Master #1, poor keying eases picking?

[yawhcihw]

Hi all,

I picked up a Master #1 padlock at Home Depot today to play with (I are a n00b), got it home and picked it in nothing flat. Today is my first serious day of picking, and I can somewhat reliably open this lock. Takes anywhere from 30 seconds to a coupla minutes. (ok, so that's not really reliable, but shhhh)

I swear it feels like I'm only really picking 2 pins, even though it's a four-pin lock. I've shaken it, used the key, everything to make sure the pins are resetting themselves when I'm done so I think I'm opening it legitimately.

My question is whether this is due to poor choices by Master in the key for this particular lock. The two cuts closest to the tip of the key are really shallow, barely there. The next cut is fairly deep and the last cut has to be the deepest possible on this key. What I think is happening is that I set the two pins which correspond to the shallow cuts, then the two deep cuts just set themselves from the motion of my hook on the two shallow pins.

So, is this lock so easy because it's a kruddy lock, or because Master made really bad choices about this particular key?

Thanks in advance.




ps: i'm also pyramid-learning a Kwikset, so no biggie if this lock is easy...

[n00by]

I bought a Master no 5 lock and I only lift the last pin and it opens, I don't know why.

[CitySpider]

So, is this lock so easy because it's a kruddy lock, or because Master made really bad choices about this particular key?

A little bit of both.

[yawhcihw]

A little bit of both.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but the weak keying interests me.

Are the weak keyings allowed through because Master doesn't care (who actually picks locks anyhow?), because they're ignorant of the weakness (or just want to justify the markup on their higher-security offerings), or because the number of "good" keyings for a four-pin lock is too small?

I'm guessing (my glancing at my keys) that there are four positions for each pin, times four pins...if I remember my simple math correct, that's 4^4 for a non-mastered lock. (4 positions for each pin, raised to the number of pins) 256 possible keys. Throw out the all-up, all-down keys, you get 254. That's still a few keys. If Master lets through weak keys like mine, do they have (and pay attention to) rules about the keyings of adjacent pins? That would probably be the significant reducer of the number of available keys...

anyhow, trying not to ramble... so further clarification: are these "weak" keys an accident or a feature?

[Varjeal]

There are actually 4 pins, seven depths, no MACS. Since those type of locks are not meant for high security applications, Master doesn't really care a lot about the security, and I would add that they are DEFINITELY aware of the capabilities of their locks..

Those 4 pin locks are merely a "convenience" lock, and you can actually order them to any "code" in bunches keyed alike.

[CitySpider]

I imagine that they just key the locks fairly randomly, or run through an algorithm, etc etc etc, so eventually you're going to hit all the allowed possibilities.

The most security would be low-high-low-high or high-low-high-low, and if they just stuck to that, you'd only have to carry two keys around with you, right?

And you're right -- who picks locks anyway?