I was watching Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, which aside from being hilariously funny also contains a scene in which Ace encounters a locked door. He slides the rectangular sign marking the door as “PRIVATE” from its holder and wiggles it in between the door and the doorframe while jiggling the doorknob, et voila, opened door. Also, there was an episode of the TV show House in which Dr. Chase attempts to open a locked apartment door in similar fashion with a credit card. Is picking locks this way really possible? If not, what would our intrepid Pet Detective actually have had to do?
I don’t know for certain about credit cards, but my brother can pick certain kinds of locks with a bobby pin in ten seconds flat. Awfully inconvenient when we were kids…no escape!
its possible to open a lock that way but anyone with that cheap of a lock on anything other than an unimportant (read for privacy like the bathroom) internal door is a moron. no real lock would open to such a simple trick
Well, that’s not really picking a lock…it’s just getting in the door. Look at any door you have in your house, notice how it has a latch that slides in towards the inside? The purpose of the credit card is to give that latch something to slide over. It’s wickedly easy with anything other than a deadbolt.
I don’t know about the credit card deal, but many locks are scarily easy to open. A bobby-pin, a straightened paperclip, a needle - anything long, thin and hard enough works. I’m not so sure about La Llorona’s ten seconds (I doubt she’s ever timed it), but anything from thirty seconds to three minutes is well within the realm of probability. Locksmiths often refer to ordinary locks as “three minute locks”.
I don’t think the management smiles on us describing lockpicking techniques, so I’ll stop there.
I’m ashamed to say that we did. With stopwatches. For fun.
We also occasionally microwaved rocks on slow days just to see what would happen.
Before they added a deadbolt, I was able to get into my high school’s library using a credit card. Obviously, it wasn’t a very good lock.
Yes, that’s true. I started a thread not long ago about it and it was shut down.
Without going into details…
Yes, it is easy to pick most locks. I had to pop a few locks when my office moved into a new space. After not doing it for years I could still pick open a standard tumbler lock within a few moments (one was on the door to the alarm panel)
The credit card trick only works on cheap spring-latches, fitted to loose-fitting doors. If the door is a tight fit, or if the lock has a better design (e.g. a central non-tapering bolt running though the latch) then it can’t be done. That said, I let quite a few of my neighbouring students back into their rooms when I was at university using a variant on the credit card trick that I won’t describe. The doors were loose and the locks were cheap.
I managed to leave my apartment keys at work once. I couldn’t be bothered to cycle back and get them. I got into my flat through an open window, picked up my spare car key, and opened my garage door with a paperclip. No technique or skill, just a very mickey-mouse lock. I’ve since fitted some additional security!
That experience intrigued me, so I bought a cheap cylinder lock and had a go at pick-and-tensioner, pin-by-pin picking. Never got anywhere. Removed all but two pins and tried again - still couldn’t do it. So for me, it’s pretty hard on anything except a lock so poor as to be unworthy of the name. People with more perseverance may disagree of course, and good locksmiths have frequently stepped up to the challenge of “pick proof” locks and beaten them. Check out this link for the unpickable Bramah lock, picked by Hobbs in 51 hours, and Yale’s picking of Hobb’s own lock. Despite its name, the site is a history/engineering page, not a how-to guide for criminals.
I locked myself out of my flat 10 days ago and called a locksmith. The guy they sent was really ypung but using a set of picks he opened the door in about a minute. During that time he unlocked, accidently relocked and then unlocked it again.
I can’t think of the name of the specific volume, but if you troll through Richard Feynman’s books you’ll find one that has a very good description of how you pick a lock. And several very amusing stories about him indulging in various hijincks with locks for amusement during the Manhattan Project.
To summarise though, the answer is: it depends. Good locks, well fitted, are hard to open. Bad locks and or badly fitted locks, not so hard.
Bloody nerd. Speaking of which I used to break into my highschool computer room using a comb. When caught I would shug my shoulders and say the door was already open. :dubious:
Princhester That would be “Surely your Joking Mr Feynman”.
Most locks on houses are incredibly easy to pick with the right tool. There are many websites explaining the principles.
Then you must have been working with really shitty locks. Actually picking a standard lock takes longer than ten seconds, no matter how good you are.
So… what did happen?
I have just finished reading a book about Colditz POW camp. Amongst the officer prisoners there were several expert lock-pickers. The Germans had installed a very complicated cruciform lock on many doors but even those were picked in a very short time. This way the prisoners had almost free reign amongst the 700 rooms in the castle .
The star amongst the lock-pickers was a Dutchman called Damiaem van Doorninck who not only picked locks but repaired watches. While “inside” he invented and made a measuring instrument attached to a micrometer , which he used for gauging the teeth in a cruciform lock. It was accurate to within a tenth of a millimetre. He delayed his own escape from the camp until he had passed his skills onto an a “apprentice” who would carry on the good work.
One qualifier needs to be added: picking a standard lock takes longer than ten seconds, the first time. If he’d picked that same lock several times before, then he could get it to below ten seconds.
Thanks for the general-type answers, guys. I think that the OP has been answered. As seven and Priceguy said, the management really doesn’t encourage threads about illegal activities.
So, before someone posts a link about where you can acquire professional tools, I’ll close this one.
samclem GQ moderator