Lock Picking Village by TOOOL.nl featuring Barry Wels and Han Fey

Set up and run by Barry Wels and Han Fey – the ORIGINAL FOUNDERS OF The Open Organization of Lockpickers (TOOOL Netherlands), attendees to this year’s event will get a chance to try their hand at picking, shimming, bumping, safecracking, and other physical security attacks. It has always been customary for TOOOL-sponsored physical security sessions to offer some degree of audience interaction and hands-on training. Sometimes this has taken the form of publicly-submitted locks being given on the spot security analysis, other times members of the general public with no lock-picking experience have been invited to attempt a bypass in order to demonstrate its ease.

When sample locks and picks are made available, the public inevitably finds most equipment astonishingly easy to compromise and comes away with a better understanding of how to protect themselves. It is in this spirit of educational fun that The Open Organization of Lockpickers has begun to organize “Lockpick Villages” at security events around the world.

All who participate are guaranteed to have a good time and to come away with a healthier and more in-depth understanding of physical security hardware.

About Barry Wels

Barry Wels earned his nickname “The Key” when he started picking locks around 1985. He co-founded the infamous Dutch hacker magazine Hack-Tic where he first started publishing articles on lockpicking. He has done talks and workshops at numerous European hacker events and at HOPE conferences for nearly two decades, operates a security consulting company, and is also co-founder of Cyptophone, a secure mobile phone company. As with mechanical locks, Barry believes in security through transparency, not obscurity.

About Han Fey

Han Fey is a mechanical engineer and a passionate lock collector from Europe, with more than 3000 different (pad)locks. He is well-known for his in-depth articles on high security locks (downloaded at http://www.toool.nl Because of his articles and reputation, lock companies worldwide invite him to their factories and ask his advice on improving their lock products. Han is also very active in lock R&D, testing, forensic research and training people in the lock and security industry.