Comment by jheriko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jheriko | Hacker News Reader

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A much cheaper and easier approach that works for most locks is to get a coke bottle and tear a strip out of it, then use it to do the 'hollywood credit card trick'.

unlike a credit card it doesn't snap or break very easily - the type of plastic will become softer when placed under pressure and is very flexible but strong - if you continue to force it in the right area it will work its way around hard corners and into tiny gaps until there is enough pressure to pop the bolt. when the bolt has an edge that is sloped towards you it will pop on the first push (the way i see most 'yale style' locks fitted on doors that open inwards - i.e. most front doors)

it takes an exceptionally tightly fitted door frame to prohibit this (e.g. one with brushes or hermetic seals)

the one time i couldn't break into my own home doing this was because there was a brush fitted down the side of the door - fortunately there was not one fitted in the letter box, so i found a long spanner at a nearby construction site and then spent the next four hours of my life whacking the mechanism from through the letterbox blindly until i caught the handle the right way and the door popped open...

I did this a few times when I was a student. A variant on this is to wedge a kitchen knife between the door frame and the door jamb. Sure some paint gets damaged but it gets you in...

Another use for the coke-bottle strip is with padlocks - simply push inside and it opens using the method you describe on most of them.

In fact there are so many ways to get round a lock that going to all of the trouble of picking it is rather quaint. Here are some common things that happen:

Emergency services - they go straight for the 'Big Key' which is that battering ram we have all seen on TV.

Bicycle thieves - no interest in the lock. Bolt croppers cost less than a good lock and they are far quicker at getting the job done reliably.

Car thieves - break into the house and steal the keys.

Regular folk locked out of homes/cars - call the locksmith or simply break some glass.

If you need to gain entry surreptitiously (and not damage a lock) it can be far easier to use social engineering to temporarily obtain keys, e.g. from an employer, then get them cut in a matter of minutes at some place around the corner.

Alternatively an impression can be made in 'plasticine' or a photo taken. A friendly locksmith can sell you the blank, and, with some time with a needle file, a key made.

Although fun can be had picking locks, 'in the wild' it rarely happens because brute force or a bit of Coke can is usually far more effective.

In fact, key blanks and stampers can be purchased online.

When I was a teenager I often forgot to take my housekeys when I went to school. If nobody was home when I got back, I would take a stick from the garden and open the latch with it through the letterbox. Around the age of 16 my wrist became too big to fit through the letterbox and swing the stick, so I had to start remembering my keys.

cool. i'm surprised a stick would work - but i'm guessing it was quite chunky. :)

You opened your door by putting something through your letterbox? That's awesome. Did you catch the doorknob or the lock turner? Was the door handle flat instead of round, or...? Hard to imagine the logistics.

it was one of those ellipsoid shaped twisty things. and there was no deadbolt on the door. (i.e. there was one bolt, no separate lock to doorknob)

it took a lot of effort, my intent was to hit the far side of the spinny thing and hope that the momentum would be enough to get through the catch and click it - i did this by extending my arm through the letterbox as far as possible then angling the spanner back and twisting my wrist to provide the impacts - feeling through the spanner if i was hitting anything and trying to guess from the response if it was the right thing. i found the right thing quickly by feeling around it and working out that it wobbled and made little clicks in the right ways.

the biggest problem was that the spanner was quite fantastically heavy when wielded this way - although the impact that knocked it open was not especially hard or directed I was quite tired by that point and it was a pleasant surprise when it popped open so i can't honestly say it was the technique that worked more than the determination. my arm was struggling to continue raising the spanner and i was probably 20 minutes at most away from complete exhaustion and giving up... my arm was quite fantastically stiff and painful the next day - both the elbow and the wrist, and lingered a couple more days after that as a mild irritation.

I had no expectation that it would actually work it was just desperation... but it was 2am and nobody inside would answer their phone... I was not in a good enough situation to afford an expensive locksmith and similarly breaking the door in was not an option.

The term for this is "loiding."

http://www.lockwiki.com/index.php/Loiding

Been doing to credit card trick for years on locks when I found myself without the proper keys. Never tried a coke can but I have trashed a couple cards trying to get inside. I usually keep an old gift card in my car or wallet for this purpose.

I once broke into my own home when I forgot my keys using a broomstick and the letter hole in the door. I shoved the broomstick through, and pressed on the knob in such a way that it spun and opened the door.

I once had to break into my own house, I used a paint roller handle. It took me about an hour and a half, and was very painful, but I managed it :)

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