hey guys if you seen these lockboxes on
the front of people houses I've seen a
few lately and I was kind of curious
about them so I bought this this is a
Brinks lockbox and the extra-large
version you can put a whole bunch of
keys and credit cards and probably even
fit your wallet in there if you wanted
to and they say on the back it's to give
you you know great flexibility in your
life while giving you a peace of mind
and I bought it trying to figure out how
much peace of mind it would give me
knowing that a box is on the front of my
house and it contained my key you know
in case my kids lost theirs they have
this as a backup I think it would give
me too much peace of mind and has a neat
little weather cover on the front on the
back it's padded and that's designed not
to damage your house but you know I've
looked at this while ago and you
actually have to drill some holes in
your house to mount it flush against
your wall you wherever you want to don't
have to be near your entrance in order
to get in you have to have a combination
and then of course you pull it open and
I've set this combination to 2012 this
year and so it pops open and inside come
all the mounting screws and then little
else except the locking mechanism and
the locking mechanism is held in by four
little Phillips head screws so let's go
ahead enough let's just take it apart
and get a look at the mechanism and then
we can figure out how we can beat it
these thingies are pretty weak but
Realtors don't use these this is not a
realtor log Realtors today or use pretty
high technology stuff they've moved into
a ploy and medico
and a lot of them are even using
electromagnetic locks that are actually
encrypted they send a letter encrypted
radio signals so they can track which
realtor went in at what time and so
forth okay let's see if I can get that
off and you can see the mechanism we
have the locking bar which hooks into
these poles on the door and I'll pull
that out I'll just pull the whole lock
out and you can see that what we're
looking at I really don't need that any
right now the combination mechanism and
then this is the locking bar when it
falls down into its lower position we
have 2012 still dialed in so this
locking bar falls down into a slot
that's machined into the bottom of the
box or so the blocking pall falls down
there and it allows the bar then to
these little locking poles to move and
of course the door will open so when you
change the combination and I'll just
change one number you'll see that that
little bar moves I'll try to dial it
back here watch that little bar on top
and when you dial the combination it
moves forward and to that little
depression so what we need to do is from
the outside we need to figure out how to
get access how to make that little bar
go in the right position well in the
wheels this is resettable by the way you
can change the combination on this to
anything you want so picking it you know
there are 10,000 possible combinations
with 4 digits and so you could be there
for quite a while if you're going to
just do it randomly or try to do it
sequentially but if you look closely at
the side you'll see a small plastic
wheel and that wheel is actually what
lines up with these locking bars there
are four of them that lock up one two
three four and each of those rests on
that plastic wheel so from the outside
if there's some way we can figure out
where the notch is and let me turn this
so you can see it and you see there's a
little notch right here that the locking
bar falls into when it's around the back
and it's in the right position so from
the front if we could somehow reach in
through this through the little slot
find that slot determine when it's in
the front well then we know that we need
to add a certain number to it to rotate
it around the back and that will mean
that it's going to lock now looking at
this you can see that the combination is
2 and when the notch is on the front
it's a 7 so the difference is 5 so if we
were to sense this notch from the front
and it happens to be on 7 we simply add
5 or subtract 5 and that would take us
to the that would put the notch in the
correct position so
this case take five from seven it's
going to give us two so there we go -
and that holds true exact there's
notches exactly the same on these others
they're just difficult to see because
they're down inside of that crack but
this one is the easiest for me to
demonstrate
so let's tile in we have the right
combination let's reassemble this thing
and check our theory okay so I'm just
going to put it right back in this
little slot get in there I'm going to
take the locking balls and put them back
in where they belong otherwise is a
wasted exercise okay that's everything
in place I'm going to take the plate put
it back in place and in the interest of
saving time I know you don't like what
all you guys stand around watching me
screw I'm going to go ahead and just put
two of these Phillips screws back and
just to hold that plate securely in
place while we run our experiment -
should be plenty because I doubt where
we're going to use this thing okay so
we're on the front now everything is in
place we're going to change our
combination to whatever and now you can
see it is locked so the thing does work
now what are we going to do well I'm
going to turn this sideways and the way
that we find that is we take a feeler
gauge this this is a more of the it's
what Peterson calls a knife but any
feeler gauge will do and we're simply
going to put it down in each of these
notches there's plenty of room to get it
in there and we're going to find that
little notch so I'll put it in I don't
find a notch alternate one number okay
don't find the number keep going don't
find it and when I get to seven the
knife goes in much further and I don't
not only that but I can actually feel
the little depression the whole
depression I can determine the
dimensions of it so now I know for sure
that I'm there well let's do the second
one as well I don't feel any knotch
turn one number I don't feel a notch
no.not CH and all of a sudden it goes
down in much deeper and I can find that
not ch
okay so we've got that one let's try the
next one you get the idea
I think I'm boring you at this point and
I'm sorry but I've got to find the notch
I can't remember the damn number there
we go and then the last one no knowledge
and it feels like it right there so what
do we have well we've got seven five six
seven well now we know all of our
notches are aligned on the front and we
are to determine that the difference is
five so we could simply add or subtract
five from each of these and we get the
number but a lot of these boxes are
different Sam we don't always have the
luxury of disassembling it so if you run
across a box like that and you're still
able to decode or find the notch on the
front with your with your knife all you
really do is you just go one at a time I
would rotate so instead I would go eight
oops
eight six seven eight and then I would
try it and so forth I go 9 7 8 9 try it
and so forth and you rotate it around
until you get to the 5 and in this case
we rotate it the original number was if
I can remember mm 5 6 7 I believe so we
should subtract 5 so it's going to be to
subtract 5 from 5 to 0 subtract 5 to 6
gives us 1 subtract 5 from 7 gives us 2
and should open voila so I am absolutely
I get no sense of comfort I get doesn't
actually give me any flexibility or
peace of mind using their words knowing
that my key is secured in this box so
that my kids can find it it's just
in fact it throws me into panic to even
think that people would use a box with
this low security so if you have one I'm
buying
take another look at it by the way this
comes in two forms when you can bolt on
your door and there's another that has
actually a hasp then I suppose you can
lock on your door knob or lock you know
somewhere on your fence but it's the
same mechanism so again make your own
call but you won't find one of these on
my house anyway thanks for your time
thanks for your patience everybody stay
safe and stay legal