Kenneth Ellman

Kenneth Ellman Reviews Open In Thirty Seconds by Marc Weber Tobias, Email:ke@kennethellman.com, Box 18, Newton, N. J. 07860, January 19, 2014

In thinking about the extraordinary books of Marc Weber Tobias it takes me back many years when I had first purchased his original edition of Locks, Safes and Security around 1971 (?), and was also reading The Master Locksmith Reference Book by Charles Courtney (1931edition), The Lure of the Lock by Hopkins(1928 edition) and the very many wonderful books obtained from the Locksmith Ledger. At that time I was a NYC Licensed Locksmith, Ademco Dealer, later a UL Listed Mercantile Safe and Vault (CVRV), etc . There was then and is much more today, a vast literature of technical Locksmith work, Safe and Vault Work , ASIS, ALOA, and many, many other publications.

But very rarely and fortunately in any discipline or profession you will come upon works that stand out as incomparable. The works of Marc Weber Tobias are that. His dedication and ability in this subject is remarkable. My previous review of his other publication entitled Locks, Safes and Security, Second Edition, can be found on Amazon and at my website.

SO, now we have this extraordinary story and technical study as told in “Open in Thirty Seconds” which recounts the utter and complete failure of Medeco High Security Locks used in applications all over the United States. I distinctly remember the near hysteria decades ago created by advertising and promotion of Medeco back when it could only be purchased from Sal Schillizzi of All Over Locksmiths and D. Silver Hardware in NYC.. In the NYC area where burglary was all too common, this product was in demand.

Not long after Medeco hit the market, a company called Lock Technology in New Rochelle, N.Y., had developed a decoder and key machine for Medeco. Medeco had to make changes then to protect the product. But here in this account by Marc Tobias we have an entirely different situation. It is not just his exposure of the ridiculous vulnerability of Medeco, but an inescapable realization that Medeco knew of this defect and failed to protect its customers at that time. It further appears to me that instead of thanking Marc Tobias for revealing this dangerous compromise and defect so that it could be corrected, he was disregarded by Medeco.

So here again is a story of that all too common human failure where many rely on the representations of safety and security made by vendors and find in fact that they are very unsafe indeed. This technical account by Tobias is an engineering, legal and social document that should be required reading in the Security, Safety and Legal field. It should be included in legal training as a possible example of Consumer Fraud and how to investigate such. It has significant historical value for the record of confrontation between the evaluator/tester of a product and the manufacturer. The incidents in this book have been previously discussed for many years now and I just never got around to writing this review. But the lessons here are again a reminder that it is better to verify assertions before contemplation of trust. What made this misrepresentation worse was the approval of this product by Underwriters Laboratories that again led many to assume the product was effective when it was not. The review is only my opinion and nothing more. You must read and research to make your own conclusions. Thank you Marc Tobias for your exemplary writings and work.
Kenneth Ellman, Box 18, Newton, New Jersey 07860, Email:ke@kennethellman.com