7 ms·

The MIT Lockpicking Guide

215 points by AndyBaker 12y ago

fabulist 12y ago
On a legal note; IANAL, but I did a little research before getting started in lock picking a while back. iirc, there are no federal laws against having picks. However, states often have laws against "possession of burglary tools". In my jurisdiction, if they can establish intent to burglarize -- ie, you're also carrying an empty duffel bag, a crowbar, and a map with the bank circled on it -- its a class II felony. I repeat; I am not a lawyer.
- Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
  Presumably then the issue is more about carrying them with you when you're out and about rather than having them in a toolbox at home? In the same way you can have a big knife at home but carrying it in your bag is a problem.
- minikomi 12y ago
  Depends on where you live - in Japan, you probably don't want to be carrying them around..
- joshuak 12y ago
  Then you should just build them into your business card. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ranh/106709219/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/ranh/106709219/
  - fabulist 12y ago
    I like how the torsion wrench works, thats clever. I used to carry a similar card. It was a fake credit card that opened up, and had a small set of picks inside. I kept it in my wallet in case I was ever locked out.
- grkvlt 12y ago
  An obvious hack to get around this would be to put 'Locksmith' on your business card, or get a set of cards advertising a side business as a Locksmith. Bingo, they're not burglary tools, they are required tools of the trade for your profession, similar to knife exemptions for Chefs.
  - rtkwe 12y ago
    Most states require locksmiths to be certified and advertising services without being licensed is a bigger infraction than carrying picks.
- elsporko 12y ago
  I could not access Appendix B (Legal Issues) from the online version but someone posted the PDF which includes that section. In it this very issue is addressed including the advice "It may be a good idea to carry around a xeroxed copy of the appropriate page from your state's criminal code." Problem solved.
- emhart 12y ago
  State by state (and some non-us countries): http://lockwiki.com/index.php/Legal_issues http://lockwiki.com/index.php/Legal_issues
- enscr 12y ago
  > if they can establish intent to burglarize That's a line that'll generate hours of debate going nowhere.
ryannevius 12y ago
A really invaluable skill. Picking locks has saved me on multiple occasions, to get into my own property. It has also made me rethink the way I secure my valuable goods. If only for this second reason, I think basic picking skills should be learned by everyone.
- webjprgm 12y ago
  I've had to pick a lock twice, once on a closet in my (work place) office and once on my sister's basement door. Both times I used paperclips for pick and torsion wrench. Very handy to not have to tear apart the entire door. I have not been able to pick front door locks the same way. Probably need real tools for that. Plus some locks have wards in the way which are harder to deal with when using a fat paperclip.
ColinWright 12y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3008447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3008447
edem 12y ago
There is a guy on youtube called bosnianbill, his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill is full of useful information. You can also find Mike Gibson's "Lock Picking: Detail Overkill" which is a great book for starters!
- uchi 12y ago
  That's a pretty cool channel. I've ended up spending like 30 minutes watching him pick different locks and its fairly entertaining.
- harywilke 12y ago
  thank you for that. I've seen the MIT guide bouncing around the internet since forever, but never fully digested. the narrators comments are helpful to understand just what he is doing and what the locks are made like. i recommend any of the 'Gutted' versions.
- emhart 12y ago
  bosnianbill is a great guy. Also writes articles for locksmithing mags, etc. Real crossover star for the Locksport/Locksmithing communities.
ngcat 12y ago
We all know the story, the Book Hackers by Steven Levy tells it all.
INTPenis 12y ago
Funny thing but my only real life experience of lock picking and none of those techniques were used. It was a combination lock with 4 wheels and it was easy to figure out the combination with a little piece of plastic wedged between each wheel and the lock face.
sampo 12y ago
Why does most of the world continue to use the pin tumbler locks, when the disc tumbler lock (invented in 1907) is almost impossible to pick? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_tumbler_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_tumbler_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_tumbler_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_tumbler_lock
- d4mi3n 12y ago
  Best guess? Pin tumbler locks are probably cheaper to produce.
- nodata 12y ago
  Sure? http://www.ukbumpkeys.com/products/disc-tumbler-picks http://www.ukbumpkeys.com/products/disc-tumbler-picks
  - Adirael 12y ago
    They're very difficult to pick but not impossible. It can be done but it takes time and expertise.
    - nodata 12y ago
      Is it more difficult because the locks are less common?
      - sampo 12y ago
        Says Wikipedia: "Picking the lock is not impossible, but requires a lot of time, a dedicated, professionally made tool and special expertise."
