Guide to Lock Picking

September 1, 1991

Distribution

Permission to reproduce this document on a non-profit basis is granted provided that this copyright and distribution notice is included in full. The information in this booklet is provided for educational purposes only.

August 1991 revision.

The MIT Hackning community's opinion.

Contents

• 1 It's Easy

• 2 How a Key Opens a Lock

• 3 The Flatland Model

• 4 Basic Picking & The Binding Defect

• 5 The Pin Column Model

• 6 Basic Scrubbing

• 7 Advanced Lock Picking
  • 7.1 Mechanical Skills
  • 7.2 Zen and the Art of Lock Picking
  • 7.3 Analytic Thinking

• 8 Exercises
  • 8.1 Exercise 1: Bouncing the pick
  • 8.2 Exercise 2: Picking pressure
  • 8.3 Exercise 3: Picking Torque
  • 8.4 Exercise 4: Identifying Set Pins
  • 8.5 Exercise 5: Projection

• 9 Recognizing and Exploiting Personality Traits
  • 9.1 Which Way To Turn
  • 9.2 How Far to Turn
  • 9.3 Gravity
  • 9.4 Pins Not Setting
  • 9.5 Elastic Deformation
  • 9.6 Loose Plug
  • 9.7 Pin Diameter
  • 9.8 Beveled Holes and Rounded pins
  • 9.9 Mushroom Driver Pins
  • 9.10 Master Keys
  • 9.11 Driver or Spacer Enters Keyway
  • 9.12 Vibration Picking
  • 9.13 Disk Tumblers

• 10 Final Remarks

• A Tools
  • A.1 Pick Shapes
  • A.2 Street cleaner bristles
  • A.3 Bicycle spokes
  • A.4 BricK Strap

• B Legal Issues

Original Postscript source (gzipped 188 kB).
Original Postscript source converted to Adobe PDF(uncompressed 521 kB).