Notes on Picking Pin Tumbler Locks

Like many of us, Bourne wanted to know what his guests really thought of him, so his secret passageways allowed him to subtly escape a gathering to spy on the party. The mother thought she heard intruders, so she took an axe and searched the house. She mistook her children for the intruders, however, and killed them. Once in the home, the family quickly grew to include several children. Before the home was given to the college, legend has it that a woman with two young children was staying in the house. Keep practicing with the two pin lock, trying to lighten your touch as you do, and making sure you consistently can pick the pins one at a time. As an early settler to the region, Brown was fearful he might be attacked by the Native Americans in the area, so he built the 12-room Octagon House as somewhat of a fort, complete with an "Indian Lookout" room, where Brown could keep watch. Homes with hidden passageways have a way of taking on new roles as times change, which was the case for the Octagon House in Fond du Lac, Wis. To determine which pin stacks have these pins, gently push up each "set" pin.

If the shear line is within this gap as torque is applied, it may set. Now apply heavy torque, with the aim of pinching all the bottom pins at the shear line. The top pin of the most misaligned pin stack becomes "pinched" at the shear line between the plug and the shell. See Figure 1. (In practice, the cuts are produced by stacking pin segments of particular lengths, not by actually cutting the pins; hence the term "pin stack.") With no key in the lock, all the pin stack cuts rest within the plug. If you want an easy way to remember a few of the key factors in NASCAR, just remember the three D's -- downforce, drag, and drafting. A key that is bitted to the wrong depth in even one pin position will not operate the lock. If just one pin sets at the "other" shear line, the lock will not open even though all the pin stacks are picked.

Pin-tumbler lock picking has long been among the common skills of the security community. Picking depends on weaknesses in the implementation of locks -- small manufacturing imperfections -- rather than fundamental, abstract design flaws that would be present no matter how carefully made the locks might be. Picking locks very much involves "psychomotor" skill. Suppose that they all jumped ten metres in the air (a huge overestimate, fifty centimetres is more likely and probably much less). Drafting is when Driver B tucks the nose of his car almost underneath the rear bumper of Driver A's car to improve air flow over both cars. Downforce is created by the air moving over the top of the car and pushing it down toward the track surface. As a result, the bodywork of every NASCAR Sprint Cup race car is identical regardless of the manufacturer -- with the exception of the paint, of course. NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow is the current design used exclusively in NASCAR Sprint Cup races.

If Native Americans attacked, the family would need a place to hide, what is billiards so Brown's design included nine secret passageways and a hidden room adjacent to the Indian Lookout room. The design increases safety for the driver as the cars go faster and faster each year. Those who think they have what it takes to survive in this lair camp out every other year for the chance to obtain free tickets to Garriott's four-night haunted house. You'd think with a name like the Coffin House, this residence would be frightening. ­Does this seem like a never ending battle of physics? The outermost ring mounts to a larger surface, like a boat's instrument panel. But if you put that $10,000 toward installing a hidden passageway in your own home, then you could act like a superhero whenever you wanted. Nothing earns a home the reputation of eccentricity quite like rumors that it's haunted. It was likely a better buy than the next eccentric home on our list, which has passed hands many times over the years due to a little problem with ghosts. Unlike some of the more nefarious purposes that hidden passageways serve in the other homes on this list, Frederick Bourne apparently had a very simple reason for wanting them.