        nodata 12y ago
        Thanks, I can read Wikipedia. The point is that picking a tumbler lock requires those things too.
    - 12y ago
jonalmeida 12y ago
I remember there being a neat 3D gif floating around Google+ that showed how to pick a lock in a few (frames per?) seconds.
- darksim905 12y ago
  Look up Schuyler Towne & any of his animations. Also, I believe http://www.theamazingking.com/ http://www.theamazingking.com/ has a lockpicking game on his site, but it is a little dated
  - emhart 12y ago
    Lock Game 3D was the best :)
  - craigwblake 12y ago
    Schuyler has an entire instructional series on lock picking on YouTube that's very good. He introduces the concepts and terms, uses cutaways to illustrate the mechanisms and walks through basic beginner techniques for common locks. Highly recommended. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVSL0liiWoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVSL0liiWoc
bob_george33 12y ago
http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf PDF Version for anyone interested.
barking 12y ago
For a while tv shows commonly had people getting in using a credit card to push back the bolt. You don't see it anymore though
- tim333 12y ago
  It only works on fairly bad locks. Although I have one it works on.
- emhart 12y ago
  Deadlatches have existed for a very long time, to prevent that problem. Next time you are looking at a door with a latch instead of, or in addition to a bolt, look "behind" the main latch and you should see a small, separate bit protruding. Press that bit in, and then try to push the latch back. The latch shouldn't budge. That's a dead latch. Found a good picture, here: http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/images/deadbolts/Deadlatch-button-pictures-007_new.jpg http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/images/deadbolts/Deadlatch-bu... Unfortunately, while they have been on the market for a very very long time, not everyone uses them, and many that do use them don't use the proper strike plate for their door, or just allow them to go into misalignment. So, the deadlatch doesn't actually get pushed back when the door is closed, and the latch can be carded as though it weren't even there.
  - barking 12y ago
    Thanks for explaining that and for the link
paul_lover 12y ago
I am gay for Paul Graham. Really guys I am. I am straight buy gay for him, he's so sexy.
hf 12y ago
I believe one of the more famous Richards were mentioned in this everlasting classic: Richard P Feynman, who, on having picked a certain lock, complained that "[t]he trouble with playing a trick on a highly intelligent man like Mr. Teller[0] is that the time it takes him to figure out from the moment that he sees there is something wrong till he understands exactly what happened is too damn small to give you any pleasure!" The volume »Surley, You're Joking Mr Feynman!«[1] contains many, at times only seemingly so, light-hearted reminiscences in similar spirit. [0] Edward Teller (1908, Budapest – 2003), a Hungarian-US nuclear physicist known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Fe...!
- wikwocket 12y ago
  Here's another Feynman lockpicking anecdote: a video about his exploits cracking peoples' safes at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw11zhaKSk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw11zhaKSk
chrmaury 12y ago
Does anyone know of a link to download this resource? I'm not confident that it will remain active, especially after all of this attention.
- jamiis 12y ago
  If you are on a *nix machine you can run: wget -rkp -l3 -np -nH --cut-dirs=1 http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html If on mac os you'll need to brew install wget or follow this tutorial to use curl http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-download-web.html http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-down... After you've downloaded the website you can run a simple server in a terminal by navigating to where you downloaded the website and running python -m SimpleHTTPServer Then navigate to http://0.0.0.0:8000/lockpicking.html http://0.0.0.0:8000/lockpicking.html in your web browser. LPT: I do this with coding tutorial sites before getting on planes so I don't waste money buying internet and time browsing other content.
- Ellipsis753 12y ago
  It's just text so hopefully it should be able to stay up. However I really like backing up things and making a local mirror so I'm not going to stop you. I hate it when something interesting like this vanishes from the internet and it turns out no one has a copy. So I'm hosting a copy of it for you and anyone else that would like to help preserve it. I just downloaded the copy with: "wget --mirror --page-requisites --no-parent --convert-links --no-parent --wait=5 --random-wait -U "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14" -e robots=off --progress=bar --level=8 --referer=$2 $1" Here's a copy I just put on my server: http://www.ifnotequal.com/The-MIT-Lockpicking-Guide-Mirror/mit/lockpick.html http://www.ifnotequal.com/The-MIT-Lockpicking-Guide-Mirror/m... I've included a download for it (also hosted on my server) at the top of that page. It's only 290.5KiB. All the best and enjoy.
- octagonal 12y ago
