-- Posted Thursday, 29 November 2012 | | Source: GoldSeek.com
By: Chris LaBorde
Recently at a local social event I met a locksmith. In polite conversation we started talking shop and what was what in the safe world. After a brief but very interesting conversation I was inspired to do a little research on the wide world of safes. What I learned was both fun and fascinating.
I am a mechanical person by nature. From the time I was a youngster I was taking things apart and learning how they worked. A mild invitation to dive into the world of safes was all it took to send me into a 3 day research spree feeding my more compulsive desires to find the next piece of information right around the corner as to how these great big puzzles work.
The basic information is that Underwriter’s Laboratory gets to have WAY too much fun in the testing and rating of safes. From the description given, they have a combination of people ranging from Bambam to Mr. Wizard with blueprints of the safe’s design, a supply of high end portable tools, a great workspace, a stop watch and go signal to tell them to get into the safe as quickly as possible. The first take away from this is that no safe survives. There is no such thing as an entry proof safe and most can be compromised in under 30 minutes by these guys. This doesn’t mean that your average person can get one open in 30 min, this just serves as a top level benchmark for the ideal scenario. The backbone of all safe security assumptions is that once someone starts the process of getting into a safe, they only have limited time to complete the task before getting caught.
The ratings go in ascending order as follows B-Rate, U.L. RSC Rate, B/C Rate, C-Rate, TL-15, TL-30 and TL-30 X6. The last and highest rating, the TL-30, means that it took the U.L. professionals at least thirty minutes with all the right tools and a great work space to get into a safe of this rating. This also means that they are able to get into lesser rated safes even faster.
Descriptions of Safe ratings:
• B: Basically any locked box. These are not subject to testing. It’s basically assumed that they are better than a locked drawer but not all that secure from a determined individual with minimum hand tools.
• U.L. Residential Security Container: This means that it took the U.L. folks an average of 5min to get through each side of the box.
• B/C: A general rating for anything with 1/4” of metal in the walls and 1/2” in the door. No testing required for rating.
• C: This is defined as a 1/2” steel box with a 1” door and a lock. No testing required for rating.
• TL-15: This rating requires testing and required and examined build specs
• U.L. Group II, Group I or Group IR combination lock
• 750 lbs. minimum or instruction on how to anchor the safe to the floor or concrete blocks
• Body walls of material equivalent to at least 1” open hearth steel with a minimum tensile strength of 50,000psi
• Walls fastened in a manner equivalent to continuous 1/4” penetrating weld with a minimum tensile strength of 50,000psi
• only one hole of 1/4” or less for electrical wiring, and that hole may have not direct view of the door.
• “The label means that the safe successfully resisted entry (i.e. opening the door or making a 6" square opening entirely through the door or front face) for a NET working time of 15 minutes using "…common hand tools, drills, punches hammers, and pressure applying devices." Net working time means simply "when the tool comes off the safe the clock stops". There are over fifty different types of attacks that can be used to gain entrance into the safe. Usually they will try only 2 or 3 based on what they know about the product, and they know a lot.”
• TL-30: This rating has identical specs to the TL-15 except it took the tester at least 30min of working time to successfully get into the safe.
• TL-30 x 6: means that they performed the test on all 6 sides of the safe.
Locking mechanisms
The locking mechanisms for these “boxes” are either electronic, mechanical or a hybrid. For over a hundred years the basic 3 code mechanical dial has been working very well. Just like the safes themselves, there is no such thing as an impenetrable lock; some just take more time than others. Again Underwriters Laboratory has standardized the rating system for different locks. There are three U.L. 768 categories for mechanical locks; Group IR, Group I, Group 2M and Group II. The vast majority of the safes out there have a group II locking mechanism. Group II locks can basically, under the hands of a skilled professional, be opened in under thirty minutes. Group 2M locks have a moderate degree of difficulty and have passed the two manipulation test. Group I locks are tested and required to take at least 20 man hours but can be X-rayed for a shorter time duration. Group IR locks have the same requirements as group I and also fend off being x-rayed or other radiological attacks within reason.
Electronic Locks have become extremely popular and have some definite advantages. It takes more sophisticated tooling to manipulate your basic electronic lock, most have a lock out time period of 5-15 min each time three wrong combinations are tried, some can handle two combinations and it takes a fraction of the time to get into the lock in the first place so the safe can get a lot more use. The only real downsides to the electronic locks are that when they do fail they fail without warning and you have to get into the safe manually versus an old mechanical lock that gets stiff before it fails. Just like the UL ratings for mechanical locks, the electronic locks also have various U.L. ratings that suggest their level of security. I am not as familiar with the electronic locks after I read the potential downside for having increased odds to manually break into the safe.
Which safe to pick?
Basic questions that need to be asked are:
• What will this be used for?
• Size requirements on the inside
• Where will it be kept?
• Size requirements on the outside
• How many people will be using it?
• Does it need to have multiple combinations and a tracking program (electronic)
• How frequently will the door need to be opened?
• Electronic versus manual
• Are their any insurance benefits to upgrading security rating?
• Some significant insurance breaks have been made in the past and/or coverage has been increased based on rating
• How far away is the nearest help?
• If the police response time takes forever you probably need to go with higher rather than lower ratings
In closing there are a couple pointers that might be worth a little.
1. Don’t buy the safe unless you know the safety rating. A great deal of the safes out there are cheap imports that look strong but can’t handle basic attacks.
2. The most secure safe you will ever own is the one that no one knows about.
Hope my compulsive tendencies to research may be of use.
Chris LaBorde
Chris is an aerospace engineer and lives in Nashville, TN where he is the principal engineer at C-Works Engineering. C-Works specializes in general product development. Chris can be reached at Chris@cworksengineering.com.
-- Posted Thursday, 29 November 2012 | Digg This Article
| Source: GoldSeek.com
