Commercial Access Control Systems in Bristol

Lock with mortise cut into doorjamb

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A mortise lock (also spelled mortice lock in British English) is a lock that requires a pocket—the mortise—to be cut into the edge of the door or piece of furniture into which the lock is to be fitted. In most parts of the world, mortise locks are found on older buildings constructed before the advent of bored cylindrical locks, but they have recently become more common in commercial and upmarket residential construction in the United States.^{[citation needed]} The design is widely used in domestic properties of all vintages in Europe.

History

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Mortise locks have been used as part of door hardware systems in the US since the second quarter of the eighteenth century. In these early forms, the mortise lock mechanism was combined with a pull to open the unlocked door. Eventually, pulls were replaced by knobs.^{[citation needed]}

Until the mid-nineteenth century, mortise locks were only used in the most formal rooms in the most expensive houses. Other rooms used box locks or rim locks; in contrast with embedded mortise locks, the latch itself is in a self-contained unit that is attached to the surface of the door. Rim locks have been used in the United States since the early eighteenth century.^[1]

An early example of the use of mortise locks in conjunction with rim locks within one house exists at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. In 1805, Jefferson wrote to his joiner listing the locks he required for his home. While closets received rim locks, Jefferson ordered 26 mortise locks for use in the principal rooms.

Depictions of available mortise lock hardware, including not only lock mechanisms themselves but also escutcheon plates and door pulls, were widely available in the early nineteenth century in trade catalogues. However, the locks were still expensive and difficult to obtain at this time.^[2] Jefferson ordered his locks from Paris. Similarly, mortise locks were used in primary rooms in 1819 at Decatur House in Washington, DC while rim locks were used in closets and other secondary spaces.^[3]

The mortise locks used at Monticello were warded locks.^[2] The term "warded lock" refers to the lock mechanism, while the term "mortise lock" refers to the bolt location. Warded locks contain a series of static obstructions, or wards, within the lock box; only a key with cutouts to match the obstructions will be able to turn freely in the lock and open the latch.^[4]

Warded locks were used in Europe throughout the medieval period and up until early 19th century. Three English locksmiths, Robert Barron, Joseph Bramah, and Jeremiah Chubb, all played a role in creating modern lever tumbler locks. Chubb's lock was patented in 1818. Again, the term refers to the lock mechanism, so a lock can be both a mortise lock and a lever tumbler lock. In the modern lever tumbler lock, the key moves a series of levers that allow the bolt to move in the door.^[5]

The next major innovation to mortise lock mechanisms came in 1865. Linus Yale, Jr.'s pin tumbler mortise cylinder lock put not only the latch or bolt itself inside the door, but also the tumblers and the bolt mechanism. Up to this point, the lock mechanism was always on the outside of the door regardless of the bolt location. This innovation allowed keys to be shorter as they no longer had to reach all the way through a door. Pin tumbler locks are still the most common kind of mortise lock used today.^[5]

Mechanism

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Mortise locks may include a non-locking sprung latch operated by a door handle. Such a lock is termed a sash lock. A simpler form without a handle or latch is termed a dead lock. Dead locks are commonly used as a secure backup to a sprung non-deadlocking latch, usually a pin tumbler rim lock.^{[note 1][according to whom?]}

Mortise locks have historically, and still commonly do, use lever locks as a mechanism. Older mortise locks may have used warded lock mechanisms. This has led to popular confusion, as the term "mortise lock" was usually used in reference to lever keys in traditional European terminology. In recent years the Euro cylinder lock has become common, using a pin tumbler lock in a mortise housing.

The parts included in the typical US mortise lock installation are the lock body (the part installed inside the mortise cut-out in the door); the lock trim (which may be selected from any number of designs of doorknobs, levers, handle sets and pulls); a strike plate (or box keep), which lines and reinforces the cavity in the door jamb or frame into which the bolt fits; and the keyed cylinder which operates the locking/unlocking function of the lock body.