  mkdir lockpick_guide; cd lockpick_guide curl "http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/chapter[0-9].html" http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/chapter[0-9].html" -O http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html -O http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/appendix.html http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/appendix.html -O for i in $(cat * | grep -P "\w+-\w+\.gif" -o | uniq); do curl http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/$i http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/$i -O done `which python2` -m SimpleHTTPServer Edit: apparently wget has a magical flag that allows you to download all resources on an HTML page as well. Consider this solution inferior to Ellipsis753's and jamiis's. However, I will leave my reply up since this method is applicable to a lot of other situations as well.
darksim905 12y ago
I still don't see why this was "renamed" or why it's being posted at other sites -- was it originally taken down from MIT or moved or not maintained or what?
- vacri 12y ago
  At a guess, "MIT Lockpicking Guide" implies a guide to picking locks at MIT, but "MIT Guide to Lockpicking" implies a general guide supplied by MIT.
chrisBob 12y ago
Are there any successful, self-taught lockpickers here? I have tried to learn a few times, and I think I understand the theory, but it is hard to put into practice. Every time I need to open a lock I don't have a key for, I still grab a drill.
- webjprgm 12y ago
  I am self-taught (Google) and have had success only with inside doors where the locks are cheaper. I've also just used paper clips which could explain my problem with front door locks. It also still takes me 10 min+. (And I've only done it twice.)
mx12 12y ago
After I saw this guide a while ago, I got really interested in lock picking and ended up buy a kit. There a decent subreddit and it's a good resource to get started. I purchased the kit they recommend PXS-14, and it works great. I remember I picked my first lock in about 5 minutes and then spend another hour trying to do it again. It takes a while to feel right and become consistent. Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking Plus there getting starting guide: http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking/comments/bzq80/where_do_you_start_start_here/ http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking/comments/bzq80/where_do_... PXS-14 Kit: http://www.lockpickshop.com/PXS-14.html http://www.lockpickshop.com/PXS-14.html
- mimiflynn 12y ago
  Peterson sells some good kits for beginners and they are a bit more comfortable to use than the Southord ones mentioned above: http://www.thinkpeterson.com/picksets.html#LESS%20EXPENSIVE%20Pick%20Sets http://www.thinkpeterson.com/picksets.html#LESS%20EXPENSIVE%... Of course, its up to personal preference, they are both great brands.
arca_vorago 12y ago
I remember reading this as a teenager and buying my first keychain lockpick set. One of my favorite sayings is that, "In order for a locksmith to fix a lock, he must first understand it's inner workings. Just like a locksmith, before we can understand X, we must understand how it works first." I fell out of practice, but whenever I cruise by a hacker space with a lockpick area I will try and take the time to test my abilities. These days lock technology makes some locks very difficult (double-mushroom pins, etc), so I usually can only do the medium difficulty locks. I had amassed a huge collection of lock/key templates and even some stuff about safecracking, but unfortunately had a hdd crash and lost most of it. The bottom line with lockpicking, like other things, is that nothing beats practice.
tlow 12y ago
This looks instructive, is it a legal copy and if so is there a downloadable version?
Stratoscope 12y ago
If anyone is wondering, everywhere the guide mentions "sheer force" and "sheer line", that should be "shear force" and "shear line". It's like "wind shear". "Sheer" doesn't even make any sense in this context: "sheer force" would be twisting the tumbler so hard you break all the pins, and that would not exactly be considered "lock picking"! What's interesting to me is how pervasive this misspelling has become. A Google search for "lock picking sheer force" finds 17,500,000 matches, but "lock picking shear force" finds only 205,000. I wonder if all these misspellings originated from this MIT guide, or if there was something else before that?
- devindotcom 12y ago
  Rest assured, soon there will be only one word, with multiple, conflicting meanings - same as the last hundred or so conflicts. That's living language for you!
  - mitosis 12y ago
    Eye no.
- nollidge 12y ago
  > "sheer force" would be twisting the tumbler so hard you break all the pins That's not how I read it... The best gloss of "sheer" in this context would be "pure", which would mean something like "force, devoid of any other tool or method". Like, "I moved the rock with sheer force" would imply I just pushed it and didn't use a lever or anything. (You are correct that it's the wrong word choice, of course; the above is not what the author is meaning to say.)
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
delinka 12y ago
The goal of your [physical?] security shouldn't be to be uncrackable, but to delay the would-be criminal long enough to be detected and, hopefully, apprehended. "Yes, the lock can be picked in a week, but by then, your employees should have returned to the office and noticed the burglar picking away at it." It's easier to just walk into the open bank, masked, and make demands. And there's still a chance to get away with it. A chance, however slim.

