View Full Version : Lockpicking
Walking home last night, after walking the dog, I saw my across-the-street neighbor sitting out on her deck so I stopped to chat. After the catching up with the neighborhood gossip, she told me that she had locked herself out of the house and was waiting for a locksmith. I told her that I had a pick set and could take a shot at it if she wanted. She said the locksmith was very late but only charged a $15 service fee, so if I got her in before he arrived that’s all she’d have to pay.
I went home and got my picks and went to work on her front door dead bold. My son came over and, since he has a better touch, I let him take over. Unfortunately, the smith showed up a couple of minutes later. He apologized for being late and blamed it on the police saying that they stopped him for having prescription pills in his position that were not his. He didn’t explain how that information came to the attention of the police. He also said the car was his sister’s.
So, for the next half hour we watched him violently stab the Schlage deadbolt while bitching about the police. It was such overkill that he bent his tension tool. He even put a glove on his tension hand. :rolleyes: I decided that we’d try the back door so we could open the front door for him. On the side of her house we found another door and spent a few minutes on it, but moved on to the back when it looked like it hadn’t been used in years. When we got to the back door we saw the locksmith working on it. Back to the front door. I was determined to beat this doofus. It didn’t happen, he quickly beat the back door and let us in. He charged her $140.
What struck me as odd was that he didn’t ask her for ID or any verification that this was, in fact, her house.
Oh, did I mention my neighbor is an LAPD Detective? :D
Pat
OOPS!
Lockpicking is a part time hobby of mine. :) I get the itch once or twice a year and pull out the picks.
Walking home last night, after walking the dog, I saw my across-the-street neighbor sitting out on her deck so I stopped to chat. After the catching up with the neighborhood gossip, she told me that she had locked herself out of the house and was waiting for a locksmith. I told her that I had a pick set and could take a shot at it if she wanted.
I had a similar experience a few years ago. My neighbor came over and asked to use the phone to call a locksmith, since she had locked herself out -- so I offered to try to use my picks to open it for her. I'm just an amateur locksmith, though, and wasn't successful. In the end, she was clearly relieved by my failure.
I don't follow the lock industry at all any more -- I assumed they probably started to make more widespread use of harder to pick locks for homes, since a decade before, the ones I tried were pretty easy to open.
All this talk got me to pull out my tools......... I just picked the front door Kwikset in 12 minutes and the back door in 2min and 24 seconds........... My brother / room-mate is just shaking his head.... LOL
ZonieDiver
07-02-2011, 15:50
My neighbor's house was going through foreclosure, and she was moving out - due to changes in the 'hood (160,000 houses being sold by the banks for 50,000 will change a neighborhood). She still had a lot of 'stuff' in the house, but the bank declared it "abandoned" and changed the locks - taking off her locks, including a good deadbolt, which was replaced with a metal plate.
She tried for over a week to gain access, but met with a matrix of morons at the bank. She was crying when I ran into her. I looked around for the lock pick set, and prepared to see if the skills were still there. Before I began, thinking about a cop passing by and asking questions about "possession of burglar tools" - I whipped out my library card and was inside in 3 seconds. (Always try the simplest solution first.)
They told her they changed the locks to 'secure the house' - banks, ya gotta love 'em,./
90% of all house locks are installed improperly and thus VERY easy to bypass.
CA_TacMedic
07-03-2011, 01:33
I made my first few picks out of some hacksaw blades and a couple of templates off of the web along with some allen wrenches ground down for tension tools...They worked quite well for simple raking and easy diamond picks etc. I recently bought a few professional grade picks and tension tools and some from serepick...Nice quality and were much smoother than my homemade ones. It is definitely a perishable skil,l so if it is a tradecraft you will use often...definitely read up, practice and learn as much as possible.
What scared me the most was that I originally practiced on my home locks my first few tries....I picked/raked all my home locks in under ten seconds...I can bump them in less than 5...So I changed them out the next day. It definitely give you some insight as to how truly un-secure your stuff is...
Wallace
Red Flag 1
07-03-2011, 19:15
Nice to be able to help out; however, not sure I would want to be known as someone able to beat the locks. :munchin
RF 1
1stindoor
07-04-2011, 07:00
Nice to be able to help out; however, not sure I would want to be known as someone able to beat the locks. :munchin
RF 1
Very true. Having been trained by my 18F ( a licensed locksmith) many many years ago, the skill has served me well several times...but do it once for a neighbor and you're suspect in the future.
kimberly
07-04-2011, 08:20
Disturbing..
One of my daughter's best friends is a local volunteer fire fighter. He's also a very recent high school graduate. On his way out one afternoon, he mentioned he has the tools and could open my locked door in a matter of seconds.
Not something I wanted to know.
I was first taught by my first Team Sergeant (Max Recod). I later in life took a correspondence course. Then much later in life I attended a course and eventually worked for the guy that taught the course (teaching a few classes).
Nice to be able to help out; however, not sure I would want to be known as someone able to beat the locks. :munchin
RF 1
I'm in CA. I asked the Detective if she'd arrest me if I helped her. She said a pick set is no different than a rock. If I was not engaged in a crime, I was GTG. She enjoyed the race and was pulling for me. I told her I'd only charge her a beer. I got the beer anyway. :lifter
Pat
perdurabo
07-13-2011, 16:51
90% of all house locks are installed improperly and thus VERY easy to bypass.
