Brinks Shrouded padlock cutaway picks added to my site

[zeke79]

I recently obtained a brinks shrouded lock that had been attacked at the cylinder with I assume a good fitting screw driver with a hex head under the handle and a wrench as the drivers are visibly bent so I decided to attempt a cutaway with nothing to use for a guide. The process went fairly well (did not turn out too ugly) and the pictures are on the info section of my site. The good news is these are rekeyable and they cylinders can be removed by drilling out the pin that is on the same side of the lock as the bottom side of the key cylinder. To replace, I would use the same size drill bit I used to drill it out and nicely grind it flush. Have a look and see what you think, interesting how they held that cylinder in there isnt it?

Zeke79

[digital_blue]

This started out as one informative post followed by 2 pages of bickering and insulting stabs. I've cleaned it up, and provided the one piece of information that seemed to be missing from the OP

The site is URL http://www.locksportarchives.com
The login is lockpicking
The password is 101

Thanks for the info zeke!

Cheers!

db

{db edit: updated site link}

[chopitup]

Watched the handcuff escape video... If you want to pick a pair of police handcuffs, don't bother using a regular pick. Get yourself a standard paperclip, and straighten out one loop of it. Then take the tip, stick it in the keyway, and bend it into an L shape. I can open a pair of police handcuffs in less than 10 seconds. Now if they are double locked, you'll need to get a small paperclip to get around the warding post...

(First lock I learned to pick was police handcuffs)

[zeke79]

Thanks for the cleanup Digital Blue. It was getting ridiculous and time to put it to rest. I commend you for doing the dirty work on that one as it was getting as messy as my work room .

[nickfish03]

you could also use a bobby pin

[Chrispy]

A much easier way out of handcuffs.

[Hardliner]

Zeke,

I'd love to check out the information and videos on your site, but I have one question: Why .RAR files? Underdog/fringe compression methods where one has to download and install a one-trick pony utility just to open them are "teh sux0r" so to speak, and to top it all off I get this when I try to open any one of them on my stupid Mac at work:

Code: Select all

UNRAR 3.20 freeware      Copyright (c) 1993-2003 Eugene Roshal

/Users/pmunson/Downloads/BrinksShroudedCutaway.rar is not RAR archive
No files to extract


ZIP files are standard and universal. Everyone already has the ability to extract them without installing anything extra if they run Windows XP, OSX or Linux, to name but a few. With broadband and today's huge hard disks, saving a few KB here and there is a moot point, especially since videos and JPG images are already compressed anyway...

PM

[zeke79]

Just because zip is more widely used does not make it better. I use winrar because it allows me to compress .exe and .dll files and attach them to email and not be picked up by email filters. As you said, it also saves a few kb's here and there which leaves me more room on my hosting package to make way for other things.

Thank you, come again

[Hardliner]

Fair enough... But Beta was "better" than VHS and it lost too.

I never said ZIP was better, but it is in fact better for this particular application since it appears that an entire class of OS user is unable to even open the compressed files, and everyone else has to download and install extra (shareware) software in order to do so. I'll guess have to wait until I get home to look at the videos you have so kindly hosted.

Although I'm not sure what Mac users who don't have the luxury of a Windows box handy (I can't believe I had to use "Windows" and "luxury" in the same sentence!) will do to open your RAR files though.

PM

[zeke79]

When I get a chance, I will look into switching things over to zip. I can see your point also. When the archive was first put together, I was hosting from my home so every bit of compression counted. Since I have moved to a new server, I can afford to up the file sizes a bit until I need more compression to gain extra space.

[digital_blue]

I use a Mac and have been able to get the videos and whatnot no problem. I have found, however, that this is one area where Safari is a little lacking, in that it tried to open up a .RAR file in the browser itself and this doesn't work out so well. When I switch to Camino it works great. To decompress them I have unRAR installed. It took me all of 3 minutes to download and install unRAR and it works seamlessly, so I don't even have to run unRAR myself. Once the file is downloaded I just click "Open" in the download window of Camino and the file decompresses and is waiting for my perusal.

I don't see how complicated or difficult this is, and the 3 minutes of extra effort that I had to endure to get set up to open these files is hardly worth the effort it will take Zeke to convert all these files. It's a great resource he's offering. He has spent his own money on a domain name and hosting package. He offers the resource for free. How's 'bout we just be happy he does it.

db

[Omikron]

Hardliner,

Both ZIP and RAR compression formats are both proprietary. ZIP compression is owned by PKWare, and RAR by RARLabs. The only reason ZIP seems so much more universal is because it is an older compression format and as such has been reverse engineered may more times, resulting in many, many free utilities. RAR is still a developing format and so the free utilities don't quite always keep up.

Have you tried the official (shareware) version of the utility for Mac? You can get it HERE.

Personally, I use WinRAR on my PC almost exclusively for archives, as it can handle all of the other oddball formats, and has a fantastic interface with excellent management features.

That being said, I can agree from a market-share standpoint why zeke79 might want to use ZIP instead of RAR for hosting. It all depends on your user base.