Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
hackthis.co.uk
Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
1–10 of 116 posts
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#2I was really into this back in high school but never got proficient in it. The concept is simple to understand but actually executing it takes a LOT of practice. Raking can open a lot of older locks pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean you're skilled.
Also, just owning the tools is illegal in some states.
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#3I was really into this back in high school but never got proficient in it. The concept is simple to understand but actually executing it takes a LOT of practice. Raking can open a lot of older locks pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean you're skilled. Also, just owning the tools is illegal in some states.
> Raking can open a lot of older locks pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean you're skilled.
I disagree. Raking has opened a lot (most I've tried) of locks in my experience. So, I'd say I'm pretty skilled at picking locks.
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#4A much cheaper and easier approach that works for most locks is to get a coke bottle and tear a strip out of it, then use it to do the 'hollywood credit card trick'.
unlike a credit card it doesn't snap or break very easily - the type of plastic will become softer when placed under pressure and is very flexible but strong - if you continue to force it in the right area it will work its way around hard corners and into tiny gaps until there is enough pressure to pop the bolt. when the bolt has an edge that is sloped towards you it will pop on the first push (the way i see most 'yale style' locks fitted on doors that open inwards - i.e. most front doors)
it takes an exceptionally tightly fitted door frame to prohibit this (e.g. one with brushes or hermetic seals)
the one time i couldn't break into my own home doing this was because there was a brush fitted down the side of the door - fortunately there was not one fitted in the letter box, so i found a long spanner at a nearby construction site and then spent the next four hours of my life whacking the mechanism from through the letterbox blindly until i caught the handle the right way and the door popped open...
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#5A good place to start is office furniture locks. They usually aren't very well made, and therefore easy to pick. The nearby office supplies can be used as your tools. You can use the large wire from one side of a binder clip as-is as your torque wrench, and a bent paper clip as your rake pick. First, straighten the clip, then bend the middle into a triangle shape. Bend the ends outward for better control over depth and angle.
Insert the binder clip wire, apply some torque, and scrub the pointy end of the triangle on your former paper clip against the pins. The lock will turn in seconds. You may need to adjust the shape of the triangle somewhat to achieve best results.
Popping open your first lock with entirely improvised materials is a powerful reminder that cheap locks are little deterrent to anyone but the most casual and unmotivated intruders, just like privacy locks in bathrooms.
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#6A good place to start is office furniture locks. They usually aren't very well made, and therefore easy to pick. The nearby office supplies can be used as your tools. You can use the large wire from one side of a binder clip as-is as your torque wrench, and a bent paper clip as your rake pick. First, straighten the clip, then bend the middle into a triangle shape. Bend the ends outward for better control over depth a…
Also Sentry brand safe locks are awful(ly easy to pick), as well as handgun locks, sadly.
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#7I taught myself how to pick locks my final year of high school - in France, high school students have to take the "baccalauréat", a set of exams that cover everything you've studied in high school, in all subjects. It spans the course of 2 weeks or so, and you get 1 week to prepare before it.
I hadn't been doing so hot in high school (writing assembly for my TI-83's z80 was more fun than reading Shakespeare and doing derivatives), so my parents locked my laptop in the attic for me to focus on revising during that week.
Of course, I spent a few hours reading at the local library on lock picking, and managed to get my laptop from the attic on the first day (the lock was a fairly old model too, which helps). I spent the rest of the revision week writing C and hanging out in IRC :')
For the record, I did pretty well on the baccalauréat :)
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#8This is why my deadbolt uses an Abloy Protec2 cylinder (custom ordered from Bay Area Locks: http://www.bayarealocks.com). It's drill resistant, and it's disk-based so it's bump and rake proof.
Abloy also claims it's pick proof. Whether that will remain true in the future I'm not sure, but I do know that at the very least it has yet to be successfully picked. If someone did figure out a way it would likely be extremely difficult to do in practice.
After watching some videos that showed just how easy it is to simply kick a door in, another thing I did was replace my strike plate with a heavier duty one, and replace the worthless 3/4" screws that "hold" most strike plates in with 4" screws that actually go into the 2x4's of the house frame.
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#9A much cheaper and easier approach that works for most locks is to get a coke bottle and tear a strip out of it, then use it to do the 'hollywood credit card trick'. unlike a credit card it doesn't snap or break very easily - the type of plastic will become softer when placed under pressure and is very flexible but strong - if you continue to force it in the right area it will work its way around hard corners and int…
You opened your door by putting something through your letterbox? That's awesome. Did you catch the doorknob or the lock turner? Was the door handle flat instead of round, or...? Hard to imagine the logistics.
Re: Lock Picking – A Basic Guide
#10I was really into this back in high school but never got proficient in it. The concept is simple to understand but actually executing it takes a LOT of practice. Raking can open a lot of older locks pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean you're skilled. Also, just owning the tools is illegal in some states.
> Raking can open a lot of older locks pretty quickly, but that doesn't mean you're skilled. I disagree. Raking has opened a lot (most I've tried) of locks in my experience. So, I'd say I'm pretty skilled at picking locks.
I've managed to open a lot of unlocked doors (most I've tried) but wouldn't consider myself "skilled" at it, since it's a pretty easy task. I think the definition of "skill" implies something that isn't easy, thus being able to do something isn't automatically proof of skill.