Improperly installed? I'm curious, how so?
I'd say 99.9% of all house keys fit the second part (very easy to bypass), especially with a bump key.
Take a look at your house bolt. You will see the main part of the bolt and then you will see a separate (on most house locks) mechanism that is small and round (a plunger if you will). Well this part is not supposed to drop into the hole on the frame of the door. Unfortunately most installers are clueless and many times it does. When it does this if someone can get access to the bolt they just slide it in using either something with a sharp tip or even a credit card. The purpose of the small plunger is to keep the bolt from being retracted back into the door when someone tries to jimmy the bolt. It's AMAZING how many doors aren't installed properly. Even on high security locks this is the case. We had 4 high security locks installed at my last job and were approved for classified storage when I decided to check the locks. I could bypass all of them them in less than 2 seconds.
I would suggest that EVERYONE check their high security locks for this installation error.
Even this lock is prone to this problem.
19527
To see how this works open your door and push in on the small plunger and you will notice that your bolt/latch can not be retracted into the door. Now let the plunger come back out and then press on the bolt/latch and it will retract into the door. The plunger should rest against the strike plate when installed and not go into the hole the bolt goes into for this reason.
Hope this helps. ;)
...but do it once for a neighbor and you're suspect in the future.
I guess she ain't worried, she gave me a spare key to hold for her. :cool:
We just got back from a couple of weeks in the travel trailer. On the trip, I decided to practice my picking on the security locks I bought for the hitch. The very solid-feeling locking hitch ball I beat in 3 seconds. Thinking it was a fluke, I tried again. Two seconds this time. Hmmm. I'm glad the insurance company thinks highly enough of them to give me a discount.
Maybe I need a Denver Boot.
Pat
Speaking of which. If you're buying locks take a look at the key. If most of the cuts are the same depth don't buy it. Pick up another lock and look again.
Multi-depths are better and look for a deep cut near the hilt of the key (furthest away from the tip of the key). The reason being is that when picking it's more difficult to get over that first pin thus harder to pick. Deep, shallow, deep, shallow is even better.
I've seen locks I could pick with a toothpick because almost all the cuts were the same depth.
I've found that most homes have Kwikset or Schlage deadbolts. Both are very easy to pick. I'd check your home locks and put in good quality deadbolts. While you're at it, take a look at the screws that are mounting your deadbolts in place, along with the plate. Most are cheap, 3/4" inch screws that make ramming in or kicking in quite easy. Same goes for the hinges. Replace those with good long screws.
Master Locks for me have been some of the easiest padlocks to pick. Usually a couple good rakes and it pops open. The toughest I've seen (at least for me) are the round Uhaul locks for storage lockers and trailers. I've never been successful picking one.
To address perdurabo's comment:
99% of household locks can be BUMPKEYED in a second. It requires no real lock picking or at all. Its simply kinetic energy and good old newton laws. I used to work for a real estate company that we would have to pick locks on property's where people abandoned them and did not pay rent.(I assure you we had proper permissions to do this.) Lock picking worked well, but for me personally it was too frustrating sometimes. Especially with old dry locks. Once I learned about Bump keys it changed everything for me. I just made a whole ring set of all the common keys, now with that ring set any common household lock I encounter just takes one gentle tap with the mallet. Lockpicking is a fun and rewarding hobby though. If someone is looking for a cheap and interesting challenge lockpicking is it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_bumping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xkkS2p7SuQ&feature=related
A note about those push button code locks like shown above. They also have a major security flaw that without knowing the code you can gently press the buttons in a certain sequence that will unlock them every time. I wont say exactly how, but from experience at my workplace I noted similar issues with physical security. I think all locks are vulnerable in one way or another. I believe that most security minded folks that design this stuff have a general consensus that most people are not that smart to figure these things out. So they are not too afraid knowing that the "high security" locks are really not so secure after all.
alright4u
07-26-2011, 09:20
I recall a great SF Intel NCO who had been through the DAME course, too. He was the S-2 NCOIC and agent handler at CCS and the S-2 NCOIC in A CO, 6th SFGA after. He used to pick the locks to the TSN docs. I arrived one AM and he is out on the cement step beating a paper clip just right. Well, he opens the door next. I just smiled. Dale Libby was as fine as they come. I miss him. I recall him giving me 8 digit coordinates back in 11/68 to what he said was a company sized base camp. We hit it. I never doubted him.
Entire post
This was a concern of mine when I bought my house, especially after I was able to pick(SouthOrd kit) the $20 Kwikset installed by the contractor in under 5min (and bump another door in 2). I ended up going with Schlage lock-sets, and swapped out the cores for Schlage compatible BiLock(http://www.bilock.com/) cores. Ended up costing less than Medeco Maxum deadbolts. :lifter
GratefulCitizen
05-26-2013, 22:39
Was looking on the internet at how locks work yesterday.
Figured I'd see if it was possible for an untrained person to pick the deadbolt on my guest house/son's room.
Used a paper clip and a narrow screwdriver.
After about 5 minutes of getting the feel for how the pins moved I got it open.
:lifter
Neat hobby.
Might need to get a set of picks.
The best overall reference.