81–90 of 118 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
if it works, it's not a dumb solution :)
I took two things away from my AI class. 1) If brute force doesn't work, you're not using enough. 2) Do the stupid thing first.
"Use a bigger hammer". "If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it was going to break anyway".
If the code was 20-40-60 and the "enlisted help of experts" failed to crack it, then said experts are not really up to scratch.
>The odds of Mr Mills correctly guessing the combination are pretty long, says the University of Toronto's Jeffrey Rosenthal, author of Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything. >He calculated the chance of correctly guessing the combination on one try as 1 in 216,000. (His calculation assumed the safe numbers actually ran from one to 60). Glad they managed to find an expert with the calculating ski…
If the combination does allow for wiggle room and the 1 in 8000 figure is correct, the code could have been brute forced in a couple hours. Source: my wife has a habit of forgetting the combination to her 3 digit luggage lock and I had to brute force it a few times (it's surprisingly quick, about 15 minutes) :)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The odds of Mr Mills correctly guessing the combination are pretty long, says the University of Toronto's Jeffrey Rosenthal, author of Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything. >He calculated the chance of correctly guessing the combination on one try as 1 in 216,000. (His calculation assumed the safe numbers actually ran from one to 60). Glad they managed to find an expert with the calculating ski…
Just to be cranky, shouldn't we eliminate all the permutations that use the same number three times? (i.e. 11-11-11)? My knowledge of combination locks doesn't extend much beyond goofing with Master locks in high school, but the more rudimentary designs require that the middle number be different from either of the two end ones. This doesn't sound like a super-advanced safe.
If the combination does allow for wiggle room and the 1 in 8000 figure is correct, the code could have been brute forced in a couple hours. Source: my wife has a habit of forgetting the combination to her 3 digit luggage lock and I had to brute force it a few times (it's surprisingly quick, about 15 minutes) :)
Would they have known about the wiggle room without opening the safe, though? I figured they found this out after inspecting the lock once the safe was open. So if they didn't know about this wiggle room -- or know what amount of wiggle was allowed -- could they have benefited in any way?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The odds of Mr Mills correctly guessing the combination are pretty long, says the University of Toronto's Jeffrey Rosenthal, author of Knock on Wood: Luck, Chance, and the Meaning of Everything. >He calculated the chance of correctly guessing the combination on one try as 1 in 216,000. (His calculation assumed the safe numbers actually ran from one to 60). Glad they managed to find an expert with the calculating ski…
Just to be cranky, shouldn't we eliminate all the permutations that use the same number three times? (i.e. 11-11-11)? My knowledge of combination locks doesn't extend much beyond goofing with Master locks in high school, but the more rudimentary designs require that the middle number be different from either of the two end ones. This doesn't sound like a super-advanced safe.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Myst series?
That's what came to my head too. It still took me many hours more game play to find out WHAT I had unlocked and what to do with it.
The CBC article differs in two important aspects. The BBC article says they "enlisted the help of experts", when the CBC article says they just called a locksmith who gave them some combinations to try over the phone. The BBC article makes it sound like some tourist just tried a random combination, while in the CBC article, a machinist put his ear to the safe and listened for clicks.
If the combination does allow for wiggle room and the 1 in 8000 figure is correct, the code could have been brute forced in a couple hours. Source: my wife has a habit of forgetting the combination to her 3 digit luggage lock and I had to brute force it a few times (it's surprisingly quick, about 15 minutes) :)
Some of these 3-digit locks are so simple/bad one can actually just see the open slot on each ring. After which you just have to align them. If that fails, some of them have just enough space so you can put something thin (like a needle with a bent end) and can feel where the slot is. Usually faster than brute forcing.
The most useful trick was to put a bit of tension on the lock cable while turning the tunblers. Once we got a feel for it, we could often open unfamiliar locks almost as fast as if we had the combination, and didn't even have to look. You could just feel the gap slip into place.
> "They have no value really, but they are of great interest to us. It gives us a little bit of idea of what the places were like in 1977, '78," said Mr Kibblewhite. This must be the most American thing ever. 40 year old stuff treated like they're ancient.
In much the same way as your comment being the most European thing ever.