215 points by AndyBaker 12y ago

On a legal note; IANAL, but I did a little research before getting started in lock picking a while back. iirc, there are no federal laws against having picks. However, states often have laws against "possession of burglary tools". In my jurisdiction, if they can establish intent to burglarize -- ie, you're also carrying an empty duffel bag, a crowbar, and a map with the bank circled on it -- its a class II felony. I repeat; I am not a lawyer.

Tyrannosaurs 12y ago
Presumably then the issue is more about carrying them with you when you're out and about rather than having them in a toolbox at home? In the same way you can have a big knife at home but carrying it in your bag is a problem.
minikomi 12y ago
Depends on where you live - in Japan, you probably don't want to be carrying them around..
joshuak 12y ago
Then you should just build them into your business card. https://www.flickr.com/photos/ranh/106709219/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/ranh/106709219/
- fabulist 12y ago
  I like how the torsion wrench works, thats clever. I used to carry a similar card. It was a fake credit card that opened up, and had a small set of picks inside. I kept it in my wallet in case I was ever locked out.
grkvlt 12y ago
An obvious hack to get around this would be to put 'Locksmith' on your business card, or get a set of cards advertising a side business as a Locksmith. Bingo, they're not burglary tools, they are required tools of the trade for your profession, similar to knife exemptions for Chefs.
- rtkwe 12y ago
  Most states require locksmiths to be certified and advertising services without being licensed is a bigger infraction than carrying picks.
elsporko 12y ago
I could not access Appendix B (Legal Issues) from the online version but someone posted the PDF which includes that section. In it this very issue is addressed including the advice "It may be a good idea to carry around a xeroxed copy of the appropriate page from your state's criminal code." Problem solved.
emhart 12y ago
State by state (and some non-us countries): http://lockwiki.com/index.php/Legal_issues http://lockwiki.com/index.php/Legal_issues
enscr 12y ago
> if they can establish intent to burglarize That's a line that'll generate hours of debate going nowhere.

ryannevius 12y ago

A really invaluable skill. Picking locks has saved me on multiple occasions, to get into my own property. It has also made me rethink the way I secure my valuable goods. If only for this second reason, I think basic picking skills should be learned by everyone.

webjprgm 12y ago
I've had to pick a lock twice, once on a closet in my (work place) office and once on my sister's basement door. Both times I used paperclips for pick and torsion wrench. Very handy to not have to tear apart the entire door. I have not been able to pick front door locks the same way. Probably need real tools for that. Plus some locks have wards in the way which are harder to deal with when using a fat paperclip.

