Re: Have you heard about the "Unlocker"

Do you think that manufacturers will begin to make the lock out feature more robust and harder to unlock in the future? Have you received any feedback from any manufacturers? Or their lawyers?

Received this email this morning about this product. > Anyone heard about it? > > The TAKE-OVER Solution You've Been Waiting For > > > > Reduce Your Labor Costs > > Acquire new accounts for as little as $19.95 > > No more pulling panels off the wall > > Reset locked codes in less than 30 seconds > > > > The "Instant Unlocker" is scheduled to arrive from our factory on January > 15. For details, please go to > >
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or call 888-869-4737. > > > > Sincerely, > > > > Dave Castle > > ABT, Inc. > > 5817 Dryden Place, Suite 104 > > Carlsbad, CA 92008 > > Toll: 760-438-4693 > > Toll Free: 888-869-4737 > > Fax: 760-438-8790 > > Mobile: 619-504-7793 > > > > Thanks > > Norm Mugford > > > > I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you? >
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Reply to
Roland Moore
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Reply to
I brive a dus

Roland, I am a bit reticent to comment on this approach to unlocking boards, because I (and several others on the newsgroup) unlock boards as well. So anything I say will be (and likely should be) treated as biased. However, having said that, I will offer a couple of thoughts on the matter.

Let me make it perfectly clear, I don't know all the inner workings of this device, but I DO know how it achieves it's stated goal. In my personal opinion ONLY, this approach applies too much brute force to be universally safe for the board. Those who stand to gain by doing it this way will surely disagree of course. But whatever the truth may be, and for anyone choosing to do it this way, I would STRONGLY suggest you check the dialers after doing it, to make sure the board will still communicate. Any "active" defaulting method always poses risks. This device, if it proves to work, will only work with selected models and board versions, and will not work universally (I think they say that somewhere on their site). Plus it is expensive given that sending boards away in bulk only costs $15 a board (in my case only, not sure what Jim charges for bulk orders). And with the huge supply of defaulted boards I keep in stock (speaking for myself only), I will often give the client another board free of charge, if his board comes in defective to start with. But it does mean no changing of boards for the installer, and makes the service immediately available. This could be quite valuable for any small company who only comes upon a locked board on rare occasion. But if it does prove successful, it could encourage those who lock boards unjustly (as opposed to those who use the feature properly), to do so with more enthusiasm.

I am very surprised that anyone would spend the R&D on such a device with such little anticipated payback. I don't know what it cost them to develop this product, but I suspect they may have fooled themselves and their financial backers with an overly optomistic business plan and forecast. Board unlocking has never been a big moneymaker, and likely never will be. Even doing it in bulk, and considering all the time and monies spent, my profit levels are marginal at best. Speaking again only for myself, I get my satisfaction out of doing it by knowing I am helping some poor slob save HIS board, and preventing an unethical company from extorting a client !! Profit is a distant second - so far it's just covered my costs !!

I have the email addresses of the 2500 alarm companies across Canada (inluding a separate list of companies in Eastern Ontario which are the only ones I service), but decided that to send them an email message would likely be regarded as spam, so I and my Western based friend decided up front not to do so. I only got into learning to do it because of local abuse of the locking feature, and because I like a personal challenge. I am hoping to expand this service into boards by GE, Caddx and the Concord line - time, demand and inclination dependant of course. However, once I am out of the alarm business and my son takes over, this service (at least through me) will no longer be available. At that point, I will bulk ship my equipment to either Jim Rojas or my western based friend free of charge for them to add to their equipment resources as they see fit. And since I will be spending winters in Florida from now on, I may just deliver it to Jim....but it'll cost him a days fishing !!!..)) But that eventuality is still several years away.....

I did have one semi serious offer to sell this capability several years ago, but refused and always will. I gave my word early on I wouldn't divulge what I know, and I will never break that trust. If this makes me a sort of sanctimonious sounding "judge, jury and executioner" by default, then so be it.!! If anyone takes offence to my maintaining that relative exclusivity, tough shit !!!

I genuinely hope the company selling the product IS successful. I admire anyone who takes an entrepreneurial approach to business, even when the driving motive is purely financial. I doubt that it will ever affect mine, Action Jackson's, or Jim Rojas's business in unlocking boards, such as things are. But I hope these folks have done their forecasting homework !!

BTW, to comment on your questions, I doubt that the alarm manufacturers could or would bother with objections other than perhaps taking a cheap shot at it by scaring them with a lawyer's letter !! And you'll have to take my word for this, there is NOTHING they can do to prevent unlocking their panels, although they might be able to block this specific device on the short term.

The world is changing through the wide reach of the internet. Where there is a will, someone will step in to fill the void. Such is life today. I'm sure the manufacturers are smart enough to see that. Besids, any efforts to stop this sort of thing would be like "plugging a dike with your finger"...:))

Manufacturers, being the big companies they are by nature, unless it starts to impact on their sales, the whole thing would be looked at like "a fart in a windstorm...a tiny noise but no smell !!"

R.H.Campbell Home Security Metal Products

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Roland Moore wrote:

Reply to
tourman

You're just trying to make me feel bad because you know I wore mine out. I never made it to 3000 by the way. The machine itself stills works okay though.

