
Illegal Engineering - bowyakka
http://www.timhunkin.com/94_illegal_engineering.htm
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danso
Great piece (or at least what I skimmed through). However, I think this
hypothesis is not well-founded:

> _I suspect the main reason for the disappearance of the craftsman criminal
> is simply that there are fewer and fewer people with the practical skills
> and confidence to even try to break into a safe. Engineering apprenticeships
> have been decimated, and even the old metalwork shops in schools have gone,
> replaced by ‘craft, design and technology’, which seems to mainly involve
> making things of cardboard._

As he mentions later in the piece, the rewards just aren't that great.
Moreover, I think surveillance technology has reached a point where getting
access to the safe is harder than cracking the safe itself. And that if you
have the means to bypass the surveillance, then you have the sophistication
needed to bypass the safe's physical locks without traditional safe-cracking.

~~~
waterlesscloud
For a year or so in college, I worked at night for a security firm. I spent
several months working in a bank's operation center, watching the camera feeds
from the branches overnight. Anyway, for some reason part of the training for
that job mentioned that the average bank robbery at the time grossed only
about $1500 (about $4000 now). Plus the robbers would almost certainly be on
video and the FBI was automatically involved. And with dye packs (bundles of
cash that explode with brightly colored dye) and other measures... Well,
robbing a bank was a pretty stupid plan.

The other months of that job involved patrolling the HQ for a phone company,
including the central computer rooms. One day we got a memo about a well-known
hacker group that had dressed up in suits and just walked into the building
because the daytime guards weren't checking IDs. Ha.

~~~
tomjen3
It is a well known social hack to simply put a good suit on, walk up to people
like you belong there, make them feel important and then get them to do
whatever it is you want.

~~~
wlesieutre
You can go anywhere in life if you look serious and carry a clipboard

~~~
J3L2404
And a full size video camera. I've been issued temporary press passes at a
Republican fundraiser by signing out a professional grade camera at the local
cable company (after a four hour course), telling security we were with CCTV
(they didn't blink), and CNN let us use some of their lights!

~~~
joahua
Not sure whether you were aware of this, but CCTV are a real network - it's
China's state owned TV company, which also produces global and English
language content - so saying you're from a global TV network is probably not
that blink-worthy.

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pja
Love a bit of Tim Hunkin. Anyone reading HackerNews would probably enjoy his
television series from the early 90s: The Secret Life of Machines. Details,
including links to download locations (bittorrent for preference I'd imagine)
here: <http://www.timhunkin.com/control/n_tv_index.htm>

~~~
simonsquiff
He's amazing. I absolutely devoured his book 'Almost Everything There is to
Know' as a kid, which was the collection of all his cartoons from decades at
the Observer. It's now online <http://www.timhunkin.com/40_rudiments_book.htm>
but I highly recommend getting a second hand copy of the book. I must have
read it cover to cover about 5 times and I think it's the source of my
reputation of always knowing ridiculous random facts.

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killa_bee
What is the "DT" mentioned in this article? I have no prior knowledge of that
acronym.

~~~
excuse-me
Design Technology - it's drawing pretty pictures (sorry `design concepts`) of
what you would make if your school still had proper shop class.

It is to "metal work" what "information technology" is to programming.

~~~
emmelaich
My son has just started doing Industrial Arts at school. A lot of it just
seems to be dreadful spouting of design and architecture jargon.

~~~
excuse-me
But what do people want from a wheel? How do they relate to it? What colour
should it be?

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cafard
In the past week I have been reading _Essays Ancient and Modern_ by Bernard
Knox. In the autobiographical introduction, he writes of being trained for
infiltration behind German lines in WW II, including a class with a master
safe cracker, then an inmate of Pentonville Prison. Knox flunked, as having
insufficiently sensitive fingers, and the safe cracker advised him to stick to
dynamite. As matters worked out, Knox never had the chance to practice
burglary, though he saw a good deal of action.

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devopstom
I hadn't previously seen this video, but it's a great insight into his slot
machines. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9mkhI-KB_U>

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rdl
I was shopping for safes a while ago. It's pretty amazing how bad the low-end
safes (gun safes, in particular) are -- 12-16ga steel with some concrete. You
can open one (destructively) with a heavy ax or sledge in a few minutes. Even
when the door is something semi-acceptable (1/4" steel plate), it's often the
only part, with the body of the safe being much lighter.

~~~
michaelt
To be fair, at the bottom end of the market safes are competing against
Kensington lock cables and hiding valuables on the top shelf of your wardrobe.

If anyone broke into my home I assume it would be a brick through the window
then in and out in five minutes grabbing any laptops, jewelery and cash rather
than a planned attack with thermal lances and diamond core drills!

~~~
rdl
Yeah, I just feel a particularly high level of responsibility when it comes to
securing weapons. In addition to the financial loss, you've got moral and
potential legal liability for how they're used. (I think only civil, and a lot
of that would be addressed by taking reasonable precautions to secure them,
plus reporting theft in a timely manner).

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tsotha
I'm in the same boat as you. I would like to have a safe a thief couldn't open
easily with the tools in my garage.

On the other hand, my guns aren't rare or particularly high quality. A
reasonably good safe will cost more than the contents.

~~~
rdl
The generally accepted solution to that problem is to buy more guns, so as to
raise the value protected and thus justify a Graffunder or ISM safe.

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perlpimp
"In the last twenty years, the craft of safe cracking has tragically
declined."

No kidding, bank accounts with proliferation of various ways money is
transferred and stored - budding criminals and kids who want to play mischief
- look to the internet now. Cracking safes is so quaint.

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roryokane
From the title “Illegal Engineering”, I thought this would be about titling
yourself a “Professional Engineer” in Canada and similar countries, where
calling yourself that without a professional engineering license is illegal.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_eng...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_and_licensure_in_engineering#Canada)

I don’t mind reading about safe-cracking, but it’s a little disappointing that
the article never talks about when safe-cracking is illegal, or how
specifically it relates to engineering. The title doesn’t fit.

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epo
If you insist on everything conforming to your exceedingly narrow
interpretation you must find life very difficult. I would stick to reading law
books and phone books.

~~~
roryokane
Your reply greatly exaggerated how much I dislike the title. It was rude of
you to attribute a straw-man worldview to me and then snidely insult it. Your
reply implied that I did something like call for the deletion of the article
because of its title, though I had even stated that “I don’t mind reading
about safe-cracking”.

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jedahan
Anyone else read it aloud in his voice, pauses and all. Occasionally picturing
him blowing himself up while setting the charges and all that?

~~~
bowyakka
I have not, I think I must !

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hk_kh
In the article there are some references to medieval locks.

I was impressed to see early roman (Pompeian and Herculaneum) era locks. If
anyone is interested this query served me
[https://www.google.com/search?q=ancient+%22roman+OR+pompeian...](https://www.google.com/search?q=ancient+%22roman+OR+pompeian%22+key+lock)

