This month’s Wired features a tremendous narrative article about an international lock-pickers’ competition in Holland, with this stupendous quote that’s practically a koan about how to practice security: “‘People trust their lives and safety to these locks. But most locks are garbage. Look around, they’re easy to open. Not knowing that doesn’t make you safer.’ Tobias rolls his eyes and waggles his head incredulously. ‘I mean, what do people want – security through ignorance? Wake up.'”
It’s 20 hours before the third annual Dutch Open lock-picking competition will begin, but the room is already packed with 50 or so men and women wielding burglar tools and representing the international steel bolt-hacker diaspora. By the kitchen you’ll find Jean-Marie, a debonair French military “surreptitious entry” instructor in a black commando sweater, chatting with a lock enthusiast about his collection of Abloy disc tumblers. At the door is Barry Wels, the event’s host and a coinventor of the CryptoPhone. He’s hacking an expensive, high-security, dimpled Mul-T-Lock using only a filed key and a steak knife handle. Behind the bar, a pair of locksmiths are speculating about which of the newbies is really an undercover cop. By the pool table, a gaggle of Dutch programmers probes the latches of a combination padlock with a broken tape measure, while behind them a German cyberpunk sells a hand-milled Kryptonite skeleton key to an American satellite engineer: 100 euros – cheap.