When I was a kid, we used to leave the doors to our home and cars unlocked all the time. Today, if you try that, you might find your car or the contents of your home missing when you got back. We live in a crazy world where someone sitting in their parent’s basement on the other side of the world can access the private files on your computer. Nothing seems to be safe anymore.

To protect our computers, we employ passwords to keep out intruders. Every computer uses software for protection to make sure that thieves can’t exploit any vulnerabilities that might enable them to intrude into our lives.

As thieves become aware of vulnerabilities, they can take advantage of those that don’t have updated protection. With computer software, updates are made to keep the virus definitions up to date and to patch known vulnerabilities. With locks, we have to do the same. The innovative lock technology used 30 or 40 years ago has been superseded and does not offer the same protection today that it did when it was introduced.

Picking a Non-Interactive Rav Bariach Type Cylinder

To see how quickly a non-Interactive lock can be opened, watch how Bosnianbill picks one in just a few minutes. This was his first time trying to pick it. A thief, familiar with Israeli old style Rav Bariach locks can do this in a fraction of the time. Watch Bosnianbill pick a non-Interactive lock.

Bumping a Non-Interactive Rav Bariach Type Cylinder

Another popular method for opening locks is to “bump” them. This method uses a type of key that pushes the pins past the shear line and enables the user to open the lock quickly and relatively silently. Watch how a non-Interactive lock is bumped.

Using an Electric Toothbrush to Pick a Lock

To make it even easier, an electric toothbrush can be used to open some locks. Watch how a non-Interactive lock is picked with an electric toothbrush.

Many people protect their homes with a Rav Bariach or Mul-T-Lock (dimple) cylinder in their locks. These companies offer locks on different quality levels. Since the patenting of the Classic 40 years ago, they have come out with newer locks to make unauthorized entry more difficult.

Mul-T-Lock introduced their Interactive line and Rav Bariach the Locxis to increase security of locks. Both offer more security features than their older models, which are still commonly used. One of the innovations that they introduced is an interactive element on the key itself, which has the effect of raising the pins higher making it more difficult to pick.

According to a study done by lockpickingforensics.com, the current Interactive cylinders offer “increased security against unauthorized key duplication, key bumping, impressioning, and visual decoding” even for the experienced lock picker. These new cylinders, combined with a kasefet lock, offer substantially more security for homes and storage lockers (machsanim).

An immediate solution for more effective protection on a pladelet is to replace an older style cylinder with a new Mul-T-Lock Interactive+. Doctor-Lock can usually replace your cylinder with an Interactive in less than an hour. The new cylinder comes with five keys and a magnetic card. Keys can be taken to stores to be duplicated with the magnetic card.

How to tell if your cylinder uses newer technology such as Mul-T-Lock’s Interactive system

The key on the left is a Mul-T-Lock Classic for a Rav Bariach type door. It uses pin-in-pin technology, which was patented in 1977. Your key might look similar to the classic (with or without the pin-in-pin technology) and made by Alba, Yale, Magnum, Rav Bariach or Mul-T-Lock. Whatever brand you have, if it is does not use the Interactive technology, you should replace it with the newer Interactive cylinder.

The key on the right is for a Mul-T-Lock Interactive cylinder. Notice the “interactive” technology circled in red.

Doctor-Lock, an English-speaking locksmith can make the replacement in less than an hour for most doors.