OK, so I thought it was time for an update.
I thought I would show everyone how to read a key. It really is very easy.
A magnet small enough placed onto the keys' magnets will tell you the direction. It helps if you know which way is N and S on your magnet but it is not essential because it is all arbitrary anyway. - Wherever the magnet goes tells you where it needs to be, the polarity/direction is effectively meaningless. In the example below I have used round magnets on 3 of them and a row of rectangular magnets on the other. This shows how you can use different ways to read it off. You can also put a disc magnet on its side and that will point to a direction, like the rectangular ones.
From here you use the information from the key reading to make up a key. Here is half a key I made. The other half deals with discs on the other side and faces the opposite way.
It is very rough and ready (and you have to be very precise) but it is just illustrating that it can be done, and easily, with a few magnets and superglue!
I have them lined up on (almost) the same plane because if you read a disc and the magnet needs to go at the opposite side to its neighbour, just flipping it over will mean it now needs to go on the other side!
Regarding manipulating an unknown MCS, I am working on that and hope to be adding more soon!
Reading and faking a key is the easy part, picking it is the hard part. Now this lock, like all others, has tolerances. I believe that they can be exploited. However, the precise moving of the rotors can be difficult, the amount of movement required to miss a gate is very, very small.
I might also have one or two other tricks up my sleeve, stay posted.