Reply to
Roland

What happened Roland......forget to buy a card allowing more uses ?.....:))

RHC

Roland wrote:

Reply to
tourman

I agree with you that someone may have overestimated the value and volume of sales of this unlock product. Since I don't live in the cutthroat bottom end of the market and chase the annual recurring revenue stream, I might not have a clear enough picture of this market. Too many times when I get an existing account, especially DSC, it is keypad programmed to begin with and the installer didn't think about or understand remote programming, so it was all set to factory defaults anyway. With the cost of boards for these low end systems dropping all the time, it seems that replacing panels is only slightly more expensive than unlocking them. I don't know what sort of market there will be for this item in the future. I know if a manufacturer wanted to kill this product one way would be to offer a one for one swap of locked for unlocked for 5 or 10 bucks, or even free if they really wanted to get nasty. I would hate to have a business model that depended so much on factors beyond my control.

Reply to
Roland

Yes, frankly there is not really much of a real business model for this sort of venture. I certainly wouldn't depend upon it for any kind of revenue stream; I think I have explained why I personally do it and what got me into it, and what has made it worth the massive amount of experimentation time and effort to learn all the tricks. Frankly, this little gizmo is pretty mickey mouse but may work on at least the DSC

832 and 632. However, forcing any amount of voltage backward through components that are not designed for it can have all sorts of unforseen results. Knowing what I know about how these panels are engineered down at a chip level, I doubt it will work on the 864 and definately not on the Maxsys or Classic series panels. But then, most installers use only the 832 and 632 boards anyway, so it may not matter. I think perhaps this might be the sort of device you see advertised on TV at ten times the price you can buy it for some months later in the local store....

The more sophisticated and safe "passive" techniques developed over the years to do this unlocking are about five orders of magnitude beyond this device, and how Jim Rojas does it is about ten (Jim makes me look and feel like an amateur at it !! ) I doubt that the manufacturers would take those steps you suggested simply because it would defeat the lockout feature which has been engineered into their panels for a specific and legitimate purpose. For all my railing against lockout, there ARE legitimate reasons for companies to use it. My beef has always been with those who MISUSE it, and only those people.

Future market applications are anyone's guess but with board prices coming down all the time, most future boards will end up being virtually throwaway. This isn't an industry about selling equipment; it's an industry about providing a SERVICE to people. However, there are enough boards in the field now that it might pay them to develop this over the short term (remember, this is a very price sensitive market). But I can guarantee that it won't be long before someone hacks into their little gizmo to enable it to work free of their little limiting chip. I might even try it myself just to see if I can do it (pretty sure I can because I know what they're doing). I love any kind of a challenge down at that level......:)))

RHC

Roland wrote:

Reply to
tourman

It's more profitable to turn the customer against their old alarm company by telling them that the alarm company locker THEIR panel with a special code. I love seeing the look on their faces and even more when I get to listen in when they bitch out the previous company. It's the whole "it's my home and my property" concept that gets them going. Most don't take the "for the good of the customer" routine very well, but I've heard it a few times.

Best practice: don't lock your panels and don't use a standard installer code. Set the installer code to the same 4 digits as the account number and not only do you get a customer who can't complain that you're "locking up THEIR system" but it's unique to every panel. So if someone back doors one, they don't have the code for every panel in the U.S. *coADTugh*.

Reply to
S. Smith

"S. Smith" a écrit dans le message de news: snipped-for-privacy@6g2000cwy.googlegroups.com...

Hey! don't tell that to every one!!

some of the watcher here could pick it up!!!

Reply to
Petem

Nope. I just can't find the right adapter to plug it in my ass.

Reply to
Roland

Like thats easy to figure out? I dread those type of lock codes

Reply to
Mark Leuck

Its the same company as Secure Wireless who now makes most of DSC's sensors, the price of the unlocks seems high until you factor in how many takeovers you might do involving the same company. For example all I did for 5 years was takeovers and I found most companies have one or two installer codes so knowing one would allow me to reprogram 50 to 100 boards

But for someone who does an occasional board? no

Reply to
Mark Leuck

that's assuming you get the code. from what i gathered the boardis unlocked but you don't get the code.

Reply to
DeeD

True, forgot about that, a machine I made a few years ago did

Reply to
Mark Leuck

tell me more

Reply to
Big C

It was a large Toshiba industrial logic relay setup connected to an ancient PC2000 keypad and it entered user codes until it found the correct one. It checked to see if the code worked by keypad sounds (long beep bad, 3 beeps good. A friend of mine made it for me and I altered it to use an lcd screen to show the code and made it work on FBI panels.

It unlocked maybe a couple of hundred boards and I still have it but it doesn't work like it once did, I think one of the relays went out

Reply to
Mark Leuck

Let me stick my oar in the water again ! Lets forget about their profit motive for a moment. Lets just say for the sake of argument that you were able to get the installer code with this Unlocker device. How legitimate would it be on their part to sell you hardware that would allow you the user of their machine to discover some other company's installer code, and which would leave in some cases all that company's panels wide open to some other hostile company AND which could be used to unlock legitimately locked and not-yet-paid for boards. I don't think any dealer here would argue with the statement that no one has a right to any other dealer's proprietary installer code. So how comfortable would you feel knowing someone else can buy an off the shelf device that could do this !

I'm only thinking out loud, but it seems to me there could be some liabiliy problems here on their part if they were to do that as well.

Just another thought on the matter....

RHC

Reply to
tourman

If anyone really wants to know another's lockout code it's easy enough to get. How about just giving the panel and keypad to your kid to punch each of the possible 10,000 combinations on a 4 digit code until they get it - reward them with a new video game or something...

Reply to
G. Morgan

Their device only puts a "default" code into the chip register where the installer code is stored. At least that is what one of their salesmen told me. I looked into getting one of these about 6 months ago. I don't do enough takeovers to justify it though. Easier to replace the occasional board, though if takeovers increase I might reconsider.

Reply to
Tommy

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