ColinWright 12y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3008447 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3008447

edem 12y ago

There is a guy on youtube called bosnianbill, his channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill https://www.youtube.com/user/bosnianbill is full of useful information. You can also find Mike Gibson's "Lock Picking: Detail Overkill" which is a great book for starters!

uchi 12y ago
That's a pretty cool channel. I've ended up spending like 30 minutes watching him pick different locks and its fairly entertaining.
harywilke 12y ago
thank you for that. I've seen the MIT guide bouncing around the internet since forever, but never fully digested. the narrators comments are helpful to understand just what he is doing and what the locks are made like. i recommend any of the 'Gutted' versions.
emhart 12y ago
bosnianbill is a great guy. Also writes articles for locksmithing mags, etc. Real crossover star for the Locksport/Locksmithing communities.

ngcat 12y ago

We all know the story, the Book Hackers by Steven Levy tells it all.

INTPenis 12y ago

Funny thing but my only real life experience of lock picking and none of those techniques were used. It was a combination lock with 4 wheels and it was easy to figure out the combination with a little piece of plastic wedged between each wheel and the lock face.

sampo 12y ago

Why does most of the world continue to use the pin tumbler locks, when the disc tumbler lock (invented in 1907) is almost impossible to pick? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_tumbler_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pin_tumbler_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_tumbler_lock http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_tumbler_lock

d4mi3n 12y ago
Best guess? Pin tumbler locks are probably cheaper to produce.
nodata 12y ago
Sure? http://www.ukbumpkeys.com/products/disc-tumbler-picks http://www.ukbumpkeys.com/products/disc-tumbler-picks
- Adirael 12y ago
  They're very difficult to pick but not impossible. It can be done but it takes time and expertise.
  - nodata 12y ago
    Is it more difficult because the locks are less common?
    - sampo 12y ago
      Says Wikipedia: "Picking the lock is not impossible, but requires a lot of time, a dedicated, professionally made tool and special expertise."
      - nodata 12y ago
        Thanks, I can read Wikipedia. The point is that picking a tumbler lock requires those things too.
  - 12y ago

jonalmeida 12y ago

I remember there being a neat 3D gif floating around Google+ that showed how to pick a lock in a few (frames per?) seconds.

darksim905 12y ago
Look up Schuyler Towne & any of his animations. Also, I believe http://www.theamazingking.com/ http://www.theamazingking.com/ has a lockpicking game on his site, but it is a little dated
- emhart 12y ago
  Lock Game 3D was the best :)
- craigwblake 12y ago
  Schuyler has an entire instructional series on lock picking on YouTube that's very good. He introduces the concepts and terms, uses cutaways to illustrate the mechanisms and walks through basic beginner techniques for common locks. Highly recommended. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVSL0liiWoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVSL0liiWoc

bob_george33 12y ago

http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf http://www.lysator.liu.se/mit-guide/MITLockGuide.pdf PDF Version for anyone interested.

