2023 festival

The sponsors of the 2023 Festival

With good humor the annual meeting once again gathered many people, members or not of the association. Indeed, new workshops, conferences and a new edition of the lockpicking contest have made this day unique for the 2023 festival.

For the first time, we were able to picture the festival thanks to the involvement of Gilles Cazemajou, professional photographer who offered us his services.

Thus, we thank the volunteers who were involved in this festival and all those present to give life to this new edition.
Finally, we would like to thank our sponsors: Multipick, Seucom Medeco, Serrurerie Equipement Formation, Dom Metalux. They are the ones who allow us to have this kind of event:

Morning: arrival and workshops

The day began at 11am with a disc lock workshop organized by Nitiflor to welcome the dozens of people present.
Although more accessible than the Fichet F3D lockpicking activity of last year, there was a nice amount of openings by people who had never touched disc cylinders. The secret lies perhaps in the 7 beautiful tools lent for the activity, 3D printed and inspired by quality tools. We thank Nitiflor, thanks to whom there will surely be more disc lockpickers, in the country where the pin is the king!

In parallel to this workshop, the boxes of pins and wafer cylinders also allowed some training before the competition and exchanges between the many practitioners present.

We then went to lunch before the first conference of the day.

Afternoon: Conferences

The first conference of the 2023 festival, presented by MHack from Hack in Provence, was the story of a pentest for a casino. All with reversals and the presentation of social or digital tools that go beyond picking. Thus, they allow to go searching for scattered clues, from simple discussion with a target to data recovery. Even using large-scale man-in-the-middle attack tools.

The second conference, presented by Fabien H, focused on the evolution of Bauche Monopole security. From the origin to the very last MPX. However, there was little time to take notes given the number of details and information that differentiate the models.

The 2023 festival lockpicking contest

On the menu,
1^st round:

• The lightest of the competition, a Kale with aluminum body
• The very common Thirard 5G
• The resistant Foussier Techpro 5+ (manufacture Titan K1)
• Some nonames
• Abus E50
• 2nd round:

2^nd round:

• The new model of the Vachette V5
• The legendary TESA TE5
• The latest evolution of the Heracles 5-pin cylinder

And finally the finale:

• The narrow Heracles Y9 (K6 manufactured by Titan) that has withstood all the finalists
• Dormakaba (Gemini model)
• Gege Pextra
• The known BKS PZ88 for its good sizing tolerances
• M&C Condor

Among the finalists, Nitiflor took back the first place, followed by Wsle and Walter in 3^rd place! Among the prizes, Alex offered beautiful Moki picks with custom sleeves made of oak and ebony.

During the delivery of the prizes, the meal time was invited (and yes already 22h). Followed by a discussion animated by Nitiflor and Fabien about the life of the association. A lot of information and feedbacks on the meetings. Especially in cities where there are no meetings. As well as on the ACF website or on ACF sweaters. As a reminder: we already have a nice stock of t-shirts for interested members. The ACF thanked some of its members for their special involvement for many years, offering them impressionning clamps designed by MrJack. Thus, we thank all the volunteers who support the association, near or far!

Evening: the latest conferences

Digestion done, we left on a conference of Deny of Copy about the weakness of lock mastrings. On the program escalation of rights, with examples formed of Vachette HDI and Bricard Chifral systems, of very different technologies. This has also highlighted flawed design methods. Methods that can still be used by some major security actors.

Last event on the program, a small presentation on the Abus 420 lock. Its cylinder with inverted sidebar had surprised during the padlock tests carried out by the association in cooperation with the newspaper Le Monde.

Finally, a last event out of program came to close the evening. Wsle presented us an umpteenth conference on the evolutions of the Vachette V5 system. Ranging from the first manufacturing in the 60s to the recent V5 Neo, while passing by its derivatives such as VIP and VRX.

Hard to say if it was the best festival because every year it is a great success! But we left (late in the evening) full of good memories to meet again, hopefully, as soon as possible!