First, I would like to say greetings and welcome to LP101. I'm a moderator here and wanted to extend greetings.
The barrel locks you are referring to are in fact known in "corrrect"
vernacular as "tubular" locks. Companies that produce these locks include Chicago, Fort, Medeco, among others.
The uses for this type of lock are immense, extending even to Harley Davidson motorcyles, cabinets, vending machines (as you mentioned already), switches for various components, safes, and a variety of other devices.
If I get the chance today I'll stop by a computer shop and take a look at the Kensington cables, which are indeed tubular locks as you suggest.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that there are several different kinds of tubular locks including the following:
1. 7-pin center. (The most common locks)
2. 7-pin left offset & 7-pin right offset.
3. 8 pin
4. small format 5 & 7 pin.
5. Several varieties of high security tubular locks.
The seven pin tubular lock pick such as offered by Southord, HPC, Rytan, and others will take care of the most common tubular locks that you will find. Others will require tools specific to the type of lock that you may run into. You'll have to determine the type(s) of locks that you have.
If possible, you can post pictures or links to pictures of the locks you have in these forums, and we'll help you out with the tools you'll need.
Hope this helps, and once again, welcome to LP101.