barking 12y ago

For a while tv shows commonly had people getting in using a credit card to push back the bolt. You don't see it anymore though

tim333 12y ago
It only works on fairly bad locks. Although I have one it works on.
emhart 12y ago
Deadlatches have existed for a very long time, to prevent that problem. Next time you are looking at a door with a latch instead of, or in addition to a bolt, look "behind" the main latch and you should see a small, separate bit protruding. Press that bit in, and then try to push the latch back. The latch shouldn't budge. That's a dead latch. Found a good picture, here: http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/images/deadbolts/Deadlatch-button-pictures-007_new.jpg http://www.gaterslocksmith.com/images/deadbolts/Deadlatch-bu... Unfortunately, while they have been on the market for a very very long time, not everyone uses them, and many that do use them don't use the proper strike plate for their door, or just allow them to go into misalignment. So, the deadlatch doesn't actually get pushed back when the door is closed, and the latch can be carded as though it weren't even there.
- barking 12y ago
  Thanks for explaining that and for the link

paul_lover 12y ago

I am gay for Paul Graham. Really guys I am. I am straight buy gay for him, he's so sexy.

hf 12y ago

I believe one of the more famous Richards were mentioned in this everlasting classic: Richard P Feynman, who, on having picked a certain lock, complained that "[t]he trouble with playing a trick on a highly intelligent man like Mr. Teller[0] is that the time it takes him to figure out from the moment that he sees there is something wrong till he understands exactly what happened is too damn small to give you any pleasure!" The volume »Surley, You're Joking Mr Feynman!«[1] contains many, at times only seemingly so, light-hearted reminiscences in similar spirit. [0] Edward Teller (1908, Budapest – 2003), a Hungarian-US nuclear physicist known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Teller [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Feynman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surely_You%27re_Joking,_Mr._Fe...!

wikwocket 12y ago
Here's another Feynman lockpicking anecdote: a video about his exploits cracking peoples' safes at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw11zhaKSk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waw11zhaKSk

chrmaury 12y ago

Does anyone know of a link to download this resource? I'm not confident that it will remain active, especially after all of this attention.

jamiis 12y ago
If you are on a *nix machine you can run: wget -rkp -l3 -np -nH --cut-dirs=1 http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html If on mac os you'll need to brew install wget or follow this tutorial to use curl http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-download-web.html http://psung.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-wget-or-curl-to-down... After you've downloaded the website you can run a simple server in a terminal by navigating to where you downloaded the website and running python -m SimpleHTTPServer Then navigate to http://0.0.0.0:8000/lockpicking.html http://0.0.0.0:8000/lockpicking.html in your web browser. LPT: I do this with coding tutorial sites before getting on planes so I don't waste money buying internet and time browsing other content.
Ellipsis753 12y ago
It's just text so hopefully it should be able to stay up. However I really like backing up things and making a local mirror so I'm not going to stop you. I hate it when something interesting like this vanishes from the internet and it turns out no one has a copy. So I'm hosting a copy of it for you and anyone else that would like to help preserve it. I just downloaded the copy with: "wget --mirror --page-requisites --no-parent --convert-links --no-parent --wait=5 --random-wait -U "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.14) Gecko/20080404 Firefox/2.0.0.14" -e robots=off --progress=bar --level=8 --referer=$2 $1" Here's a copy I just put on my server: http://www.ifnotequal.com/The-MIT-Lockpicking-Guide-Mirror/mit/lockpick.html http://www.ifnotequal.com/The-MIT-Lockpicking-Guide-Mirror/m... I've included a download for it (also hosted on my server) at the top of that page. It's only 290.5KiB. All the best and enjoy.
octagonal 12y ago
mkdir lockpick_guide; cd lockpick_guide curl "http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/chapter[0-9].html" http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/chapter[0-9].html" -O http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/lockpick.html -O http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/appendix.html http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/appendix.html -O for i in $(cat * | grep -P "\w+-\w+\.gif" -o | uniq); do curl http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/$i http://www.blurofinsanity.com/mit/$i -O done `which python2` -m SimpleHTTPServer Edit: apparently wget has a magical flag that allows you to download all resources on an HTML page as well. Consider this solution inferior to Ellipsis753's and jamiis's. However, I will leave my reply up since this method is applicable to a lot of other situations as well.

darksim905 12y ago

I still don't see why this was "renamed" or why it's being posted at other sites -- was it originally taken down from MIT or moved or not maintained or what?

