Order one and hone up your skills.
Posted on 09/25/2008 10:23:21 AM PDT by prolifefirst
Give Eric Michaud a can of beer (Guinness works best) and a pair of scissors and he can open just about any garden-variety padlock in seconds.
This is how: During a recent interview at a North Side bar, Michaud, a prominent lockpicking hobbyist (you read it right), cut the top and bottom off a can and carved a wavy M-shape out of the middle. He then folded and refolded it in such a way that it could be inserted between the lock and the shackle. A twist and voila! The lock popped open.
Making shims (as they are called in lockpicking circles and yes, there are lockpicking circles) like these are the source of a little lock pickers' humor, explained Michaud, who is 26, a co-founder of The Open Organization of Lockpickers US (TOOOL, for short) and who is famous, among global lock pickers, for his finesse in making lockpicking tools.
"We say, if you have a soda can next to a few pickers at work, you might want to upgrade your security."
Heh. Heh ... heh. Hmm.
So now is probably a good time to address a disturbing thought that might be forming in your head, about whether we are writing about the Criminal Element, about whether these guys are going to show up in the middle of the night and pick your locks and whether any of us are really safe if a 26-year-old North Sider with a can of stout is able to open a padlock with no trouble at all.
The quick answer is no, we are not safe. The lockpicking community has managed to "tear down," as they say, every single lock it has gotten its hands on except one, the Finnish Abloy Protec. And yeah, they are working hard on that one.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
Such paranoia! I guess this author never heard of a “Locksmith.”
That's just a tease, that's not the point of the article.
Sorry to have bothered you.
Locks only keep honest people out anyway.
ANY security device, I repeat, ANY security device can be bypassed by somebody with the necessary knowledge, skill, tools, time, and motivation.
I used to work for Mosler Safe a long time ago and was taught how to pick locks and had my own pick set. It was kind of interesting and I got pretty good at it. I still know the fundamentals but am so out of practice that I don’t know how I would do today.
This was King Louis XVI’s all-consuming hobby.
time to ban sheetmetal and pop cans.
The point of the article is it’s a club of people that like to figure out puzzles created in steel, and that criminals wouldn’t spend the time on this since it takes too much time. They would just break the lock or break in some other way.
And then there are “bump keys”. Read up about those.
I have been to Molser building in Hamilton Ohio. I was working on the Toshiba currency counters back then.
I can agree with that wholeheartedly. There is no point in picking a lock you can crowbar off, if you’re a criminal. There is a legitimate purpose to cracking these locks, and it’s people who don’t want their stuff ripped up by crowbars.
I also understand the eye-catching quality of the article’s lead.
What about the failsafe things that protect our nuclear weapons from being used without authorization.
I was a field rep but attended a few training courses at their Ohio facilities. I worked on alarm systems, pneumatic tube systems, video systems, safes, locks, etc. I don't remember a whole lot, this was back in the late 80's/early 90's.
Order one and hone up your skills.
You know, I might just do that. It was always kind of fun to say "Hey, look at what I can do!". It's almost the same thing as being able to do magic tricks.
Here’s how the thrill of picking a lock is described later in the article:
It’s like this big industry—the lock-making industry—really makes intricate puzzles out of steel and iron. The harder the puzzle, the more the lock pickers want to solve it. “It is addicting,” Farre said. “Once you feel that lock open, you feel like god.”
And that first lock? Magic. “They say you always remember your first lock,” said Towne.
“I was ecstatic. I had this huge rush and I thought, ‘This is amazing,’ “ Michaud said, describing the first time he picked a lock. He was at the 2004 Hackers on Planet Earth convention; it was a Master Lock and he used a rake and a torque tool, both of which look like dental instruments.
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