Tampering with Wristbands - Part 2 

It’s always a blast handing him keys and wristbands at random hotels and watching nifty hacks pop out of his brain.

As a professional event organizer, I hate this series. Now I know how building security, the cops and lock companies feel lol. Keep up the great work.

If you twist up the fabric band tight enough against itself, it will become too rigid for the teeth to bite and you can slide the plastic lock off without any tools.

With the fabric wristbands you can also just twist the fabric tight and work the clasp down. A 2 minute no tools solution.

I work as a stagehand. At one music fest I work every year they switched to these wristbands instead of lanyards for our working pass. They included a little RFID tag so that if I go somewhere I'm not allowed, like artist catering, security will immediately be alerted. Problem is that I'm doing a weeks worth of eating, sleeping, showering, and a lot of manual labor with this thing on my wrist, trying the whole time not to tighten it. It's a real PITA. So thanks for the trick. I'm gonna have to try it out as soon as I can.

There's a third type. It looks like paper, but it's some sort of plastic. They glue the ends in place and they have this pattern of cuts like anti tamper stickers. Steam isn't an option when you got it on your wrist, isopropyl alcohol loosen the glue but also smeared the ink/writing on the band. Any tips?

Cloth ones you can also twist the tails very tight, then “unscrew” the plastic stopper off In the opposite direction of the tightly twisted tails. Twisting the tails makes the material more……..dense? The interior teeth then can’t grab it very well when twisting it off. No tools required. 😎

Preface: My hands are by no means huge, but they are on the big side. I've pissed off so many hospital staff because I would always just slide my wristband off to go to sleep (i've had various medical issues). They would even tighten it to where it's just before the point of being too tight. The staff would eventually give up.

There is also a second style for these fabric ones: instead of plastic the clip is made of aluminum which gets squished with pliers. I've only seen them on multi day music festivals (eg the german metal festival Wacken uses them).

The fabric ones I've seen have always been clamped with a metal thing and I've never seen the plastic clasp before. Those sure won't move one bit like this :D (Then again, the last time I've had one of those wrist bands was like 10 years ago so who knows what the scene is like now)

Excited to see if this series continues, maybe those wrist bands that stick to itself but has the tamper evident thing on the sticky part

If it's free, it's for me! Please give me 3!

"I'd rather you just give lunch to a homeless person ..." puts you up there with Bram Moolenaar in my book...wish more folks were like that. Thank you!

Remember to burn the edges of the ribbon to avoid it fraying everywhere

Its exactly how a shark bite connection removal tool works. It just moves the teeth out of the way so you can remove the fitting. Good luck with dealing with all the emails. Hope everyone is staying safe, and taking care.

FUCKING HATED THAT WRIST BAND, this was the one i ranted about that thing kept cutting my circulation

how to social engineer this to not be an issue: "I'm working with food during this event, can you leave it loose or put it around my ankle?" I learned this from my wife, it was true when she said it. I didn't argue when they offered the same to me. a massive event I plan on volunteering at this year uses this style of fabric band with embedded rfid tags. as there's a heavy govt and grey hat presence at the event I was considering putting a piece of copper pipe around the tag.

Hi Dev, just a thought, I wonder if these bands could be popped and then see how to re-assemble one with just the contents of a hotel room? (Hairdryer, Corby trouser press... etc.)

Whats the best way to get ahold of you to pick you brain about something interesting i found mag stripe related ? Do you have a physical address i could send a letter too

You missed an even easier solution that doesn't require any modification at all: while the wristband is off, slide the bead off and put it on backwards (so that the loop of fabric enters the smooth side), then pull it through just enough to stick your hand in... and stick your hand in. drawback of this method is that you cannot cinch it behind your wrist (you can still hold the bead in place and contort your hand through like a bangle if you want). however, you have as many go's as you need (if you make it too loose, just pull the bead off and start again, and you don't need any tools at all and can revert it to a normal state with absolute ease.

Funny, I was at an E-sports event last weekend and they used wrist bands similair these so visitors could move in and out of the arena, we shimmed them with a key to get them off for the night.

Did this for PAX this year for the vaccine bands. I think you were supposed to either wear them all of PAX or cut them off and get a new one when you come back. Using the straw trick when I got back to my room for the night saved me a lot of time I'd otherwise spend in the vaccine verification lines.