vacri 12y ago
At a guess, "MIT Lockpicking Guide" implies a guide to picking locks at MIT, but "MIT Guide to Lockpicking" implies a general guide supplied by MIT.

chrisBob 12y ago

Are there any successful, self-taught lockpickers here? I have tried to learn a few times, and I think I understand the theory, but it is hard to put into practice. Every time I need to open a lock I don't have a key for, I still grab a drill.

webjprgm 12y ago
I am self-taught (Google) and have had success only with inside doors where the locks are cheaper. I've also just used paper clips which could explain my problem with front door locks. It also still takes me 10 min+. (And I've only done it twice.)

mx12 12y ago

After I saw this guide a while ago, I got really interested in lock picking and ended up buy a kit. There a decent subreddit and it's a good resource to get started. I purchased the kit they recommend PXS-14, and it works great. I remember I picked my first lock in about 5 minutes and then spend another hour trying to do it again. It takes a while to feel right and become consistent. Subreddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking Plus there getting starting guide: http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking/comments/bzq80/where_do_you_start_start_here/ http://www.reddit.com/r/lockpicking/comments/bzq80/where_do_... PXS-14 Kit: http://www.lockpickshop.com/PXS-14.html http://www.lockpickshop.com/PXS-14.html

mimiflynn 12y ago
Peterson sells some good kits for beginners and they are a bit more comfortable to use than the Southord ones mentioned above: http://www.thinkpeterson.com/picksets.html#LESS%20EXPENSIVE%20Pick%20Sets http://www.thinkpeterson.com/picksets.html#LESS%20EXPENSIVE%... Of course, its up to personal preference, they are both great brands.

arca_vorago 12y ago

I remember reading this as a teenager and buying my first keychain lockpick set. One of my favorite sayings is that, "In order for a locksmith to fix a lock, he must first understand it's inner workings. Just like a locksmith, before we can understand X, we must understand how it works first." I fell out of practice, but whenever I cruise by a hacker space with a lockpick area I will try and take the time to test my abilities. These days lock technology makes some locks very difficult (double-mushroom pins, etc), so I usually can only do the medium difficulty locks. I had amassed a huge collection of lock/key templates and even some stuff about safecracking, but unfortunately had a hdd crash and lost most of it. The bottom line with lockpicking, like other things, is that nothing beats practice.

tlow 12y ago

This looks instructive, is it a legal copy and if so is there a downloadable version?

Stratoscope 12y ago

If anyone is wondering, everywhere the guide mentions "sheer force" and "sheer line", that should be "shear force" and "shear line". It's like "wind shear". "Sheer" doesn't even make any sense in this context: "sheer force" would be twisting the tumbler so hard you break all the pins, and that would not exactly be considered "lock picking"! What's interesting to me is how pervasive this misspelling has become. A Google search for "lock picking sheer force" finds 17,500,000 matches, but "lock picking shear force" finds only 205,000. I wonder if all these misspellings originated from this MIT guide, or if there was something else before that?

devindotcom 12y ago
Rest assured, soon there will be only one word, with multiple, conflicting meanings - same as the last hundred or so conflicts. That's living language for you!
- mitosis 12y ago
  Eye no.
nollidge 12y ago
> "sheer force" would be twisting the tumbler so hard you break all the pins That's not how I read it... The best gloss of "sheer" in this context would be "pure", which would mean something like "force, devoid of any other tool or method". Like, "I moved the rock with sheer force" would imply I just pushed it and didn't use a lever or anything. (You are correct that it's the wrong word choice, of course; the above is not what the author is meaning to say.)

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

delinka 12y ago

The goal of your [physical?] security shouldn't be to be uncrackable, but to delay the would-be criminal long enough to be detected and, hopefully, apprehended. "Yes, the lock can be picked in a week, but by then, your employees should have returned to the office and noticed the burglar picking away at it." It's easier to just walk into the open bank, masked, and make demands. And there's still a chance to get away with it. A chance, however slim.