Should I learn electronic locks? are they the future?

[jaime_lion]

So I live in South Dakota USA and I called up a local locksmith and asked if they were hiring and about learning more info on locksmithing and such. He said that if I was seriously thinking about becoming a lock smith that I should focus on electronic locks because that is the future. I am wondering is this the consensus out there that electronic locks are the future and pin tumbler locks are disappearing?

Thanks

[Silverado]

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, and not a citation of any official study or document.

I feel like once the drawbacks and weaknesses of electronic locks are better known and more popularly exploited the good old fashioned mechanical (man-powered? ANALOG!) locks will remain the go-to.

Currently, wifi enabled "smart" locks are pretty much only as secure as your home wireless network. Anyone with the technical chops to hack a wireless network, which is not hard, can get them opened. If you read any articles on the vulnerabilities of "smart" or "connected" homes and home products you will see that they're not as secure as they seem.

I would definitely recommend learning more about electronic locks, RFID, biometrics, and all the other facets of electronic security but I think lock and key will be around for a long time yet.

Biometric security is making serious advances and getting harder to "hack" as it were. If we boil it down to the basics, there's still a locking mechanism whether it be an electromagnet or a deadbolt of some sort. That locking mechanism has a trigger, actuator, current, or motor to drive, move, engage, or disengage the mechanics of it. This can get really in-depth as far as that goes but what it comes down to is there will always be a way circumvent the weakest link of the security chain.

[ltdbjd]

I don't see keyed locks going away. They have already been around for 2.3 million years. Maybe not quite that much, but a long time.

Just my personal opinion, but I think you need to learn basic locksmithing first, then move on to electronics. I do believe you should know about electronic locks. Even if you don't install them, the knowledge is helpful. For that matter, all knowledge is helpful. We should all learn as much as we can about our respective fields, and then about closely related fields. You can't have too much knowledge.

[cledry]

Yes, they are correct. Not only electronic locks like combination locks, RFID, etc but the electronics of things like delayed egress exit devices, local alarmed exit devices, electronics in things like door operators etc. We do more and more of this and the money is good too. However the vast majority of our work is still mechanical.

Each have their place. Try pulling an audit trail from a mechanical lock.

Try having 400 unique users and scheduling events for each of the 400 with a mechanical lock.

How about opening a door in Europe while you are in the US or changing the key for the same?

[Sinifar]

The real danger in electronic locks is basically they contain some kind of computer link / drive. Having said that - the daughter is the security VP for a local hospital chain. Ask her if anything is "secure" and you will get a good half hour talking about the ease of breaking into anything electronic. The grand daughter just graduated from U. Wisconsin, at Wisconsin. Her degree? Computer Security just like mom's. With two in house I know a thing or two about this whole thing, --- Z wave , and all the other methods of "blue tooth" data transfer -- not only can you hack them, but if you suspect somebody is using one, and you wish to hack it, you can "spoof" the thing, or set up a remote "reader" to capture the signals and then use that data to get around the security. ASK the dau ....

It is only because it is "COMPUTER" which everybody equates with modern or up to date.

Once the novelty of this thing wears off, or there is a serious incident with somebody spoofing the thing, will it go away as a nice idea, but too dangerous to use. ### 2 - JUST think if the cops wanted to enter your home to serve a warrant, and they had the black box -- I am not sure what it is called, but there is one -- just like that you got company without having to make a big noise telling you -- "YOU GOT COMPANY!" ...

Just my 2 cents for today -- look into it.

Sinifar

[jaime_lion]

The real danger in electronic locks is basically they contain some kind of computer link / drive. Having said that - the daughter is the security VP for a local hospital chain. Ask her if anything is "secure" and you will get a good half hour talking about the ease of breaking into anything electronic. The grand daughter just graduated from U. Wisconsin, at Wisconsin. Her degree? Computer Security just like mom's. With two in house I know a thing or two about this whole thing, --- Z wave , and all the other methods of "blue tooth" data transfer -- not only can you hack them, but if you suspect somebody is using one, and you wish to hack it, you can "spoof" the thing, or set up a remote "reader" to capture the signals and then use that data to get around the security. ASK the dau ....

It is only because it is "COMPUTER" which everybody equates with modern or up to date.

Once the novelty of this thing wears off, or there is a serious incident with somebody spoofing the thing, will it go away as a nice idea, but too dangerous to use. ### 2 - JUST think if the cops wanted to enter your home to serve a warrant, and they had the black box -- I am not sure what it is called, but there is one -- just like that you got company without having to make a big noise telling you -- "YOU GOT COMPANY!" ...

Just my 2 cents for today -- look into it.

