Hi... Not sure if this is the ideal forum but to cut a long story short I left something important in a hotel room and checked out. After I realised (couple of hours later) the hotel staff refused to let me back in and said they would send somebody to check and let me know in a few days.

Naturally I never got my item back but incase such a situation arises again, does anybody know how to open an electronic hotel door lock (the one's operated by a card) outside of brute force/kicking the door in and if so what kind of tools would be needed?

viciousemu

Always leave your window unlocked. Trust me, it's helped oh so many times.

(Unless of course you were not on the first floor. But always get first floor, anyway)

The average joe would'nt be able to by-pass a door with a card reader on it without prior knowledge of the system. I like itsmesaj's answer, that'll work.

It was actually on the 17th floor so climbing through the window (which was open incidentally) would have been a minor challenge for even me and all my stealth like training.

I was actually wondering if there was either away of "completing the circuit" after removing the faceplate given (as an educated guess) this is how "AND" gate systems work (assuming this is a glorified AND gate). With that in mind I was wondering if there were a few standard techniques for all door lock makes/models that could be accessed in this way through trial and error.

I have'nt tried to by-pass an electronic lock before because of the complexity of the system as well as the fact that some/or all systems are tied into the hotel computer and you could be detected... However, if you had some knowledge of card systems and how the card is encoded AND access to the hotel computer AND had your own card encoder, I think it might work

I may contact a couple of manufacturers/suppliers posing as a potential customer to see if connecting them to the hotel computer is possible. For a large hotel I would imagine implementing a system that could do this would be expensive and a logistical nightmare. I mean imagine all the cable and how many cards & ports would be needed on the relevant computer/server/network to connect all the door locks.

I will be sure to post what I find out... Can anyone think of any other relevant questions that may be worth asking?

I have a few years worth of monthly locksmith magazines. I may take a look and see if there's anything there

Okay... Having spent a few hours researching these locking mechanisms it appears that they are designed to be very difficult to remove the outer plate without it taking time and generating a great deal of noise... Not good if trying to be stealth.

Another possibel solution which I have yet to really get to grips with is to invest in a very portable magnetic card reader/writer that can connect to the paralel port on a pc/laptop... This could read a card of that design (generic door card from that hotel) and with decryption software allow you to decrypt, alter the information and either rewrite the card or write to a blank card.

I found this very reasonably priced system on the UK ebay that with a learning curve should allow you to do most of the above.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MAKStripe-3-Tr...QQcmdZViewItem

I suspect that this system could be used for other sorts of card crime if that was your bag but would no doubt require an even steeper learning curve.

Now just need to contact the manufacturers of these systems or some IT Managers at hotels to find out more about system itself and if they all use a similar level of encyption/language (which I suspect they do).

Just think of the fun that could be had if you could build a "Skeleton Hotel Door Key Card"?

I don't think there would be such a thing on the belief that every system would need its own 'master' key just like any master key system is set up independent of others. In other words, a 'master' for one hotel will not work on another hotel.

Fair point. But in itself could still be fun. Every hotel you ever check into could give you access to all rooms. Obviously possible given that the cleaners can access all rooms with a singular card. In fact if I'm not much mistaken, most hotel reception desks store their cards just over the counter so wouldn't be too difficult to acqcuire one when chatting to reception staff or just borrowing a pen.