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NEWS FROM THE LAB - Wednesday, October 20, 2004
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More goofing with laptop locks Posted by Mikko @ 15:44 GMT

Today we are continuing our practical tests on physical laptop security.

manual
We got a real high-security Kensington cable laptop lock, hooked it up to some laptops and started running away with them.

Alexey
Here we have Alexey showing the official test position. Notice the Kensington lock and the cable.


boys
We hooked up the cable to table and had Jusu and Jarno hold it down while Alexey played the part of the bad boy.


ibm
First we tested IBM Thinkpad 600x. Turns out, the kensington-type security slot in it is made out of plastic. So the hole just got a bit bigger and the lock was removed easily. No sweat. In a real-world situation this could have been done so easily passers-by probably would not have noticed a thing, and the PC stayed in perfect working order.


ibm
Next up, IBM Thinkpad 770Z. This one took several tries. Then the laptop casing gave away. This time there was much more damage to the laptop - which would make it harder for a thief to sell it.

Marc Weber Tobias
Also, we found out about a site called www.security.org (Thanks to Malcolm and Nik for the tip).

This site is run by Marc Weber Tobias and focuses on insecurities of various types of laptop and bag locks.

If you're really interested in the topic, we recommend purchasing access to some of his videos (they cost $2 or $3 each), detailing on how to unlock some of these locks with a pen or a toilet paper roll.

That's it for the day...back to viruses.