comb picks

[roxylass]

hello guys. i was on a site (newsparkling.com) and saw an item (comb picks). has anyone tried to make themselves a copy of these.

[TigerDragon]

Comb picks have a pretty good chance of damaging the springs by over-compression.

Just a heads up on that.

[vrocco]

I believe comb picks are considered bypass tools and are not for discussion in the open forums.

[yoyoboy]

I would consider Comb picks to be no greater of a bypass tool than any ordinary pick, they just pick a slightly different sheerline.

[greyman]

I dunno - comb picks are a bit specialised even though they were patented a long time ago. They are definitely a bypass tool, but people have talked about sputniks in the open forum, so I guess there's no problem discussing them at a high level. I wouldn't be posting their actual dimensions however.

[josh0094]

im not sure if theese were somthing i would look into, look pretty hard to make and bad for the lock.

[Beyond]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5-hC2oBQG4

[dougfarre]

I thought lock manufacturers voided this method of attack a long time ago by using longer driver pins?

This doesn't work as long as the
combined length of the (key pin)+(driver pin)+(fully compressed spring) > (d from the top of pin housing to the shearline)

When a lock manufacture like ABUS ignores such a fixable solution, it just seems so outrageous . This is like one of the first bypass methods ever!

[LeeNo]

First off - Beyond: That is a great video link. I am such a beginner at this great hobby. The thought of making a shim to allow me to insert my pick and then needing to pick side-pins and then insert a tension wrench never even crossed my mind! That was the best lock vid I have seen on YouTube!

Secondly - The moment I got into this hobby, I asked myself "Why not just push all the keypins out of the cylinder and open the lock?". Why not just use a tool that did this?

I see that what I was thinking of is something called a "Comb Pick".

It is somewhat analagous to a skelaton key for warded locks.

Since this is something that I, as a newbie, immediately recognized as a way to compromise locks, how can it be that such vulnerabilities still exist?

I mean, as soon as I thought about compromising pin-tumbler locks in this way, I immediately realized that all the lock manufacturer needed to do to protect themselves from such an attack would be to make sure that the keypins were too long to fit into the body of the lock.

How can this technique still be valid?

This is even worse than the bump-key defense. All a lock manufacturer would need to do to make their locks bump-proof would be to make their driver pins out of a denser and more malleable metal than the keypins. If they did this, the force of the bump-key insertion would be absorbed by the driver pins instead of transferring into motion.

[Safety0ff]

I believe comb picks are considered bypass tools and are not for discussion in the open forums.

Yea I though the same as you since I saw a thread that d_b had closed on the subject.

I completely second everything LeeNo just said

[mitch.capper]

Lee I don't think your bump key solution works, but for the rest of it your right:) Problem is longer driver pins means shorter or more compressed springs (or taller bible). As the second is out you are left with the first, which causes a different wear pattern which is something important for springs in locks.

[dougfarre]

I mean, as soon as I thought about compromising pin-tumbler locks in this way, I immediately realized that all the lock manufacturer needed to do to protect themselves from such an attack would be to make sure that the keypins were too long to fit into the body of the lock.

Lee I don't think your bump key solution works, but for the rest of it your right:) Problem is longer driver pins means shorter or more compressed springs (or taller bible). As the second is out you are left with the first, which causes a different wear pattern which is something important for springs in locks.

The key pin can be as short as they want. There is no reason why they couldn't make the driver pins longer.
I
If they HAD to make at least 1 of the keypins long enough to not be able to retract into the pin housing, that that would effectivley decrease the number of possible key combinations. You would know that there would have to be at least 1 cut on the key that was greater than a certain cut specification. So a solution would be to make the driver pins longer on very short pins.

As I said earlier [quote=dougfarre the god"]
This doesn't work as long as the
combined length of the (key pin)+(driver pin)+(fully compressed spring) > (d from the top of pin housing to the shearline)
[/quote]

So it has more to do then the length of the keypin. Not all locks have the same size driver pins.

[Trip Doctor]

Hmm, when I mentioned comb picks a while back, Schrub said it wasn't to be discussed in the open forums. But if the mods are cool with it all the better .

I don't know about padlocks, but I just checked this out with a Kwikset, and even with the smallest key pin, this won't work (the key pin sticks out of the housing even with the spring fully compressed). So if one of the lowest securuty deadbolts has this beat, most other, if not all, deadbolts probably do as well.

[mitch.capper]

The key pin can be as short as they want. There is no reason why they couldn't make the driver pins longer.
I
If they HAD to make at least 1 of the keypins long enough to not be able to retract into the pin housing, that that would effectivley decrease the number of possible key combinations. You would know that there would have to be at least 1 cut on the key that was greater than a certain cut specification. So a solution would be to make the driver pins longer on very short pins.

Well as I said about the longer driver pins altering spring length/tension, its definately done but its not something thats as simple as just making em longer.
There are two problems with the second part:
First if you just amde one longer enough not to retract you could still comb most of the pins and then pick the last pin (i certainly would take a reduced pin lock:))
Second of all if you make the driver pins longer for short pins (to keep an equal stack height) it would require repinning the driver pins to rekey the lock (which would be a annoying to say the least).

[dougfarre]

There are two problems with the second part:
First if you just amde one longer enough not to retract you could still comb most of the pins and then pick the last pin (i certainly would take a reduced pin lock:))

Who said it had to be the last pin? It could be any of the pins.. This is true, however, you would need a specialized comb pick, that was missing the comb in the spot where the long driver pin was.. or driver pins. [/quote]

Second of all if you make the driver pins longer for short pins (to keep an equal stack height) it would require repinning the driver pins to rekey the lock (which would be a annoying to say the least).

True.. but I am talking about fixing a manufacturers problems. Not designing a new lock here.