101–110 of 116 posts
Anyway, this is a crazy hard skill to master, simply because of the feel required to actually push each pin in place, and the fact that you're doing it blindly and often without so much as audible feedback from the lock.
You definitely need to practice to get good, and there are all types of funky locks outside of your home country
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I am going to make a new word, "learnacrastinator", "learnicrastor" (feel free to fix/expound). One who learns a subject or skill while procrastinating studying for another.
Maybe "procrastilearner"?
The word, not the fact you've just described my life.
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> When you factor in things such as "I'm a skilled programmer, but I don't know Ada." Are you still a skilled programmer? "A programmer" is not necessarily "A person who knows Ada". You're trying very hard to play semantics and it's not working for you. You don't get to call yourself a skilled swordsman because you sliced up some virtual goblins, simply because the only things you felt like slicing up were virtual go…
And you're trying really hard to make things more complicated than they are. A skill is not a complicated thing. Allow me to put the words in your mouth that you are struggling to say: "not a true Scotsman".
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Similar thing happened with my when I was ~14, except it was the family desktop -- laptops were way too expensive for us back then -- and they had a lock on a power switch that led up to the computer. Learned to pick locks and got extensively lectured about why I shouldn't do things just because I can. My parents eventually gave up on trying to lock my out of the PC(after trying BIOS passwords, OS-level passwords and…
I am going to make a new word, "learnacrastinator", "learnicrastor" (feel free to fix/expound). One who learns a subject or skill while procrastinating studying for another.
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Nice idea. Depending on where you sell this from you may want to check the laws about providing such a tool and if you need to verify anything about the customer before allowing a sale. For example in some parts of the USA one has to show proof of either being a licensed locksmith or a member of some law enforcemnt group.
Here's a good starting reference on the legality of owning lockpicks from state to state: http://toool.us/laws.html It doesn't cover sale / purchase, just ownership by state.
1. get any torque wrench (L-shapped metal that goes in the keyhole)
2. get any triangular pick (any thin metal that goes in the hole, saw a triangular tip)
3. insert the pick as far as it goes, apply some tension to the torque wrench, pull the pick out it pressing against the lock pins.
4. repeat #3 until lock is open. you will usually ram the lock like there is no tomorrow, so some graphite or other kind of lubricant may help.
Good presentation on types of locks and approaches to picking: http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh-europe-08/Deviant_O...
And a guy who knows a ton about picking: http://deviating.net/lockpicking/slides.html
The older Abloy locks from 60's/70's can apparently be picked if you're really skillful but it takes a lot of time and effort, and this was never common knowledge.
I read about hackers who were picking locks in the USA, or just outside of Scandinavia, and how pin tumbler locks work, and realized that those would indeed be plausibly pickable but I never had access to them in practice. I think probably could've found some if I really, really wanted to but nobody was using them for anything serious so learning to pick something considered as toy locks wasn't very motivating.