Thank you. Yes sir I know you want stuff to flow from you to us *but* so much already flows from you to us. *and* your kindness is what I want to see more of in the world. Hence people will donate to you, Bosnian Bill, Lock Picking Lawyer, et al. Thank you.

*positive engagement due to DeviantOllam being cool to people*

Coachella music festival uses these kind, is that information as you wish

The USPS is getting super picky with not-perfect envelopes. So, if there's a normal 55c stamp on the envelope, it might arrive postage-required with like a $5 fee on it....

I think.... we should feed the homeless, send you money and if something shows up in return .. so be it .. if not .. free money aye... :) much love.

well, having 108k subs and giving away free stuff :D

M8 way to complex. If you just twist the loose ends of the wristband toghether tightly it comes right off.

Very important for music festivals

The plasti/paper ones would be interesting

The cloth wrist bands I've come across had a metal clasp that was crimped onto the cloth using a hand tool. I wonder if anything can be done with those. It's crimped on pretty tight and could probably tear the fabric easily.

Metal crimp ones though?

I bought a homeless person lunch, send me free stuff.

See I dislike that style just because on me they seem to self tightened to the point where you have to break the plastic or loose a hand

I got the third part recommended to me, so I found the first and started there. I don't think it'll end at the third episode now that I'm seeing your other thumbnails on the side x'D I love your humor and wholesomeness, definitely needed that rn, thank you!

As someone who works at a lot of festivals and always get stuck with these, I’ve been using the drinking straw method for years.

2:37 A M O G U S

The bots won the comment section war :(

What about the crushy metal boyes?

I guess I don't go to the nice events, I've only had the paper stick on type... still good to know if it ever comes up though. It would be interesting to see what works for the sticker ones. Solvent and a nylon scraper? That's the obvious first guess, but I've never actually tried it. Maybe cut it carefully and apply a new sticky bit to cover the cut, kinda like replacing the button.

Use anything to strip the inside

Didn't no these were a thing

one less barrier in the way

what about the paper ones

I must say i love this chanel. I saved the my job like 1 grand this week. 2 keys and only 2 keys can open the tool crib at work. The nearest tect to come let us back in was like 1 week out and we couldn't work without access to that room. Then i remembered the trick with Request to Exit Sensors and the upside down air can. So with permission i tried and vola. We got in.

HA, the TSA-approved tool but is the lighter TSA-approved? :)

Wow - that was fast..

Did something much like this while on a ship last year. I don't think they are running the bands now but a lot of people just put the plastic piece in a door and closed it to break it off. Then they would sew them or cut and melt the ends off. I did the straw trick with mine once but honestly even after being 70 feet under water I was more irritated by the ends than anything else though I have heard people complain about them for just being wet. Once the tails are trimmed off I am fine wearing them wet or not but seeing the trick to melt the ends will go into my playbook for sure. 2 weeks straight of wearing the band I was so happy to get to my car and cut the stupid thing off. Ever do any security testing on a ship? I am sure there are some interesting things there for sure. The older RCCL ships use the magnetic stripe cards for a charge account as well as a door key with a barcode for getting on and off the ship. The newer ships (Oasis, Quantum, and theoretically the Icon class) use NFC for the doors but not sure about anything else. Could be interesting to look at for sure. I had a good laugh with one of the officers in the engineering department talking about some stuff and suggested packing a skeleton in a suitcase to see what security says. He laughed and said "No don't do that, please." I am still considering going over to the Museum of Osteology and picking up a full animal skeleton to pack into my suitcase though and then stick in a camera so I can hear and possibly see the reaction. Would still love to be a fly on the wall to see what happens though.

I have a brand new wrist band from a 2024 festival. This one is very clever. It has 2 rows of very pointy teeth that are staggered making the straw method ineffective.. in addition it also has a separate collar on the outside that spins if you try the twist method to get it off. I was able to defeat both by useing a pair of needle nose pliers to grab the inner and outer and twist the band till I got the plastic locking bead off. After that your lighter method worked beautifully against the plastic spikes

Never seen those plastic collars, I think guys here know that they would be a little too easy to get off. Here they crimp a piece of metal tube on.

There are also the paper/plastic wristbands that have a sticky pad with perforated lines, so that attempting to unstick it will break the wristband. Those can be peeled apart carefully with a playing card.

