TSA keys & Government Backdoors

TSA keys & Government Backdoors

by The Mile High Lock Pickers

Many in the locksport community have long experimented with decoding the "travel sentry" locks that are popular in the United States. The Transportation Security Administration is supposed to keep a set of master keys on hand to facilitate luggage searches and, as anyone who has watched the news lately knows, they have protected the secrecy of these keys about as well as any other secrets they're charged with keeping covered up. This talk will be a summary of the work that has been done thus far by notable figures in the lock picking world in order to decode these keys and create duplicates of various types. Rumors and misinformation will be dispelled and hopefully many sample TSA locks and keys will be on hand for people to examine, measure, and even test their own filed or 3D printed luggage keys.

Presented at LockCon 2015 in Seattle, Washington
Filmed by Keith Howell

(Originally slated as a one-hour talk, this was a bit rushed in order to get the event back on schedule. Thank you to everyone who allowed us to run rapidly through this material and thank you to all who are going to keep on working on this going forward!)