All you wanted to know about locks
Dear Friends,Registration is now open for the Dutch Open 2026 Impressioning and Lockpicking competitions, taking place in Arnhem on 27 and 28 June 2026. (Competition registration deadline: June 22 (23:59) 2026.) You can find the link to register in the text below. This year s event is focused on competition. Unlike previous editions of LockCon, this [ ]
We ve written about the January Lockpicking Challenge (originally from UKLS) the past few years. This year, due to circumstances, not many from Toool NL were participating, but I decided to do so and give it a little extra twist: I picked the alphabet! The locks picked were: Abus (3-pin), BKS, CES, DOM Sigma, EVVA, Federal, [ ]
Toool (or actually its predecessor NVHS) started in 1997 in Amsterdam. They met at the Hippie Hangout, a sort of hacker space, when hacker spaces did not yet exist. Later, they moved to a variety of pubs and even a sports accomodation. I have been going to these meetings from the start in 1997. Living [ ]
Yuri brought a dual custody money box to the What Hackers Yearn 2025 (WHY2025) lockpicking village, and challenged us to pick it. Several lockpickers gave it a fair attempt, but with limited tooling the box remained shut. After WHY2025 I ve brought it home, made custom lockpicks, and eventually managed to pick it and open the [ ]
The Toool lockpicking competition is held yearly from 2004 onwards. About 25 locks are selected and it is up to the Toool members to try and pick them at Toool gatherings. They can spend as much time as they like, and can retry to open a lock as often as they like. Scores are given [ ]
Dear hacker friends, it has been brought to our attention that physical bootleg copies of Locksport are in circulation. While imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, bootleg copies are a near 1:1 copy without any additions or changes. This is uninspiring freeloading. At the moment of writing, two official versions of Locksport by No [ ]
On November 14th 2024, the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) at Münster presented a tiny golden lock from around the year 400 (1600 years ago). This news was published on the 28th of January by the LWL, and widely shared. Most articles written on the topic used the smallest version of the photos they could find, and [ ]
Jan-Willem wrote about the UKLS January Challenge last year. This year, Thice decided to participate, as a way to learn how to pick more types of locks. I myself started a few days too late to make it a real January Challenge. Nkt sometimes skipped a day, but then made up for it the next. [ ]
This keyless padlock was sent to me by a friend as an impressioning challenge a while ago. At LockCon 2024 I was able to get some fitting blanks from a friend, so I could finally get to work. Below you can read about my experience with impressioning a key for this lock. First two attempts [ ]
The Dutch open lockpicking is one of the largest lockpicking competitions of its kind. In several rounds with ever more complicated locks the participants attempt to open the locks as quickly as possible to secure their place in the finals. The qualifier consisted of six tables with ten participants at each table. In ten rounds [ ]