McNallyOfficial Sued by Proven Industries For Lock Bypass Video!

Proven Industries vs. McNallyOfficial: When a $130 Hitch Lock Gets Popped by a Soda Can

Trevor McNally, better known online as McNallyOfficial, is a former U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant and a phenomenon in the lock picking world. With 3.65 million subscribers, his YouTube Shorts channel is a rapid-fire showcase of locks getting virtually silently, cleanly, and devastatingly defeated. Not much talking unless it's required. No gimmicks. Just skill, focus, and often homemade lock picking or bypass tools. His work consistently attracts millions of views, and his comment sections are filled with support from fans and fellow lock picking enthusiasts.

There's the lock mechanism in question, in this photo from Proven Industries website. It's used in a couple of their products. Something's certainly been proven, that's for sure.

 

So when Proven Industries—a lock manufacturer selling a $130 trailer hitch lock—suggested on Instagram that McNally only goes after “cheap locks,” they weren’t just trying to protect their reputation, they were lighting a fuse. And the Streisand Effect is doing its thing!

The Soda-Can Shim and a Silent Smirk

McNally’s response came quickly. In a single, unedited YouTube Short, he demonstrated a bypass of the Proven hitch lock using a shim cut from a soda can. The camera rolled without a break. He shaped the tool, slid it in between the core and the housing, and pressed it against the internal spring-loaded wedge; the lock slid open with barely any resistance. And then he did it to several more units of the same lock, taking a few seconds on each one.

 

One of the locks in question. It is a nice colour, though.

 

A Fatal Flaw in the Lock’s Design

The issue lies in the internal mechanism. The lock uses a triangular, spring-loaded plunger to hold the device closed. It's designed to be easy to click shut, but that same convenience makes it vulnerable. A thin shim, even one made from a soda can, can reach in, press the plunger, and release the core entirely - opening the lock.

 

McNallyOfficial doing his thing on a Proven Industries lock..

 

The Lawsuit

Proven Industries next move wasn’t a redesign. It wasn’t transparency. It was litigation.

They sued McNallyOfficial for:

• Copyright infringement, claiming he used a portion of their promotional video,

• Defamation and trade libel, arguing his videos falsely implied their products were insecure,

• And they filed for an emergency injunction, demanding McNally take down all related content and stop posting new videos about their locks.

Their filings claimed McNally misled viewers, omitted critical context, and damaged their reputation. They even went as far as contacting his wife (I wouldn't stand for that!) in an attempt to “reach him” personally. Publicly, they alleged that McNally was editing his videos to make their product look worse than it is, even though his Shorts are almost always filmed in one continuous take, from start to finish so that people couldn't accuse him of precisely that kind of allegation.

The Court’s Response: Fair Use Wins

The judge wasn’t buying it. The request for an injunction was denied.

McNally’s use of the video was deemed transformative, he wasn’t reproducing their marketing; he was mocking it. He didn’t need to add commentary in words, the tone, visual framing, and non-verbal communication made it obvious. This was critique, not theft.

Proven Industries claims that the lack of technical explanation misled viewers didn’t hold true. The court noted that free expression, especially when it involves exposing product flaws, is protected, even if it upsets a company’s PR strategy.

 

Salt in Proven Industries Wound

Oh irony, you are a cad! On the Proven Industries YouTube channel, they feature a video entitled: Amazon Top Seller vs. Proven Industries (Lock Test) - AVOID these!! They show some other locks failing to withstand hammer and crowbar attacks, whereas their lock (a different one from the court case, but with the same locking mechanism) withstands several attacks with a sledgehammer. But as lock pickers, we know that you don't always need a sledgehammer to crack a walnut, or a lock. Sometimes, even a soda can will do.

 

A Pattern of Escalation

Each time Proven Industries pushed back, McNally posted another video. In one, he retrieves a new Proven Industries XL Series Puck Lock lock from an Amazon locker, unboxes it on camera, and bypasses it in one take. In others, he shows the same technique working across multiple models. He doesn’t overcomplicate. Sometimes he doesn't even use traditional lock picks. These videos are a prime example; he shows how he makes the bypass tool from a soda can in the video.

The message is simple: this isn’t about elite skill; it’s about a fundamental design failure that anyone can accomplish with a bit of practice and a soda can. He's well known for opening some locks by hitting them with another of the exact same lock, causing it to open - a kinetic attack, you could say.

 

Security Through Obscurity? Game Over

The situation also highlights a major principle in the lock picking world: security via obscurity doesn’t work.

Proven Industries' lock relied on the assumption that because most people couldn’t see or understand its internal workings, it was secure. But once someone like McNally makes a video showing the mechanism and exactly how to bypass it, that veil is gone. It’s not about picking anymore. It’s about exposure, and Proven Industries' response has only made things worse for them.

What Medeco Did Right

Contrast that with Marc Weber Tobias and the Medeco Biaxial story. Tobias, a respected lock picker and lawyer, published Open in 30 Seconds, detailing how America’s most “secure” lock (considered so at that time) could be picked, bumped, and shimmed, master-keyed, and more. What did Medeco do? They hired him. They collaborated to improve their locks, acknowledged the flaws, and regained respect from both the security industry, the public, and lock pickers.

Marc Tobias' book, 'Open in Thirty Seconds' where he found many flaws in what was considered America's most secure lock. Medeco ended up working with Marc on the next version of this lock.

Or Take the Kaba Simplex Case

Another well-known failure: the Kaba Simplex push-button lock. Marketed as high-security, and costing around a whopping $400, it turned out to be vulnerable to very simple magnetic attacks. The result? A class-action lawsuit and major reputational damage. Like Proven, Kaba learned that good marketing can’t protect a bad mechanism. You can read more about The Kaba Simplex Affair HERE.

 

The KABA Simplex Affair. Read the BLOG, they knew there was a vulnerability, and that sort of thing doesn't go down well in court, thankfully. You could open the this lock with a rare-earth magnet. That's it. Oh, and a sock, so you can get the damn thing off once you're done.

Lessons Proven Should Learn

• Security via obscurity is a myth. It's also sometimes called SECURITY THROUGH OBSCURITY, by the way.

• If your product fails a soda-can shim test, you’ve got a design problem, not a PR problem.

• Fair use protects critique—especially when it’s visual, transformative, and honest.

• The smart move isn’t to fight your critics. It’s to hire them, collaborate with them, and fix what’s broken.

• You can read more about Security Via Obscurity HERE

 

McNallyOfficial going through the motions. It doesn't appear to be a fluke! You can see the 'tool' cut from a soda can in this picture.

 

McNallyOfficial didn’t attack Proven Industries; he revealed the truth about their product.

And the court agreed. So far, at least. I'll be keeping an eye on this case and will bring you any updates. Lock Picking gossip, eh? But such cases could, one day, have very negative implications for lock pickers and lockpicking content makers. As the world seems to be going in a more authoritarian direction, things might not always be so straightforward, and that could mean a transformation of the lock picking content making scene, and manufacturers crawling back under their rock of security via obscurity.

We have many great lock picking blogs you can see HERE.

Happy lock picking - and stay legal - and try not to get sued!

Chris Dangerfield.