Originally published at: Watch the Lockpicking Lawyer brute force a combination lock with a robot | Boing Boing
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Watching and listening to the bot do its thing is astonishingly satisfying.
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Should we tell @beschizza?
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Having watched the video and heard “my” question declared “How does the machine know when it’s hit the correct combination” (or in my version “why is it that the haul-the-bolts handle does not have to tried after each trial combination?”), i still missed it, and/or don’t get it. The dial itself freezes up when the correct combination is dialed? That can’t be, because that would be an easily engineered around condition which would otherwise be a far too easy ‘tell’. …i blame myself (for not ‘getting it’) any help? thankee!
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That was like watching grass grow
IANA(Lockpicking)L, but when it found the correct combination that brass bail/armature thing seems to click into the brass backplate of the cylinder thingy. I assumed that its movement released the locking mechanism while also seizing the core. I assume this is so that the dial/core can’t be moved while it’s open and prevent closing it properly.
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The Lockpicking Crowdfunder!
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As always, have a nice day. Thank you.
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The video comments revealed something I hadn’t considered but should have. This kind of brute force attack on the combinations is really bad for the lock mechanism, and will leave it covered in metal dust from all the wear. The lock should be replaced after brute forcing the combination.
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@theophrastus, the little silver rectangle on the hooked lever (the Fence Lever) is the end of a bar (the Fence) that prevents the hooked end from engaging the matching part (Cam Gate) of the wheel (Drive Cam) that you see rapidly spinning in the video. The Fence holds the Fence Lever out of the way until the /_\ shaped gates in all 3 wheels line up and the Fence falls into the gates. This lets the pointed nose of the Fence Lever be picked up by the Cam Gate. The Fence Lever is attached to the bolt at the bottom of the lock in question; when the Fence Lever is picked up, it’s pulled so that the bolt is retracted. Check the bolt position change between 10:52 and 10:54.
You can now operate the boltworks (the stuff that actually holds the door closed) and open the safe.
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That’s impressive in complexity, to be sure - thank you for introducing lots of terminology. However, the question remains: how does this provide to the robot trying all possible combinations feedback that it has arrived at the correct combination? Does, for instance, the “fence” once the three (or more) cam notches line up cause more resistance to spinning the combination dials? And if so, that really surprises this know-nothing, as it seems unnecessarily insecure to reveal that the cam notches are in align prior to attempting to pull back the bolts. That is, the owner of the safe presumably knows the correct combination so pulling the bolt handle could do all the ‘sensing’ of the cam alignment (right or wrong). But then again, i only watch things like this: wooden combination lock
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Maybe adding a microphone for vibration sensing and software to listen to it, this machine could be improved to make an ‘educated guess’ rather than pure brute force?
@theophrastus, the Drive Cam is directly attached to the inner end of the spindle; the dial on the outside is also directly attached to the outside end of the spindle. When the Cam Gate picks up the nose of the Fence Lever (the Fence Lever is always pushed toward the Cam Gate by a spring) and retracts the bolt of the combination lock, the dial is solidly stopped from moving any farther and a clutch on the dialer disengages and powers down the motor.
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But where was the dank carpet? I was told there would be dank carpet.
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Perhaps the true dank carpet was the friends we made along the way?
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It’s like watching the status screen of a hard drive defragmenter. You know what it’s doing, the visual component is only slightly more complicated than drying paint, and it shouldn’t be nearly as interesting as it is.
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Some combination locks, like this one. don’t have a separate lever. Once you return the dial to zero it “checks to see” whether it is unlocked.
That’s why you pay people that can manipulate these types of mechanical combination locks open. It typically takes from 1 to 4 hours for a trained safe technician to manually open one of these all-mechanical dial combination locks.
Then you come to MP (Manipulation Proof) mechanical locks, where the Fence Lever is held away from the wheels and the Drive Cam until you’ve dialed the combination and depressed the dial or turned a small handle in the middle of the dial to let the components mesh so you can retract the bolt.
MP locks are a bit of a pain to use. This is why digital combination locks are so popular. They can’t be spoofed and are easy to operate.
