The formation and development of locks and keys

Keys and keys have been accompanied by humans through many stages in history and change accordingly.

The birth and development of keys and keys

Of all the technologies used every day, you probably don't pay much attention to the tiny little device that holds your door and your belongings. Locks and keys have been around the world for thousands of years, but at this very moment, they are going through a major turning point in history - from metals to electronics, how separate words become more connected. now.

This is the greatest improvement in security after designing wooden locks in Mesopotamia, about 6000 years ago. While the early lifestyles help people be assured of furniture without having to look behind them, their future defenders have to bear on other major responsibilities such as personalizing security and tracking. gain user access history.

In parallel with the renovation of the lock, we do not know in advance whether there is any other physical security technology to replace it.

The Origin of the Lock - The first lock

The first security tool was discovered by archaeologists around the middle of the 19th century at Iraq's present Khorsabad Palace. Early keys and keys were present from about 4000 BC, in the period of Assyria's Mesopotamian kingdom. The lock was then made of wood, with a design quite similar to modern day locks - or at least the same principle of operation.

It is called a padlock. Simply put, pins of different lengths are inserted inside the lock to prevent the door from opening without the key. When plugging the key into the drive, the key will push the pins up and the door guard will open.

In this period, the only thing that could replace this lock probably only had to hire a guard to guard the door!

The ancient Egyptians later upgraded the design of the Mesopotamian period, also opening the era of lock and lock in the design of large doors. Although the lock is still made from wood, the Egyptians replaced brass pins.

This lock will look like this.

The principle of working between keys and pins has been used for centuries. From Egypt, this trend spread to Greece and then to the Roman Empire, where the lock was even smaller to fit the boxes and lockers. The rich Romans will also wear their buckles like rings to provoke other aristocratic lineages: 'I am so rich that there are very important things to protect.'

The throne of the multi-purpose keys

The basic design of wooden locks remained unchanged until the Middle Ages, when British craftsmen created the first metal locks. These locks consist of a keyhole and a shaft at the end. Inside the keyhole is a series of concentric panels, or slots and grooves. Unless the pattern of the steps on the key fits perfectly with the pattern of the teeth slots, it is impossible to turn the key. If turning the keys to the sides, it will either be attached or removed completely.

Tooth slot locks are still in use today, although they are mostly on display at historical locations, to avoid forging for centuries. The lock will be very similar to any lock of the castle or a secret organization that people often dream about. They are very beautiful!

But no matter how beautiful it is, it still has irreparable errors. The sample of teeth and nodules is responsible for making its key unable to open another key. But if you have grasped the basic principle of the key shape, one can completely turn the lock down and completely block the socket slot. This created something called a 'skeleton key'. With this principle, even if the lock has only one big note, it is still possible to break the labyrinth of battle of countless small slots in the drive.

Although its security purpose has not been improved since then, these slot-shaped locks have opened a new era of craftsmanship. Highly skilled metal craftsmen hired and trained become locksmiths, designing and creating excellent sculptural and decorative locks to match the architecture of the building. By cloning the shape of the keyhole and repurposed a few complicated slots, the locksmiths completely mastered the security at the time. But in parallel with that, the locks that open many drives are even more sophisticated. At the end of the Renaissance, there were dozens of designs that were broken, and unlocking became a profession. Nature, the desire to create non-breakable drives, becomes a very important issue.

The first period of locksmiths

The Technology Age has spurred a new era of complex structured locks. They are getting more and more popular, and the UK has become a leader in new security trends. In 1778, Robert Barron invented a two-storey lock. Compared to just turning all the serrated pitches to open the door in ancient times, this new lock takes two to four locks with different highs and depths. Barron proudly called them 'The lock is safer than anything that has ever been done before.'

And again, this kind of lock has not yet reached the level of safety as expected. Just by manipulating a few tools, the lock can still be completely broken, even though it is harder and more layers. Based on this principle of ' lifting difficulty, security' , Barron's design soon went into the past of British people.

By 1784, Joseph Bramah created an extremely effective lock that has so far been produced and sold in London stores. On the surface, their design has hardly changed. A shaft-shaped key with padding on the inside of the lock, with the same purposes as the previous classes in Barron's design: The gaskets will touch the right depth and be key. Bramah was extremely confident about his lock, to the point that in 1790 he opened a contest in his stall to see who could break it. He also nominated a very large amount of rewards of up to 200 gold coins at that time.

(About 200,000 USD at the current price). Nobody could move them until 1851, when Alfred C. Hobbs, a locksmith of the United States, visited the Grand Exhibition and opened them. However, it took him 51 hours to break the entire labyrinth of Bramah.

However, not so that the optimization of the Bramah lock prevents other initiatives. In 1817, a thief in Portsmouth Royal Dockyards proposed to the British government to open a lock casting contest. The winner will win 100 Pounds for any invention that cannot be opened by any other key than the key created by its master. And finally, Jeremiah Chubb won with improving Barron's multi-layered design with his own style. He even added another awesome feature: The lock called 'detector lock' will automatically block if the wrong key is inserted. Only when its right key is plugged in, can the lock be opened.

Hobbs's legendary performance at the Great Exhibition also began to mark the decline of the British empire of locksmiths.'Even before the Big Exhibition we had always believed that we had the best locks in the world,' The Times wrote, 'then both Bramah and Chubb are rated as inviolable like Gibraltar ". Americans probably never forget this historic victory.