Sinifar

So I know a little bit more about this type of stuff than picking locks. I have dabbled in coding and found it wasn't for me. I also have repaired computers and such. The thing I love to do is troubleshoot. x is not working but it worked fine yesterday why is x not working?

Forgive me if I am mistaken but it seems like you feel that electronic locks are just a fad? All locks have weakness's whether they be pick-able or physically breaking the lock or door or hack-able or crawling through an unlocked or open window or breaking that window.

I as a customer would much rather have a lock that had a code or bio-metric like fingerprint or iris scanner in it to unlock just so I would not have to carry around keys. At the most I would want to carry around 1 RFID or such device to unlock all the locks I needed.

This does bring up the question I have been wondering. Should I learn lock picking if it is becoming an antiquated skill? I already have enough of those as it is. lol This is more of a rhetorical question you guys don't need to answer this.

[cledry]

Here's something to ponder. The top security on vaults is not a mechanical lock, it is electronic. The US government uses these locks to secure their most important information, the military use them to secure weapons and sensitive information, defense contractors use them to secure rooms.

[GWiens2001]

Here's something to ponder. The top security on vaults is not a mechanical lock, it is electronic. The US government uses these locks to secure their most important information, the military use them to secure weapons and sensitive information, defense contractors use them to secure rooms.

And the electronic locks fail frequently, for a variety of reasons. The government GSA containers now have an option of a GSA approved mechanical lock, as well as the Kaba Mas X-10 electronic lock.

Gordon

[cledry]

Here's something to ponder. The top security on vaults is not a mechanical lock, it is electronic. The US government uses these locks to secure their most important information, the military use them to secure weapons and sensitive information, defense contractors use them to secure rooms.

And the electronic locks fail frequently, for a variety of reasons. The government GSA containers now have an option of a GSA approved mechanical lock, as well as the Kaba Mas X-10 electronic lock.

Gordon

Failure is more common but not that common in my experience however security is not compromised when they do fail. I've had only one failure. They aren't less secure than the mechanical option was my point, in fact they are more secure.

Plus how do you make a supervisor - subordinate set up on the mechanical lock and maintain the same level of security as the electronic version? Can you make a mechanical lock dual control? The X10 can be set up in true dual user to give 500 billion possible combinations.

Can you pull an audit on a mechanical lock?

What about wrong try penalty lockout?

It also auto relocks.

So both mechanical and electronic locks have a place in locksmithing.

We need to learn both to be well versed in the trade.

[Tyler J. Thomas]

We need to learn both to be well versed in the trade.

Bingo.

OP, a successful locksmith in 2016 and beyond should be a hybrid of a low voltage electrician, a carpenter, and a machinist. Proprietary hardware, electrical or mechanical, won't stump you if you have an understanding of the fundamentals. There's only so many ways to skin a cat in this industry and you don't know have to know each and every method (although that wouldn't hurt) if you know the end game, so to speak.

[jaime_lion]

We need to learn both to be well versed in the trade.

Bingo.

OP, a successful locksmith in 2016 and beyond should be a hybrid of a low voltage electrician, a carpenter, and a machinist. Proprietary hardware, electrical or mechanical, won't stump you if you have an understanding of the fundamentals. There's only so many ways to skin a cat in this industry and you don't know have to know each and every method (although that wouldn't hurt) if you know the end game, so to speak.

So I guess this brings up a second question do locksmiths generally do things like install doors and stuff? Are there locksmiths that just repin keys and pick locks and such?

[cledry]

We need to learn both to be well versed in the trade.

Bingo.

OP, a successful locksmith in 2016 and beyond should be a hybrid of a low voltage electrician, a carpenter, and a machinist. Proprietary hardware, electrical or mechanical, won't stump you if you have an understanding of the fundamentals. There's only so many ways to skin a cat in this industry and you don't know have to know each and every method (although that wouldn't hurt) if you know the end game, so to speak.

So I guess this brings up a second question do locksmiths generally do things like install doors and stuff? Are there locksmiths that just repin keys and pick locks and such?

Yes there are locksmiths that just do automotive, some just do residential rekeys and a basic bit of commercial works, others do doors etc. We happen to also install commercial doors, but it isn't a big part of the business, maybe 40-50 a year. We don't do door frames any longer but we used to. We sub frames out now.

[Kingpj]

One thing I learnt in the military is that any system can be defeated with the appropriate application of force.

[Squelchtone]

One thing I learnt in the military is that any system can be defeated with the appropriate application of force.

While that's true and a fun sounding anecdote, you just woke up a post from 2016 to make that comment.

We normally let sleeping dogs lie, unless the new reply answers a long unanswered question, or is a follow up from the original poster or people in the original conversation.

Either way, welcome to the forum, glad to see you poking around all the threads.

Squelchtone