Are there repeating keys by now?

[Robotnik]

Another compounding factor are the additional shear lines created by master keying.

I'll be somewhat oblique about this story, since it involves details about both my personal security measures as well as those of one of my company's buildings. Basically, the locks on my home are commercial ones, with the hardware and door modified slightly to work in a residential setting. Not exotic by any means, but nothing you'll find at a hardware store either; theoretical key differs are something in the neighborhood of 500,000. While at a building last week with approx. 200 units, I noticed they happened to use the same locks I did, and on a whim compared the building master to my key.

Four of the six bits matched. Since the building is master keyed, in theory my house key - one I had cut to code after personally pinning my locks - will open any unit door in some random building across town with a change key that includes the two cuts not featured on the master. Taking MACS into account, this is roughly 8 units

I'll never test this theory, for obvious reasons, but to the OP's question, yes, weird coincidences happen. Even excluding bad master keying schemes that have lots of unintended cross-keying within the system, at the end of the day, there are only so many different possibilities out there.

[DangerDane]

I wonder how many combinations that EVVA 3KS and the MCS has or the abloys for that matter.

[kwoswalt99-]

I wonder how many combinations that EVVA 3KS and the MCS has or the abloys for that matter.

3KS has 133,000,000,000 and Abloy Protec 2 has 360,000,000 I can't recall how many MCS has.
The locks with the most combinations are Kabas.
Kaba 8 has 5,790,000
Gemini has 149,000,000,000
20 has 726,000,000,000
Quatro has 2,530,000,000,000
Penta has 867,000,000,000,000
Star has 122,000,000,000,000,000

[Microwarrior]

The worst thing is big box stores like Home Depot or Lowes. I went in to get a Schlage deadbolt to mount on a practice board and I wanted some good bitting. I must have went through probably 10 or 15 packages that were all keyed the same! Since your neighbors are also shopping at the local Home Depot, just buy one of those deadbolts and you may just have a key to a house in your neighborhood. now that's scary!

Squelchtone

About a year ago I bought a few Kwiksets from my local Home Depo to modify, and got them open. Later that night, I was looking at one of the keys and found one that had particularly good bitting, but it looked familiar. I suddenly realized where I has seen it before and pulled out my own key chain. It was an exact match for my grandparent's who live in another state with a lock that probably hasn't been replaced in at least 5 years.

[kwoswalt99-]

I found a key on a school playground once, metal detecting, and it was my house key.

[jbrint]

All the bronze Kwiksets at HD today were all keyed the same. I never payed attention to this until joining this forum and its strange to know anyone shopping at that store buying that specific style/color is walking around with a key to at least 13 other peoples house in the same geographic area.

[cj101]

I once got a box full of locks from ebay containing several unsorted keys as well and found a near perfect match for my house door.

It is quite probable, that another person has your house key. A usual 5 pin lock only provides about 3000-50000 usable combinations. If 50-300 people with standard profile meet, the probability at least two of them sharing the same key is already 50%.

[ARF-GEF]

Back in the old glorious days of Soviet car making they didn't care much for car security. It's rumored they didn't have more than 100 different key bitings. :/
But luckily the fact that this heppened in a totalitarian police state it didn't cause too many thefts.

Wheterh it's true or not I'm not sure it's just an interesting story

[cj101]

Cars are and were most times protected by wafer locks. And a typical letter box waferlock has not more than 100 keys.

My brother bought some years ago a cheap electronic safe with an emergency lock. This lock was just a wafer lock with 7 binary wafers (only 0 or 1 bitting). Hence there are in total just 128 keys possible. Excluding trivial and unestically combinations there are just 100 combinations left. Hence the story sounds believable.

By the way, including jiggling the key a bit forth and back, a GM lock has not more combinations.

[kwoswalt99-]

Cars are and were most times protected by wafer locks. And a typical letter box waferlock has not more than 100 keys.

My brother bought some years ago a cheap electronic safe with an emergency lock. This lock was just a wafer lock with 7 binary wafers (only 0 or 1 bitting). Hence there are in total just 128 keys possible. Excluding trivial and unestically combinations there are just 100 combinations left. Hence the story sounds believable.

By the way, including jiggling the key a bit forth and back, a GM lock has not more combinations.

The typical cheap wafer locks over where I live have at least 3-4 possible cuts per wafer. At least that's what the key would indicate. They only have 5 wafers though.

I once got a box full of locks from ebay containing several unsorted keys as well and found a near perfect match for my house door.

It is quite probable, that another person has your house key. A usual 5 pin lock only provides about 3000-50000 usable combinations. If 50-300 people with standard profile meet, the probability at least two of them sharing the same key is already 50%.

I'm going to challenge the math here, a friendly challenge though. I don't think the probability would be even close to that high.

[billdeserthills]

Back in the old glorious days of Soviet car making they didn't care much for car security. It's rumored they didn't have more than 100 different key bitings. :/
But luckily the fact that this heppened in a totalitarian police state it didn't cause too many thefts.

Wheterh it's true or not I'm not sure it's just an interesting story

If you do any work on small airplanes you'll see much the same
I have seen many fuel tanks with higher security

[ARF-GEF]

If you do any work on small airplanes you'll see much the same
I have seen many fuel tanks with higher security

Interesting, I thought after you make an airplane you wouldn't skimp on the lock
I know it's not that sole lock stopping people from stealing them but still

[stratmando]

Alarm Contracting for years, A popular key was a Fort 204, Then later a new key was introduced, The BH 015, Its the same key, new number, Sure must be cheaper to change the number than the cuts on the key?

[stratmando]

Your key probably opens easily over 100 homes in the US It's getting dark now, time for you to go to work. Seriously, They will sell groups of locks so you can do your whole house with no locksmith. Pick a unique Number, look for difficult bitting. Had an old Ford Van, locked keys inside, borrowed Key to an LTD at the convince store, may had to rock and rake, was quick.

[Squelchtone]

Your key probably opens easily over 100 homes in the US It's getting dark now, time for you to go to work. Seriously, They will sell groups of locks so you can do your whole house with no locksmith. Pick a unique Number, look for difficult bitting. Had an old Ford Van, locked keys inside, borrowed Key to an LTD at the convince store, may had to rock and rake, was quick.

start, you just replied to a dormant thread who the last reply to was you in 2015... whom ever you are replying to is probably not a member here these days and they will never see your reply.

please keep an eye on the thread dates, thanks
Squelchtone