analytical skills, and professional knowledge database are daily accumulations. With locks, it’s harder than other professions because there is no formal and specialized training school; it’s all about observation and self-study, and the best elementary school seems to be street shops. To become a master, like in any other field, requires the ability to self-study and adapt to high-pressure working environments.
Essential Skills of a Locksmith, Lessons in Security
So, what skills does a real locksmith have, and what problems do they fear?
Lessons in Safe Security: From Locksmiths to Engineers
Lesson 1: Leveraging New Principles in Safe Design
To unlock, they need knowledge; they understand the general principles, which is the minimum requirement. When looking at a lock, they can immediately classify its operating principle, and the next intervention depends on this assessment. So, if they encounter a completely new type of lock, they will be confused. Their experiments will apply past experiences to see how it respond. Their knowledge has no data on it, and the available tools are also unsuitable. This is a point engineers should take advantage of. The lesson here is that a new principle always causes more difficulty than upgrading an old one. In reality, the front-drive disc lock applied to safes, although scientifically designed, loses its defensive edge due to its familiarity to those experienced with the model.
Lesson 2: Upgrading Existing Lock Mechanisms
The second lesson is upgrading existing principles. For example, single-row pin tumbler locks have been upgraded to double, quadruple, and now eight-row pin locks. The difficulty is that you can’t pick each row of pins because you only have two hands. This is just an example because this lock can be opened relatively easily with an eight-cut key blank and a rubber band. However, the shackle lock with cut resistance is a far more successful design; it hides the lock ears and shackle and will alarm if tampered with. Its success lies in its anti-tampering design. If you can’t approach it, special measures are needed. This is another lesson.
Lesson 3: Implementing Anti-Testing Techniques
The third lesson is anti-testing. Unlike anti-tampering, which prevents any approach to cause an impact, anti-testing only partially restricts access. It allows partial access to the device or process but does not reveal the rest. It also does not respond to external interactions, creating no feedback. This high-level technique is applied in high-end locks like those from RDIP. It’s like talking to a mute and deaf person with no feedback to your questions, leaving you unsure of what to do next until you give up.
Conclusion: Enhancing Safe Security through Continuous Learning
The Future of Safe and Lock Security
It should be noted that locksmithing is not an attractive profession in many aspects; few dream of becoming locksmiths. Most are career changers and self-taught right on the sidewalk. Many understand mechanical locks deeply because they are old and intuitive, and some understand electronic locks. But few truly understand how electromechanical locks work. This is the first point to exploit: creating mixed barriers to eliminate experts lacking the necessary knowledge and experience. A new principle not only eliminates knowledge and skills but also invalidates specialized tools.
Continuous Improvement and Innovation
The second lesson is upgrading existing principles. For example, single-row pin tumbler locks have been upgraded to double, quadruple, and now eight-row pin locks. The difficulty is that you can’t pick each row of pins because you only have two hands. This is just an example because this lock can be opened relatively easily with an eight-cut key blank and a rubber band. However, the shackle lock with cut resistance is a far more successful design; it hides the lock ears and shackle and will alarm if tampered with. Its success lies in its anti-tampering design. If you can’t approach it, special measures are needed. This is another lesson.
Key Takeaways for Engineers and Safe Designers
Adopting New Principles and Techniques
The third lesson is anti-testing. Unlike anti-tampering, which prevents any approach to cause an impact, anti-testing only partially restricts access. It allows partial access to the device or process but does not reveal the rest. It also does not respond to external interactions, creating no feedback. This high-level technique is applied in high-end locks like those from RDIP. It’s like talking to a mute and deaf person with no feedback to your questions, leaving you unsure of what to do next until you give up.