Selection and installation

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The installation of a mortise lock can be undertaken by an average homeowner with a working knowledge of basic woodworking tools and methods. Many installation specialists such as carpenters use a dedicated mortising jig which makes precise cutting of the pocket a simple operation, but the subsequent installation of the external trim can still prove problematic if the installer is inexperienced.

Although the installation of a mortise lock actually weakens the structure of the typical timber door, the embedded lock is typically stronger and more versatile than the newer bored cylindrical lock format, both in external trim, and functionality. Whereas the newer mechanism lacks the physical volume and mechanical stability required for ornate and solid-cast knobs and levers, the mortise lock can accommodate a heavier return spring and a more substantial internal mechanism. Mortise locks are available in a wide range of functional security configurations, and are widely installed in industrial, commercial, and institutional environments.

Furthermore, a typical mortise lock typically accepts a wide range of other standardized manufacturers' cylinders and accessories, allowing architectural and functional conformity with other lock hardware already on site.

Manufacturers of mortise locks in the United States include Accurate, Arrow, Baldwin, Best, Corbin Russwin, Emtek Products, Inc, Falcon, Penn, Schlage, Sargent, and Yale. Distributors such as Nostalgic Warehouse carry a wide range of decorative trim and accessories to dress up the appearance of a lock installation. Also, many European manufacturers whose products had previously been restricted to "designer" installations have recently gained wider acceptance and use.

Notes

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1. ^ The type commonly called a "Yale" lock.

References

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• Peter Brett. Carpentry and Joinery Nelson Thornes, 2004. ISBN 978-0-748-78502-5

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mortice locks.

• Lockwiki main page

Data input device

This article is about the data input device. For the fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards, see Cartomancy.

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A card reader is a data input device that reads data from a card-shaped storage medium and provides the data to a computer. Card readers can acquire data from a card via a number of methods, including: optical scanning of printed text or barcodes or holes on punched cards, electrical signals from connections made or interrupted by a card's punched holes or embedded circuitry, or electronic devices that can read plastic cards embedded with either a magnetic strip, computer chip, RFID chip, or another storage medium.

Card readers are used for applications including identification, access control and banking, data storage, and data processing.

Mechanisms

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Magnetic card readers

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Magnetic stripe technology, usually called mag-stripe, is so named because of the stripe of magnetic oxide tape that is laminated on a card. There are three tracks of data on the magnetic stripe. Typically the data on each of the tracks follows a specific encoding standard, but it is possible to encode any format on any track. A mag-stripe card is cheap compared to other card technologies and is easy to program. The magnetic stripe holds more data than a barcode can in the same space. While a mag-stripe is more difficult to generate than a bar code, the technology for reading and encoding data on a mag-stripe is widespread and easy to acquire. Magnetic stripe technology is also susceptible to misreads, card wear, and data corruption. These cards are also susceptible to some forms of skimming where external devices are placed over the reader to intercept the data read.^{[citation needed]}

Smart card readers use an electrical current to read data from embedded circuitry or magnetic features in a card. A contact smart card must physically touch contacts on a reader to connect a circuit between them. A contactless smart card uses radio waves or a magnetic field to transmit information to a reader remotely (though most readers have a range of 20 in (51 cm) or less).^{[citation needed]}

A contact smart card reader is an electronic device that physically connects to an integrated circuit in a smart card, supplies the circuit in the card with electricity, and uses communications protocols to read data from the card. Smart card readers used for banking or identification may be connected to a keyboard to allow verification with a personal identification number (PIN).

If the card does not use any standard transmission protocol, but uses a custom/proprietary protocol, it has the communication protocol designation T=14.^[1]

The latest^[which?] PC/SC CCID specifications define a new smart card framework. This framework works with USB devices with the specific device class 0x0B. Readers with this class do not need device drivers when used with PC/SC-compliant operating systems, because the operating system supplies the driver by default.^{[citation needed]}

PKCS#11 is an API designed to be platform-independent, defining a generic interface to cryptographic tokens such as smart cards. This allows applications to work without knowledge of the reader details.