I've always just tightly turned the ribbon into a rope-like "shape" and turned the clasp off...

Fiskars, torille!

Weird question, but were you in Kentucky at Mammoth Cave early April? Could have sworn I talked to your doppelganger lol

victorinox has the BEST compact scissors i've ever used. they are usually attached to a knife though, so they are pretty impossible to fly with unless you check them. they are incredibly sharp though and very tiny. my knife that has scissors also has a tiny magnifying lens, with the idea that you can use it to repair clothes i think

heey deev. looove youuu. Kbye

Hey man, are you doing DEFCON this year? I'd love to get you a beer and pick your brain on some things...

Ok, now do the festival fabric wristbands with the crimped metal clasps. How's that for a challenge?

FWA execs watching this after glaiming they're unghostable: NANI (I figured this out the first year they had these stupid things. Shit was rank after day 2.)

Big fan, thanks for all the content. I remember watching this when it came out but never dealt with these before. The twist method doesn’t work anymore the inside teeth spin Shimming with straw from the wrist side worked a treat. Just had to get it wrapped around one side of fabric and get it worked into the lock, sliding it tighter once it place. Opened enough to take off and will put back on and pull shim out Thanks for everything you do

Thank you! just preserved my and a friend's con wristbands with a straw from the rubbish bin

If anyone wants to give Deviant money, I'm sure they could find a way to buy his lockpicking book, perhaps on a site like red team tools ;)

Dev sir, I present the following challenge time! Show us what you can do with the old fashioned "Event Ink hand Stamps" I am sure some events still use the old ink stamp system actually yes they are; I remember in 2019 Chicago Auto Show used that method. I am curious if one were to apply something to their skin before receiving the stamp, could you copy or reapply it....

I've seen those fabric bands with metal clamps instead of plastic that staff pinches with some kind of plyers when you put it on your wrist(they look specially made). Any idea how to counter those without having to bring along a screwdriver and some plyers and mucking up the metal clamp?

RU-vid recommended this out the blue. It was pretty cool to watch. Thanks.

Glastonbury festival years ago had this fabric type of band but with metal instead of plastic and no teeth. They put it in a clamp (after its on your wrist and dent the metal with a press so its malformed and traps the fabric between the crushed metal. Still can be loosened if you work the metal a bit but definately not as easy.

All I ever get are the nonwoven plastic "paper" with and adhesive and anti-tamper perforations. I'd try ethanol, isopropanol, acetone and cigarette lighter fluid. Different adhesives are susceptible to different solvents. LPL used an alcohol in a syringe and a scalpel to remove and replace a holographic security sticker covering a padlock keyway.

Once you have the plastic clip off the fabric wristband couldn't you just thread it on backwards (loop end first) just enough to get your wrist through? Then it'll slide right off when you want and you don't have to mess around with melting it.

Padlock bypass tool maybe? Two together?

Wristbands are the one bonus to my having super wide wrists. My arm just basically goes thunk into my hand with very little narrowing. So any of these just slip right off. Sure, I've never been able to wear women's watches or bracelets but hey.

Have you spent any more time on the clasps at 1:54? I got a convention wristband recently with the bottom-middle side-entry sarlacc pit clasp, and I ended up cutting it (it got way too tight while trying straw tricks, breaking teeth, etc), but would love to be better armed for next year's convention.

You know a homies alright when they recommend the fiskars

Fucking finally. Festival goers rejoice!

Thanks for the continual great content, Dev. Always fast to click when I see you posted a video. Keep it up brother.

For the fabric wristbands: Just twist them until the teeth can't bite, and only loosen them a bit instead of take it off. Then you can just slip it off your wrist with a small amount of work, would do that like 5x a day whenever I wasn't gonna get my tag checked.

Unfortunately PAX has used these as their COVID check clearance for their events the last year or so. Go through, get check and have a wristband for the event showing that you've already been cleared.

Hey there. I would also love to get a couple of the wristband rivets. However, I live in Czech Republic and I am sure postage from the US would get a bit expensive and complicated. If you are already sending something to Prague, could you please add me on the list and give me a contact info on the other pearson/people so I can get in touch with them? It would be easier and cheaper for you to send one envelope instead of multiple.

