A well known security lock specialist and lock picking hobbyist Barry “The Key” Wels recently joined the blog community by starting his own blog.

Barry is a Netherlands native, where he is the national lockpicking champion. It takes him about 10 seconds to open the kind of lock you might use to secure your luggage.

Bigger locks might take Barry a minute or two. He’s a master at the art of lockpicking.

Lockpicking competitions are rare and often underground in the United States, but are common in Europe, where Wels is a frequent contender. He is also president of a lockpicking club with about 75 members that meet weekly to test their skills against new locks.

I first posted about Barry on May 14, 2005 where he demonstrated how easy it is to open a Kensington laptop lock using a roll of toilet paper, gaffer tape, and a pen. It’s pretty amazing and I’ve tried it myself and it does work with a little practice.

Barry is the founder and president of Toool, a lockpick sportgroup in the Netherlands. Toool stands for “The Open Organisation Of Lockpickers“.

Besides picking locks Toool members also study locks, sometimes finding huge and previously unpublished flaws.

Needless to say that the lock industry is not always too happy, although Toool feels they should be.

Lately, some smarter lock companies have started asking Toool what they think of a lock before commencing mass-production.

To find out more about Barry, check out his blog or the Toool website.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 14th, 2006 at 9:46 am and is filed under Lock Picking, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.  Both comments and pings are currently closed.