Quite A Few Questions

[T-S]

Hello,

Just to give you a bit of background, right now I am studying Computer Science and recently I have become interesting in the computer simulation of physical events. Here are my questions (related and unrelated):

1.) What's the largest, most well known safe maker in the United States?
2.) How much formal research is done on new lock and safe designs?
3.) Slightly off topic, but I'm hoping a few people here might know the answer: are there companies or universities that do research on security engineering? Specifically, how to design buildings and structures to withstand physical attack.
4.) Do you know of any research being done on the modeling of safes under various conditions (high heat, high pressure, etc)?
5.) What type of Engineering is mostly closely related with the design of locks and safes? I personally was thinking Structural Engineering for safes, but I guess I'm not really sure.
6.) What is the largest most well known company for physical security consulting?
7.) Are companies still concerned about physical security? Do careers in physical security compare salary wise to careers in digital security?

Thanks!

-T

[hydruh]

Hi, T-S.

There are people here who have the answers to your questions.

But, just like barging into a room and barking orders, making a first post here with sensitive questions is frowned upon.

Fill out your profile, and introduce yourself in the new users thread and the group's perception of you will be a little better.

S

[T-S]

Hi, T-S.

There are people here who have the answers to your questions.

But, just like barging into a room and barking orders, making a first post here with sensitive questions is frowned upon.

Fill out your profile, and introduce yourself in the new users thread and the group's perception of you will be a little better.

S

Fair enough!

I certainly didn't mean to come across as barging into a room barking orders . I thought I would avoid that by asking well formed questions. But point well taken!

-T

[raimundo]

Structural engineer? for making the box and manipulating the materials used in it. (chubb has a plastic safe) but the locks are definatly either mechanical engineering or electrical engineering.
Mas hamilton X09 may be the best lock, its electronic.
I don't think the how much formal research question is an easy one for most people here, thats not the kind of information the companies freely scatter for others to learn.

There are companies and universitys that study structural strength and resistance, particularily resistance to explosive force, also angle grinders and oxyacetlyene heat. I have read about various companies, but no name come to mind, you have to use the google for yourself. be creative in your search terms, and you can find new search terms as you read up

[chev49]

Is for a research paper?

[Raymond]

These are truly crazy questions for someone outside of the industry. Locksmiths and safe men have been starting new companies for hundreds of years. The advance of new products and materials has been an incremental process all along. Every locksmith, tinkerer, engineer, or craftsman has some new idea how to improve some product. Some of the ideas make it to industry and some do not. Some get published for the benefit of all in the trade. Everytime someone builds a safe, a crook or legitimate locksmith figures out how to beat it. Kinda like those of us on LP101. Newer safe locks and hardplate are making it increasingly more difficult to open one in a manner that allows it to be repaired back to an equal status. It is still interesting to find manufacturers making CHEAP safes that can be opened by dropping. They still make $4.00 entrance knobs to protect your family and people are still buying them.

The bottom line is that you are going to have to interview many experts in all catagories before you will be able to put together any answer.

May it be a long and exciting process.

[datagram]

1. I believe it is Mosler for the actual safes and Sargent & Greenleaf for the combination locks.

2-7: Yes. It isn't like they made one safe and decided that was good enough. Every part of a lock/safe is designed to prevent some sort of attack. Google for the rest of the info you need.

dg

[T-S]

Great information so far here!

Is for a research paper?

No, just for my own education. I'm trying to make decisions about possible career paths; the more immediate side effect is choosing which classes to take at University.

These are truly crazy questions for someone outside of the industry. Locksmiths and safe men have been starting new companies for hundreds of years. The advance of new products and materials has been an incremental process all along. Every locksmith, tinkerer, engineer, or craftsman has some new idea how to improve some product. Some of the ideas make it to industry and some do not. Some get published for the benefit of all in the trade.

I think the questions are fairly reasonable for someone who might be interested in entering the industry? I am mostly curious about how physical security compares to cryptography in terms of research. For example, with cryptography, there is research on the academic, corporate, and government level. The whole process is fairly transparent and new techniques are usually made available. Of course, we have no idea what tricks the NSA has in its back pocket, but in large research on cryptography is fairly public. Physical security on the other hand seems difficult to get into. There does not seem to be too much public research going on, so I thought it would ask about it.

The bottom line is that you are going to have to interview many experts in all catagories before you will be able to put together any answer.

May it be a long and exciting process.

I have a feeling this is true as well . Thanks for the advice!

-T

[lunchb0x]

1. don't know, I'm not from the states, but in Australia it would be the 3 wheel S and G for combo and Lagard for digital
2.not sure, as far as I know for products to be sold they need to meet certain standards and one group that test the products are Underwriters Laboratories (UL) http://www.ul.com/
3.In Australia SCEC ( Security Construction and Equipment Commiittee) select security products that can meet the physical needs of places like customs, the defence force and the government, ASIO tests the porducts for SCEC http://www.asio.gov.au/Work/content/Equ ... sting.aspx
4.Yes, safes are put through certain tests to grade them, a safe going for a fire rating needs to meet certain standards, as does a data protection safe.
5. not sure.
6. not sure again, Chubb are fairly huge in Australia as are Honeywell.
7.Depends where you go with it, just being a locksmith can earn you a fairly good pay but specialising in something like alarms or safes would earn you a lot more.

