Walk into any store with a key-copying vending machine and, hey, new key. But none of those machines are equipped to cut Medeco keys, partly because it's a little more expensive to make a machine the measures and cuts them, and partly because of IP.

The idea with Medeco is that you give one of these to your AirBNB guests or a building maintenance worker or something, and if you get your keys back, you can be reasonably confident that they didn't make any copies. You can't be 100% sure, of course, but the average mall machine or even locksmith probably can't help them.

An authorized Medeco agent will want documentation that you have the right to have a key made (you're the owner and not a renter), and they will of course happily charge you rather more than the mall kiosk to make a copy.

The risk is that someone will rent the place and spot an easy opportunity to copy the key and come back when other guests are staying at your Airbnb. Having a known number of official keys out there with a guest means you can keep tabs on those key and retrieve them for "full security". But having an unauthorized copy puts the owner's and every future guest's security at risk until the lock is changed because you cannot retrieve it or even know if it exists.

My mistake, I misread the previous post. I stupidly read it as "if you DON'T get your keys back..."

Every mechanical key is possible to clone, because every mechanical key is possible to manufacture.

No lock manufacturer claims you can't clone their keys if you've got the same machines as they've got in their factory. Or for that matter manual tools and the patience and dexterity of a watchmaker.

The aim is merely that when an employee needs an extra key for a newly hired colleague, going through the building services bureaucracy is easier than going to the key cutting guy in the mall.

This is one of the reasons 99% of large buildings use RFID keycards for the vast majority of doors.

> This is one of the reasons 99% of large buildings use RFID keycards for the vast majority of doors.

Most of these can be cloned, skimmed or even emulated with a common smartphone these days.

HID Prox was broken completely back in 2005. You can read and clone any 125khz prox card from six feet or more away.

https://proxmark.com/

Locksmiths can and do just ignore the "do not copy". And even if they didn't you could just use a machine, tape over it, grind it off etc.

The point is that a key is only hard to copy for the average person if it is hard to copy for the average locksmith.

No because standard house keys with "do not copy" on them, you can make them yourself with a key cutter and a few blanks you bought on ebay or alibaba. Medeco blanks are much harder to find, and the cutting requires specific equipment (nothing a custom CNC can't do though)