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Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist 3

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On Youtube, looking for videos by "The Lock Picking Lawyer". Many of them relate to actually picking the locks in question, and aren't of much interest unless that's your hobby/occupation. But there are a number of them where he opens the locks using various brute-force methods and those are more interesting to me. One I watched last night was a thumb-print opening lock that he was able to remove the back from with a screwdriver, although I'm not sure it's the same lock as above- similar design flaw if it's not!

(Edit- actually a different lock, similar issues: )
 
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It's different, and even stupider: This lock has assembly screws fully accessible from the outside. There are no excuses or errors here, other than stupid design, or the the stupid assumption that T5 drivers are somehow unique or hard to acquire. While that might have been true 10 years ago, it's absurdly common today; I've got more T5 drivers than I can shake a stick at now.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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Well, they keep trying; the dimpled hex head screws are still a bit off the beaten path. I guess the idea is to deter miscreants by forcing them to carry more tools to slow them down. The Ramset gun seems to bypass a lot of the possible tools, but it's not exactly a quiet thing itself.

I've got a safe left by the previous owners that I need to remove; any ideas for that?

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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My Dad always said, "locks only keep the honest folks out".

Good luck,
Latexman

To a ChE, the glass is always full - 1/2 air and 1/2 water.
 
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Irstuff - call a professional (either a safe company or locksmith, depending on if you want the safe removed, or just opened).
 
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There's a video of a guy stealing his own bicycle in New York. Sometimes he 'steals' it himself, other times sends a friend. Not one challenge. He used a variety of tools, some quiet, some loud. The only time he got in bicycle-related trouble was when he tired of using a bike-rack on the opposite side of the street and bought an identical one, safety cones, and construction site-tape. He hammer-drilled the sidewalk for the anchors and bolted his rack in place at the same set-back from the street as the city provided ones.

If you have a half-million viewers you are bound to get noticed - the city street department made him remove it.
 
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IRstuff, the first thing to do if you want to remove the safe yourself is to find the specs for it, so you know what you're dealing with. Then some options to consider trying:

If you can get to the underside of the floor where the safe is bolted down (or the back side of what it's attached to) you might be able to free it.

Use a sawsall with a large carbide blade slipped between the safe and the floor to cut the bolt.

Take an angle grinder with a metal-cutting disc to the lock. If you go this route, pay attention to where the hot abrasive particles (sparks) may go. They'll leave pits in glass and mirrors, holes in most fabrics and upholstery, and little black dots on most painted walls.
 
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Proprietary male/headed screws that are sunk into tight fitting holes are still pretty secure. But yeah, everyone has a safety bit set with the various small triangles, squares, torx with the hole in the center, etc. so a female/socket head anything is not really going to slow anyone down. At least "pot" the screws with some epoxy or something.
 
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Just use a ball-peen hammer to the fingerprint reader and let the owner decide how stupid he feels.
 
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Hmm...more creative?

Is there anything in the safe you might want, and how fragile is it?

Liquid nitrogen and a sledgehammer come to mind...and going up in possible collateral damage from there. :)
 
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Can you embrittle it in some other fashion?
 
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IRS: Start with 3 parts HNO3 and 1 part C3H5(OH)3 and mix at the proper nitration temperature... desiccate with concentrated H2SO4 and separate, and pour into the tiny crack... apply blasting cap (can use plasticene to hold in place) and 'let 'er rip'... a lot more fun than calling a locksmith.

A blasting cap is not necessary... a hammer will do.

Dik
 
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Give it long enough and it will rust away on its own.

A.
 
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but, waiting and watching is like watching paint dry...

Dik
 
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I'm a bicyclist. About 3 or 4 times a year, I'll see where somebody has invented a "better bicycle". It is usually obvious that the inventor doesn't ride a bicycle, isn't interested in riding a bicycle, never bothered to read up on bicycles, etc., and they have in fact invented a crummy motorcycle (ie, electric bicycle) rather than a better bicycle. But that's what happens when you look at some field you don't normally work in and see obvious solutions that the people already in that field aren't using.

I see that effect with the locks above- both seem to have been developed by people that don't normally deal with locks, so the idea that somebody would use bolt cutters or pry their lock apart with wrenches or just twist it in half with a pipe wrench didn't ever occur to them, much less the screwdriver approaches.

On the Youtube videos by the Lock Picking Lawyer, Bosnian Bill, and a few others, it's interesting to see how some of these locks CAN be opened. But, from the manufacturer's standpoint, it doesn't matter how a lock CAN be opened, but how they ARE opened. I don't know if there are any thieves out there picking locks or if they're just using angle grinders or what. But making a lock more pickproof doesn't accomplish anything if nobody ever bothers to pick them in the first place.

It's also intriguing to see that many specific locks have specific vulnerabilities, but you'd have to carry an encyclopedia of locks around with you to know how to handle each specific one.
 
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One of the things that one of the videos points out is that to be good and fast at lockpicking, you need to practice a lot and have lots of patience. It's not the sort of thing that someone with poor impulse control is likely to be doing.


Which is fortunate for the rest of us.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert! faq731-376 forum1529 Entire Forum list
 
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