Back to Basics - Back to the usual locks

When C.Hobbs shocked the Grand Exhibition in 1851, the future of the security industry was growing steadily throughout the United States. In 1748, Linus Yale Sr. invented a locker and private tray, now known as the Yale Key. This design is an essential improvement from the ancient wooden lockers of ancient Egyptians. Linus Yale Jr., his descendant, also upgraded this design in 1961, and created what we still see: flattened keys and notes and slots on the edge. This is sometimes the same as the one that is unlocking your door!

The goodness of this Yale key is the perfect combination of simplicity and safety. Without needing multiple layers and complicated keys, Yale's design simply completed the ancient lock. The compact key to unlock the key, turned out to create such huge differences. With all kinds of carvings to create the groove as well as the notes to fit into a certain type of lock, the key will gently go into the keyhole and twist the serrated teeth. This device also comes with a set of plug bars and must spin this bar to open the latch. At this point, the key must be able to open all the keys in the lock so the latch is opened so the plug can be turned.

Each of these hoops is actually two pieces: one axis of adjustment and one key. The notes on the lock push the design around to a certain point. If the key is correct, the knobs will fall down to the key of the key, while the corrections will remain the same. (That is the difference between the lock bar of the lock and the lock). When all the bolts are in place, the bar can be rotated and unlocked. Everything will look like this:

For the next 150 years, locksmiths continue to produce new designs and improvements from the Yale lock. But in the early years of the 20th century, there was a new simulation that made the lock not only stop at opening and closing a locker. In 1909, Walter Schlage invented a door lock that turned on the lighting system.

The lock opened the electric light.

Schlage then created an axle-lock locker with a button-locked device, a handy improvement over the Yale lock you used to be millions of times at home and work. To date, Schlage's company is still one of the largest lock factories in the world. But the idea of ​​a lock not only for locking has to wait until the age of electronic technology can develop optimally.

Predict the future of Locks and Keys

The development of physical security technology is clearly more complex than the history of keys and keys. Ancient Romans also took the lead in the first combination locks, and created keys from small objects to big ideas. James Sargent has improved this idea further with the first key worldwide used to replace the combination lock. Sargent even turned the keys into smarter when he released the first time lock, one that only opened at certain time series, one longer - to wait until the seasons The correct service can be opened. These two types of designs were born in 1873 and 1880 respectively.

The idea of ​​this kind of visual lock only open to certain people at certain times has begun to rekindle around the end of the 20th century. Tor Sornes invented the first card-magnetic lock in 1975, opens a new market for programmable locks. In the last few decades, the key word has taken advantage of all the usual security methods, from passwords to biological data like finger prints.

Magnetic locks like security codes and RFID tags have brought us to a world where only a single sweep of light or a sequence of digits 0 and 1 can open the door. Now you can even open the door with your face recognition.

Until recently, the most advanced technology was kept private and used only for governments and large business agencies. The reason is also because the price for setting up face recognition apparatus is not small. Despite being in the era when the network was the most flourishing, the most senior companies of the 'village' locked the world are still finding solutions to bring the latest technology to every house. The ultimate goal, perhaps to replace the small metal keys that are easy to lose and easy to replicate today.

Yale and Schlage old names in the Lock industry - along with the boom of startup companies - have been on the road to the dream of escaping future keys. This year, both companies have launched new interlocking locks that can be opened with just one swipe on a smartphone, or even through your voice. Shlage's new product combines with Apple HomeKit and you can now use Siri to open your doors. It can actually be used with an outdated key.

Electronic locks are the future of security technology.

Meanwhile, the lock that Yale has joined hands with Linus has taken a step further: There is no mechanical lock. A touch controller installed on the door can help you install up to 250 different personal codes. In this way, it is possible to give code to children in the house as well as friends who are familiar with each type of code and control the return of each object.

This lock of Linus was also combined with Nest's Weave protocol portal and you can connect the lock to many indoor devices. Imagine when you go home, when you open the door, all installed devices will be started immediately. Sometimes TV will move to your favorite channel again! And maybe the thermostat is also opening the air conditioner with the lights on and waiting to welcome you home!

Once the lock is connected to the Internet, it also opens the door for hackers to enter your system. Although smart locks have a lot of security layers, they still store data about your visits and return times. Some people can see it as convenience. However, some others think it is an unnecessary feature. Anyway, we can't deny that the interlock is putting a more complex layer on the inherently simple and easy-to-use technology platform. Along with the new generation methods such as geographic fences, short communication connections as well as Bluetooth, these applications even have more features than the old Yale lock you're using.

We can easily imagine how the future of mechanical security devices can go based on encrypted network networks to move forward and learn. The technology that detects your move to the door and opens it before you unlock it is already there. Now will be the race to see if these improved security solutions really help our own lives really add safety and convenience.

People have become accustomed to obsolete keys to open simple locks for thousands of years. Perhaps we don't need it to improve even further. But surely, people will like to spend money buying something new and look real good in parallel with feeling safer. And you?

For decades, people still feel familiar with the mechanical locks and jingle keys that accompany them. So have you ever wondered how long these keys and locks appear, how and how will their future be?