Kevin McPeake

Talk Title

Lockpick Village

Abstract

Want to tinker with locks and tools the likes of which you’ve only seen in movies featuring police, spies, and secret agents? Then come on by the Lockpick Workshop, conducted by TOOOL - The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers, where you will have the opportunity to learn hands-on how the fundamental hardware of physical security operates and how it can be compromised.

The TOOOL Lockpick Workshop is a physical security demonstration and participation area. Visitors can learn about the vulnerabilities of various locking devices, techniques used to exploit these vulnerabilities and practice on locks of various levels of difficulty to try it themselves.

TOOOL member Kevin McPeake will be on hand to demonstrate and plenty of trial locks, pick tools, and other devices will be available for you to handle. By exploring the faults and flaws in many popular lock designs, you can not only learn about the fun hobby of sports picking, but also gain a much stronger knowledge about the best methods and practices for protecting your own property.

Bio

With more than two decades of professional experiences under his belt in the field of computer and technical security, digital forensics, risk management, industrial counter-espionage, fraud management and revenue assurance, Kevin McPeake is also an avid lock picker and member of TOOOL, the Open Organisation of Lockpickers. Kevin has been long passionate about understanding the different strengths and vulnerabilities of physical locks, and most importantly, what makes a good lock, and what doesn’t, and sharing the knowledge about this in ways that can even positively effect communities. In the past 6 years, Kevin has organized regular lockpicking workshop for fellow employee staff as well as for his community in The Hague. And when knowledge of a known and easily exploited weakness in front door locks installed on many social housing units in his neighbourhood fell victim to a sudden increase in exploration by criminals, together with his local WijkAgent (neighbourhood police representative), he worked to empower his local neighbourhood into getting better support, and action, from the local social housing authority. This ultimately, helped to bring to a close, the sudden local rash of break-ins that had sky-rocketed the year before as his community became more aware of not just the vulnerabilities of their existing locks, but how to choose better locks, and why to do so, as well as a better understanding of what was actually permitted by the Social Housing Authority.