this week on scam school you'll find out
why no bicycle is safe it's cuz your
locks suck
this episode of scam school brought to
you by domain.com ever notice that all
of our best episodes start with the
following disclaimer do not use this for
crime
welcome to scam school the only show
dedicated to social engineering at the
bar and on the street hello beautiful
citizens of the Internet's I'm Brian
brushwood and we're back at the moon
tower saloon to find out why your bike
is not safe it's because your luck is
bad and you should feel bad all right
here we go dude awesome all right that
can get at the booth tower with J Gore
and Jason Murphy and Jaguar you showed
me a while back something that I didn't
realize it was this simple but you said
that pretty much any bicycle lock you
could do with no special equipment
whatsoever
yeah these wheel style combo locks are
really easy to decode anything like this
a bicycle lock even a luggage lock or a
briefcase or a filing cabinet anything
that's got these dials to dial in the
combo probably gonna be vulnerable to
this attack now you don't mean dials
like on this cuz I guess this is also
kind of a dialing thing right kind of I
don't think it works on that particular
one but anything where there's a male in
the female part and you spin the wheels
in order to you know to match the teeth
yeah like the opening device would be
separating somehow so in this case this
would pull apart to open go or in a
briefcase lock you push a button to the
side and it slides sideways that type of
mechanism we we can decode pretty look
let's try this walk me through the
mechanics of why this works and how you
can do it without knowing the code at
all and it will see if the to a
safecrackers here are able to bust that
open this is actually very similar to
standard lock picking in that we have a
binding force that we're applying to the
tumblers or in this case the wheels whoa
hold on professor let's talk about the
binding floors here sure however you
would normally open the lock in this
case is gonna separate like this we're
going to apply a force like that so I'm
holding outward on the left and right
side oh I get what you're talking about
cousin lock-picking you want to have a
tension wrench that you put a little bit
of tension on and you go through and as
if you have a finger you poke up each
thing and then once you get one in the
right spot it sort of stays there and
then you look for the other the reason
it stays there is because it's binding
up against the side of the lock so it's
kind of sticking and you're able to push
it up and it'll click and set into place
so in this case you're pulling it apart
and in
inside this is just like four teeth and
then each of these wheels have a gap
that you line up all the gaps the teeth
go right through yeah so and one of
those gaps is going to be closest to the
locking mechanism from the rest so when
we hold this pulling force we're gonna
bind up or make tougher to spin one of
these four wheels so our first step is
to figure out which of the four wheels
is binding if I push on these these
first three are really easy to move they
spin pretty freely this fourth one is
not going anywhere because I got to
assume like nothing is perfectly aligned
so in this case you've got the teeth
pulling against the wheels and of the
four wheels this one the very first one
is the one that is pulling the hardest
on yes which means that's the first one
you can lock in if you figure out where
the gap is we can think of it as that is
the only wheel that's holding it closed
at that particular second if we got this
wheel out of the way then a new wheel
would be the one holding it close got it
for now we're just attacking that one
wheel so I'm gonna reset these all to
ones we know that the fourth number here
is the binding one it's tough to spend
right our goal is to transfer that
binding force through from the fourth
wheel to the third one as soon as we see
this third wheel get tough to spin
we know the fourth one was correct so at
this point the fourth wheel being
difficult to spin you just sort of try
one two three four five six and then
each time you wiggle the third wheel to
see if that one's having a hard time
working or not so I'm starting at it one
here let's try that third wheel still
freely spinning right yep so let's move
on to the next number two still freely
spinning there's one two three
does the difference feel like black and
white there we go yeah so now suddenly
this third wheels not going anywhere
it's locked up just the way the first
one was so theoretically the first the
last digit is 4 yep really confident
here this this last wheel is gonna be 4
I don't normally get these ideas so
easily but I feel like maybe Jason and I
could take this on you want to give it a
shot yeah here first dos me though all
right why don't we just give our bicycle
to the first shifty-eyed boom that comes
along someone's coming there's someone
in the building a domain squatter going
from door to door is already on the
third floor he's asking for somebody to
give him a domain
like no no now he's trying to get dere
domain net that's my name people call me
the Dare domain sometimes look there are
some things I haven't told you about
myself domain squatter but I mean mostly
because you're on the third floor and
wouldn't be able to hear me anyways but
I have the supernatural power of
registration and believe me when I say I
will stop at nothing to snipe that
domain right out from underneath you
that's right domain.com all right look I
don't need eyesight to see all the trust
and credibility that comes with coms and
Nets although maybe if I get this mask
on my face up I can see just fine oh
good thing too because otherwise I would
have never known that coat scam school
gives me 15% off all right Murphy you're
playing for Team scam school here we
know the last one is for talk us through
it as you're doing it all right so I'm
holding and pulling the outward force
right yeah this the third one is
definitely harder to do so I guess okay
so I start let's start with one you know
start with one right and then we're
gonna turn the second one so that all
feels loose right now right yes yeah it
looks like I might be sticking a little
bit but okay yeah I tried moving on no
losers just to get an idea of how loose
oh I guess that's a good point because
there is the chance that whatever number
you're on happens to be the right yeah
and it looks like it's spinning a lot
easier on the two than it did on the one
so maybe one is the number that's hard
to tell I don't have any basis of
comparison yeah sure I'm astonished how
much of this really is just entirely by
touch I would imagine that that if you
were non-sighted lock-picking would be a
pretty good game to play
absolutely Austin has a pretty big blind
and deaf crowd and we've actually had
some of them come out to our meetings
before and I had great luck just picking
locks within like 15 minutes that's
amazing so teary because to them it's
all intuitive like like the sensitivity
and their fingers and learning how yeah
they may be they might be even have a
better advantage out of than us yeah
they all feel loose Oh
okay one one is actually stickier okay
one is one Casey you're fairly convinced
yeah that look that one for yeah
I'm pretty convinced three so now you
just do an entire lab or but it's a good
advocates good no oh no that means
you're wrong on one of them sometimes
you'll have to reposition like let off
the the pressure and then put it back on
so it gets a good grab on it again and
that's the nice thing about this is you
can let off the pressure and it doesn't
ruin your works you like caramel
lock-picking you don't actually lose all
your work if you let off the pressure
here the Russians are coming now right
all right past my Ivan Drago's about to
steal his bike back so you're confident
on the first two the third one we don't
know okay so real quick if we get
stopped cuz i got these big like gorilla
fingers they look like big strong hand
she's okay so this one be careful to get
it right on the number because if you're
off crooked a little bit you're not
going to feel the sticking and it's
tough because when you're maintaining
the pressure like that and you're
turning the knobs with your fingers as
you're pulling it's easy to kind of
knock the other numbers that you've
already got that off of there alignment
that's what I kept doing that's my
excuse I think I got somewhere yeah did
you get last one is hard so whole arm is
good keep spinning for one for right on
nice ah well now I'm terrified and I'll
never leave my bicep yeah you know we
got to give huge thanks both to Jay gore
and to the long horn lock-picking Club
check them both out online and on
Twitter speaking of which you and I
should be best friends at Twitter I'm at
should there is no seeing should and of
course you should join us next week
because we are going to unveil the
first-ever scam school free-to-play app
we will never charge you all we need is
your name social security number of your
phone up your mother's maiden name and
maybe your old passwords you're not
using them right
they have to go through as if you have a
finger you can poke up each thing and
then once you get one in the right spot
let's talk about the binding floors here
sure
so through us I have no excuse I have
dainty magicians fingers
oh it's that's definitely sticky