[T-S]

Also something I forgot to add. As I sort of mentioned in #3, I'm also interesting in how buildings might be designed to withstand robberies or physical attacks. For example, how might you design the architecture around a hotel to prevent someone with a car bomb from being able to drive into the lobby and blow it up? Also, how might you design a bank to provide the vault with maximum security. Or how might you design an embassy to be defensible against robbery or forced takeover. Or designing a data warehouse so it is difficult to gain physical access to the servers with client information on it. Stuff like that.

[lunchb0x]

Also something I forgot to add. As I sort of mentioned in #3, I'm also interesting in how buildings might be designed to withstand robberies or physical attacks. For example, how might you design the architecture around a hotel to prevent someone with a car bomb from being able to drive into the lobby and blow it up? Also, how might you design a bank to provide the vault with maximum security. Or how might you design an embassy to be defensible against robbery or forced takeover. Or designing a data warehouse so it is difficult to gain physical access to the servers with client information on it. Stuff like that.

I think this might be getting a little bit too advanced now.

[jpb06080]

Also something I forgot to add. As I sort of mentioned in #3, I'm also interesting in how buildings might be designed to withstand robberies or physical attacks. For example, how might you design the architecture around a hotel to prevent someone with a car bomb from being able to drive into the lobby and blow it up? Also, how might you design a bank to provide the vault with maximum security. Or how might you design an embassy to be defensible against robbery or forced takeover. Or designing a data warehouse so it is difficult to gain physical access to the servers with client information on it. Stuff like that.

I think these are really interesting questions. I think you need to start off by implementing various types of security, layered on top of one another. As this site proves, no lock is impenetrable in and of itself. In combination with surveillance/security/obscurity however, one could design a system which is in fact extremely secure. Banks are a good example. High security locks on all the doors, massive doors on the vault entrance, maximum security locks on the vault itself, surveillance equipment in and around the building, and security personnel on site makes for a pretty secure location. Any one of these security measures is only so secure, but together they are quite formidable.

[T-S]

I think this might be getting a little bit too advanced now.

Yeah sorry. It's also a bit off topic, so if people think these types of questions are a bad idea, we can just stick to the safe/lock related ones.

-T

[Squelchtone]

I think the questions are fairly reasonable for someone who might be interested in entering the industry?

Well, I think I'd like to start by saying that we are not, nor do we represent the industry. We are hobby lockpickers who come from all walks of life and all types of jobs that in many cases have nothing to do with locks. Sure, some users here are locksmiths, but a lot are also maintenance dept guys, IT guys, college students, police, military, and many other jobs are also represented.

You are asking very specific questions which should be asked of a physical security consultant who has years on the job. I don't even think something like a fully stocked local locksmith shop would honestly be informed enough to answer more than a couple of your questions.

A good start would be your favorite search engine, and a couple hours of looking up manufacturers websites and their engineering department phone numbers. I have had the pleasure to call Medeco on several occasions and their engineers were very helpful on the phone. (I know you're dying to know, so I'll tell you that I called them about the UL437 standard versus the UL 51S stamped on a lot of their mortise cylinders)

Another thing you could do is call a trade organization like ALOA which is the American Locksmith Organization of America and tell them you're interested in the trade and would like to know some of the things you asked us.

As far as testing and proving of materials goes, the UL (Underwriters Laboratories) is the most well known organization in the United States. Give them a call and ask their people for some specifications and testing procedures on locks, safes, etc. One of the most well known UL standards is the UL 437 which relates to locks, and how long it takes to force them open or pick them. There's also the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) 156.30 and ANSI / BHMA 156.5-2001 standards and lock grade ratings.

A very good book to read would be Marc Tobias' LSS (Locks, Safes, and Security) which is a huge book of over 30 years of information compiled by an industry expert. Available his security.org website. If you email him these questions you may even get a 50 page reply to them. He's very detail oriented.

good luck with your quest,

Squelchtone

[ridinplugspinnaz]

With regard to your question about what types of majors / courses to take that will most closely align with your interests here, you'd probably be well-served by looking into courses in mechanical engineering in addition to your computer science studies. The deeper you get into reading about security and the people who do security analysis, I think you'll find a decent overlap with respect to these fields. One researcher that stands out in my mind is Matt Blaze, who has written papers on physical security using analogues from related problems in computer security and cryptography.

Additionally, if your college has a school of public policy, you may find faculty there that are receptive to your academic interests in security research. Often times it's the people charged with implementing the actual science that are more concerned with its implications than the scientists themselves, and I think that sentiment is certainly true in the realm of security.