Security
Tubular pin tumbler locks are generally considered to be safer and more resistant to picking than standard locks, though there are several ways to open them without a key. Even though the pins are exposed, making them superficially easier to pick, they are designed such that after all pins are manipulated to their shear line, once the plug is rotated 1⁄6 to 1⁄8 around, the pins will fall into the next pin's hole, requiring re-picking to continue. As such, picking the lock without using a device to hold its pins in place once they reach their shear line requires one complete pick per pin.
Such locks can be picked by a special tubular lock pick with a minimum of effort in very little time; it is also possible to defeat them by drilling with a hole saw drill bit. Standard tubular lock drill bit sizes are 0.375 in (9.5 mm) diameter and 0.394 in (10.0 mm) diameter. To prevent drilling, many tubular locks have a middle pin made of hardened steel, or contain a ball bearing in the middle pin.
In 2004, videos circulating on the Internet demonstrated that some tubular pin tumbler locks could be easily opened with the shaft of an inexpensive ballpoint pen (e.g., Bic pen) of matching diameter. Trade website BikeBiz.com revealed that the weaknesses of the tubular pin tumbler mechanism had first been described in 1992 by UK journalist John Stuart Clark (see Kryptonite lock).
Read more about this topic: Tubular Pin Tumbler Lock
Famous quotes containing the word security:
“It seems to me that our three basic needs, for food and security and love, are so mixed and mingled and entwined that we cannot straightly think of one without the others. So it happens that when I write of hunger, I am really writing about love and the hunger for it, and warmth and the love of it and the hunger for it ... and then the warmth and richness and fine reality of hunger satisfied ... and it is all one.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (b. 1908)
“Those words freedom and opportunity do not mean a license to climb upwards by pushing other people down. Any paternalistic system that tries to provide for security for everyone from above only calls for an impossible task and a regimentation utterly uncongenial to the spirit of our people.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“Our security depends on the Allied Powers winning against aggressors. The Axis Powers intend to destroy democracy, it is anathema to them. We cannot provide that aid if the public are against it; therefore, it is our responsibility to persuade the public that aid to the victims of aggression is aid to American security. I expect the members of my administration to take every opportunity to speak to this issue wherever they are invited to address public forums in the weeks ahead.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)