This was more useful than you could ever know. Rockville uses these as the tickets. It is a great keepsake but cutting it off really hurts. Not physically, unless you dislocate your wrist. I've seen someone do it.

The newest cloth strap wristbands (with free-rotating outer shell and two inner clasps) come off your wrist like this: Cut a 2cm piece of hard plastic straw (reusable straws). Cut longitudinally and fit the straw over the plastic shell of the clasp. Now slide the straw downward onto the cloth bands, the straw will now be pressing against your wrist and the clasp hole. Get a plastic pen (or hard nail file), put the pen in between your wrist and the straw. Lever the pen so it pushes the straw down into the clasp. Both inner white plastic clasps will now pop out the bottom. Make a single cut with small scissors of those inner clasps longitudinally, open them up and pop them off the fabric strap (they should stay intact). Your wrist is now free. You can rebuild the clasp to use the wristband again --or -- cut off an end piece of ballpoint pen cap and stuff it with that to allow easy-on/off but still have good tension.

For the cloth bands there is a very easy way to get rid of them without destroying that works absolutely perfekt on the ones with the metal clasp. Just use a carabiner clip for like climbing.Get inside the band make your hand small und use the carabiner in like a circle around your hand. Very easy way to get it off and on your (or someone else’s) hand. That’s what I always did

So question about locks. Have you dealt much with sesamee model 13? i can shim it open no problem but i wanna actually use it, but i can't figure out how to decode it, so here i am at the feet of the overlord of getting into locks XD but yeah i'm just trying to figure out if it's even possible to decode,

If you make a half-twist in a wrist band (turning it into a single-sided Möbius strip) and put it back on, your hand will disappear.

_I'd rather you give lunch to a homeless person._ That's kind, considerate and _the problem with that_ is more people are inclined to both feed the homeless person, and _still_ want to give money.

Hi! you got my subscribe on this one! I wanted to keep my Interceltic Festival wristband in a good shape and I came up with the idea of cutting semi strong plastic and putting it around the fabric, it worked!

As a note to the snaps video. When I was young we had a band like these at Disney world. I took mine off using a knife. My dad cut a button off the bottom most button of my little yellow rain coat. I was maybe 6 or 8. He then snipped a hole in the wrist band and it became removable. Resuable...

And this is how Deviant got banned from the water parks...

I wonder what mischiev I can get up to with 100 random wrist bands

I tried this today and had a really hard time with this attempt. When I got to the event some scalpers taught me a bit of a different solution. Split the straw, wrap around one side and approach from the wrist side of the assembly. A bit simpler and quicker.

Went to a con with these, thankfully it wasn't slipped on tight so I could take it off when I was walking around the city so I didn't look like an easy mark tourist along with just being able to sleep and shower without it on.

Then you have the fabric ones with metal clips. And you also have the ones made in paper with an adhesive often used in amusement parks.

What can you do about the paper ones. Is there a way to remove and reapply those?

there is a FAR easier way to get them off. this I figured out at SHMOO. if you grip the plastic bit and twist several times the tines that are gripping the band twist and the band tightens the weve. poof the band slips away.

What about NFC enabled wristbands? Would a video on these be redundant, or are some of these wristbands worth digging into? The disposable ones are easy to copy but some of the more substantial or durable ones seem to be more sophisticated.

This is great! Now I just need a way to take off and on those horrible plastic/paper wrist bands.

Interesting using a straw to remove the fabric from the barbs. reminds me of in medieval times soldiers would carry feathers and sticking them into the wound and around the barb; thus allowing the arrow to be pulled out without catching on the wounded persons insides.

i saw a similar trick but you pull the fabric through the straw, and push the straw up into the grabby bit, it'll pull out easy enough unless the fabric is too thick. your way seems like itd work with thicker fabric

I got one of those bands on right now (actually a whole bunch of them, but most of them arent interesting) which is like a two part thing, it has an outer shell that rotates while the inner core with the teeth stays still, which, to my knowledge, renders some ways of removing them unusable, i think the straw trick might work tho, ill give it a try. Actually, i just noticed that all of my wristbands that come from bigger music festivals that arent the metal clasp use this kind of concept

What is that TSA approved multi tool? And has TSA ever given you a hard time for it?

What about the fabric wristbands with those metal clips that get fastened with pliers?