Smartcard readers have been targeted successfully by criminals in what is termed a supply chain attack, in which the readers are tampered with during manufacture or in the supply chain before delivery. The rogue devices capture customers' card details before transmitting them to criminals.^[2]

A contactless smart card uses high frequency radio waves (13.56 MHz instead of 125 kHz), which allows the transfer of more data, and communication with several cards at the same time. A contactless card does not have to touch the reader or even be taken out of a wallet or purse. Most access control systems only read serial numbers of contactless smart cards and do not utilize the available memory. Card memory may be used for storing biometric data (i.e. fingerprint template) of a user. In such case a biometric reader first reads the template on the card and then compares it to the finger (hand, eye, etc.) presented by the user. In this way biometric data of users does not have to be distributed and stored in the memory of controllers or readers, which simplifies the system and reduces memory requirements.^{[citation needed]}

Access control

Proximity reader with keypad
Usage	access control

A reader radiates a 1" to 20" electrical field around itself. Cards use a simple LC circuit. When a card is presented to the reader, the reader's electrical field excites a coil in the card. The coil charges a capacitor and in turn powers an integrated circuit. The integrated circuit outputs the card number to the coil, which transmits it to the reader.

A common proximity format is 26-bit Wiegand. This format uses a facility code, sometimes also called a site code. The facility code is a unique number common to all of the cards in a particular set. The idea is that an organization will have their own facility code and a set of numbered cards incrementing from 1. Another organization has a different facility code and their card set also increments from 1. Thus different organizations can have card sets with the same card numbers but since the facility codes differ, the cards only work at one organization. This idea worked early in the technology, but as there is no governing body controlling card numbers, different manufacturers can supply cards with identical facility codes and identical card numbers to different organizations. Thus there may be duplicate cards that allow access to multiple facilities in one area. To counteract this problem some manufacturers have created formats beyond 26-bit Wiegand that they control and issue to organizations.

In the 26-bit Wiegand format, bit 1 is an even parity bit. Bits 2–9 are a facility code. Bits 10–25 are the card number. Bit 26 is an odd parity bit. 1/8/16/1. Other formats have a similar structure of a leading facility code followed by the card number and including parity bits for error checking, such as the 1/12/12/1 format used by some American access control companies.

1/8/16/1 gives as facility code limit of 255 and 65535 card number

1/12/12/1 gives a facility code limit of 4095 and 4095 card number.

Wiegand was also stretched to 34 bits, 56 bits and many others.

Wiegand card technology is a patented technology using embedded ferromagnetic wires strategically positioned to create a unique pattern that generates the identification number. Like magnetic stripe or barcode technology, this card must be swiped through a reader to be read. Unlike the other technologies, the identification media is embedded in the card and not susceptible to wear. This technology once gained popularity because it is difficult to duplicate, creating a high perception of security. This technology is being replaced by proximity cards, however, because of the limited source of supply, the relatively better tamper resistance of proximity readers, and the convenience of the touch-less functionality in proximity readers.

Proximity card readers are still referred to as "Wiegand output readers", but no longer use the Wiegand effect. Proximity technology retains the Wiegand upstream data so that the new readers are compatible with old systems.^{[citation needed]}

A memory card reader is a device for accessing the data on a memory card such as a CompactFlash (CF), Secure Digital (SD) or MultiMediaCard (MMC). Most card readers also offer write capability, and together with the card, this can function as a pen drive. Memory card readers can be built in to laptop computers or computer peripherals, or use a USB interface to transfer data to and from a computer.

The earliest example of a punched card reader, the Jacquard machine, physically pressed punched cards against rows of mechanical control rods to convert the data on the cards into physical positions of the loom's hooks. A hole in the card would allow the rod to pass through and remain unmoved; if there was no hole the rod would be pushed, moving its hook out of position.

Beginning with the Tabulating machine in 1890, data was read from punched cards by detecting whether a hole in the card allowed an electrical circuit to connect or an unpunched section of card interrupted that circuit.

