
How to crack a master lock - yan
http://www.markedwardcampos.com/index.php?/design/master-lock/
======
dunmalg
Old news to me. I figured this out on my own 20-odd years ago. Then again, I'm
a locksmith and that's the kind of stupid shit apprentice locksmiths do for
fun. Thing is, to a locksmith it's not really a particularly useful trick. Any
competent locksmith has access to the combination via the serial number. Back
then we had to look them up in books, but now, I can access all that via a web
site with my phone. It's like living in the future, I tell ya'.

~~~
KC8ZKF
According to Master Lock, they have quit putting the serial number on the lock
body. <http://www.masterlock.com/faq/lostcombo.shtml>

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shrughes
Why are all the comments mentioning picking the back of the lock now [dead]?

~~~
stanley_choad
A very good question. The same thing happened a little over a week ago, when a
moderator deep-sixed all submissions of a particular thirtyseven signals post
(sorry, I am avoiding regex bait now).

In fact, it appears that my account which attempted to post the aforementioned
story is crippled, which is to say that all comments posted thereafter are
auto-killed, yet do not appear so when I am logged in.

Another good question: does it bother anyone else that superuser-level
moderation occurs in secret without any public recourse or justification?

~~~
tokenadult
_does it bother anyone else that superuser-level moderation occurs in secret
without any public recourse or justification?_

It is a good question. It doesn't bother me. Maybe that's because I've been in
the role of an ordinary user on plenty of sites with little or no moderation,
and I have also been in the role of a moderator (with varying degrees of
moderation power and authority in the chain of command) on various sites. Most
discussion sites need moderation. Most moderation actions don't need
metadiscussion.

~~~
stanley_choad
I agree that comment sites require moderation, but HN makes every appearance
of being community-moderated. The voting system is supposed to take care of
the signal-to-noise ratio, and I think it does a pretty good job.

The moderation actions I am talking about, however, are unilateral (you can't
even ask why), magical (you don't know it is happening), persistent (the
account posts dead comments for a period of time, perhaps infinite), and
arbitrary (the comments are not necessarily undesirable or contrary to the HN
culture). These traits are bothersome to me, and to at least a few others. I
think it warrants a discussion.

~~~
allenbrunson
actually, news.yc is _not_ "community-moderated." users have some input, but
it is vastly subordinate to the power of the editors. it is them that sets the
overall tone of the site. if it wasn't this way, we would have been overrun by
trolls long ago.

if your account gets killed, you email pg to find out why. he will almost
certainly reinstate you, if you agree to stop doing whatever it was that got
your account [dead]ed in the first place.

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TapiocaSunshine
Thanks so much for the direct link, and the interesting discussion. I created
the image, and I'm having a great time whizzing around the internets reading
feedback.

Edit: If you're interested in some of the images that led up to this final:
The process can be found at <http://vdm3gd.wordpress.com/author/markofcca/>

~~~
TapiocaSunshine
Also, I think I'm going to hang around here for a while : )

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waterhouse
This is a pretty good method, but sometimes it won't work. I've cracked
several master locks in my life, and I found one for which the above method
did not work--I kept getting the wrong 3rd digit, no matter how carefully I
looked for the .5's. (Trying several hundred combinations in the process.) I
recall another occasion when I gave up after finding two wrong 3rd digits (and
trying 200 combinations), and another when my friend told me that the 3rd
digit I found was wrong. With Google, I found this method, and it seems to
work perfectly: <http://www.angelfire.com/ma4/masterlockcrack/3rd-2.html>

It gives the same answers as the first method _most_ of the time. Think about
it: if the centers of the ranges of the lock are in fact arranged in a group
of four xx.5's (e.g. 2.5, 12.5, 22.5, 32.5), a group of four xx.0's, and a
group of three xx.5's and an xx.0, which is what the first method predicts,
then the second method should give the same 3rd digit.

I know nothing about the internal workings of the master lock, so I can't
argue for either method on its own merits, but I do know this:

1\. Using the first method, I've failed at least three times, and I don't
think I suck at implementing it. Using the second method, I have not failed
yet.

2\. On that lock for which I, using the first method, failed to find the
correct 3rd digit after about five tries, I found the correct 3rd digit with
the second method on my first try. This digit was, in fact, one of the digits
that I was quite sure was _not_ correct according to the first method.

3\. The second method is easier to do and to feel confident about. Instead of
seeing what looks like a .25 and trying to decide whether I should call it a 0
or a .5, I just need to see whether _this_ range is the same as _that_ range
and these _other_ two ranges.

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skolor
I've seen several of these now, but I like the way the information is
presented here, usually its just a straight block of text, which is hard to
read.

~~~
yan
I mostly submitted because I liked the infographic aspect of it, not so much
the information. That, as you say, has been around for a while.

~~~
skolor
I was not trying to downplay the submit, I was saying the infographic was an
interesting way to display, it, one I hadn't seen before.

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biohacker42
You can also develop hyper sensitivity in you finger tips and feel when lock
aligns. Lock pickers like this can allegedly detect the tip of a feather
brushing against a toothpick being moved by the lock they are picking.

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Nwallins
Originally from here:
[http://www.markedwardcampos.com/index.php?/design/master-
loc...](http://www.markedwardcampos.com/index.php?/design/master-lock)

It has been updated relative to the submitted version.

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NathanKP
Very fascinating and a good thing to keep in mind if I ever forget my
combination lock number, thought that's unlikely. The only thing you would use
this for is breaking into other people's locks. ;)

~~~
ax0n
Well, the information has been out there for more than a decade, but this is a
really cool way to represent the process. There are also a lot of faster ways
to get past a $5 Master combination lock, so this method is really only useful
if you want to deduce the combination of a lock -- for instance, if you found
one on the side of the road, or you cared about not only opening it, but being
able to open it in the future without leaving an obvious sign of breach such
as would occur using bolt cutters or a hacksaw.

~~~
uiohnuipb
It's described in Feynman's biography 20 years ago - only for safes holding
the designs of the atom bomb!

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kasterma
The code for my lock would not be found this way. Choosing the correct 3rd
number (which obviously I know) my whole code does not appear in the
suggestions to try.

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grandalf
Is the resolution of a master lock down to the actual number? Perhaps the
exploit relies on close combinations also working?

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dlsspy
I just use a shim.

~~~
pmorici
I hear a quick blow with a mallet also works.

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dabent
Worked in 5 minutes as advertised. Saved me a few bucks on a new lock. :-)

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me325r4534534
Dewalt drill.

~~~
lurkinggrue
That takes all the fun out of it, unless you are into using power tools.

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defdac
lol@first comment. Epic.

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fuzzythinker
give this dude some love, I had a good laugh after figuring out what that
first comment meant.

~~~
defdac
Thanks =) I should have explained perhaps that the first comment on the page
had noticed that the graphics that sould look like a finger pulling the lock
looks like a.. well.. penis..

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Zarathu
Old.

