The Document Which Used To Be Called The MIT Lockpicking Guide
I am told
that the university which has its name associated with this document would
prefer not to. Fine. I will now no longer refer to it as The MIT Guide To
Lockpicking or The MIT Lockpicking Guide. Truth be told, I am a
member of the Bavarian Illuminati and I wrote it myself shortly after I
instigated Watergate and the Cuban Missile Crisis. I hereby absolve a certain
highly respectable university in Massachusetts from any and all responsibility
for this document.
Which is too bad in a way. I thought it was a cool piece of urban folklore no
matter where it came from, and it contributed to giving college students
everywhere a reputation for healthy rebelliousness.
My original copy of this file was a text file zipped up with several GIF's. I
have tried as much as possible to lay out this HTML version in such a way that
it makes sense, but the GIF's that came with it were of poor quality at best.
Where captions are cropped off, that is the way that they came to me. If you
notice any errors, and I'm sure that they are there, please send me some e-mail
so I can correct them.
If you prefer, the entire thing is available as a
PDF file
or the original
zipped postscript
that the PDF was generated from. The postscript is formatted for
a4 paper, so some printers may have trouble printing it on letter. I have to
apologize for the PDF -- all the fonts are rendered as 72 dpi bitmaps. They
print great, but they don't look so hot on screen. They also make it impossible
to search the document. If you don't understand what all that means, just get
the PDF file and print it. I promise you'll be happy.
Nearly half of all the illustrations appear in chapter nine, so if that one
takes a little while for your browser to fetch try to be patient.
Otherwise, enjoy the file. Oh, and good luck. :-)
- Akira
This is how the Guide looked to me (as best I can recreate it) when it was given
to me. You'll note the missing 'Legal Issues' section which whether intentional
or not, was not part of the guide as given to me. (It is, however, still in the pdf-format document.)
- Dave Ferret
MIT Guide to Lock Picking
Ted the Tool
February 14, 1992
Distribution
Copyright 1987, 1991 Theodore T. Tool. All right reserved.
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.
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: Projections
- 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 Which Way To Turn
9.11 Which Way To
Turn
9.12 Which Way To Turn
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
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