The earliest punched card readers used pins that would dip into tiny cups of mercury when passing through a punched hole, completing an electrical circuit; in the late 1920s, IBM developed card readers that used metal brushes to make electrical contact with a roller wherever a hole passed between them.^[3]

By 1965, punched cards were read using photoelectric sensors. The IBM 2501 is an example of an early optical punched card reader.

A photoelectric punched card reader patent was issued in 1971.^[4]

A business card reader is a portable image scanner device or mobile app that uses optical character recognition to detect specific data fields on a business card and store that data in a contact database or 'electronic rolodex'. ^[5]

Simple data, such as an ID number, name, or address, can be encoded onto a card with a barcode and read from the card with an optical barcode reader.

Card readers are often used to read identification cards for the purposes of physical or electronic access control or to read data from an identity card.

Access control card readers are used in physical security systems to read a credential that allows physical access through access control points, typically a locked door. They can also be used in information security systems to control access to data. An access control reader can be a magnetic stripe reader, a bar code reader, a proximity reader, or a smart card reader.

IP access control

IP fingerprint reader
Media type	Internet Protocol
Capacity	10000 templates
Usage	fingerprint identification, access control

Readers may compare the data collected from the card, or data stored in the reader, to a biometric identification: fingerprint, hand geometry, iris, Voice Recognition, and facial recognition.^{[citation needed]}

A card reader with a biometric system compares the template stored in memory to the scan obtained during the process of identification. If there is a high enough degree of probability that the template in the memory is compatible with the live scan (the scan belongs to the authorized person), the ID number of that person is sent to a control panel. The control panel then checks the permission level of the user and determines whether access should be allowed. The communication between the reader and the control panel is usually transmitted using the industry standard Wiegand interface. The only exception is the intelligent biometric reader, which does not require any panels and directly controls all door hardware.

Biometric templates may be stored in the memory of readers, limiting the number of users by the reader memory size (there are reader models that have been manufactured with a storage capacity of up to 50,000 templates). User templates may also be stored in the memory of the smart card, thereby removing all limits to the number of system users (finger-only identification is not possible with this technology), or a central server PC can act as the template host. For systems where a central server is employed, known as "server-based verification", readers first read the biometric data of the user and then forward it to the main computer for processing. Server-based systems support a large number of users but are dependent on the reliability of the central server, as well as communication lines.

1-to-1 and 1-to-many are the two possible modes of operation of a biometric reader:

• In the 1-to-1 mode a user must first either present an ID card or enter a PIN. The reader then looks up the template of the corresponding user in the database and compares it with the live scan. The 1-to-1 method is considered more secure and is generally faster as the reader needs to perform only one comparison. Most 1-to-1 biometric readers are "dual-technology" readers: they either have a built-in proximity, smart card or keypad reader, or they have an input for connecting an external card reader.
• In the 1-to-many mode a user presents biometric data such as a fingerprint or retina scan and the reader then compares the live scan to all the templates stored in the memory. This method is preferred by most end-users, because it eliminates the need to carry ID cards or use PINs. On the other hand, this method is slower, because the reader may have to perform thousands of comparison operations until it finds the match. An important technical characteristic of a 1-to-many reader is the number of comparisons that can be performed in one second, which is considered the maximum time that users can wait at a door without noticing a delay. Currently most 1-to-many readers are capable of performing 2,000–3,000 matching operations per second.

Some banks have issued hand-held smartcard readers to their customers to support different electronic payment applications:

• Chip Authentication Program (CAP) uses EMV banking cards to authenticate online transactions as a phishing countermeasure.
• Geldkarte is a German electronic purse scheme where card readers are used to allow the card holder to verify the amount of money stored on the card and the details of the last few transactions.

Throughout the 20th century, punched card readers were used to tabulate and process data including census data, financial data, and government contracts.^[6] Punched card voting was widely used in the United States from 1965 until it was effectively banned by the Help America Vote Act of 2002.

• Access control
• Credential
• Iris recognition
• Jacquard machine
• Glossary of computer hardware terms
• Memory card
• Physical security
• Punched card
• Punched card input/output
• Tabulating machine
• Unit record equipment

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