[00:01.090 --> 00:03.210]  Hey everyone, thanks for joining.
[00:03.210 --> 00:08.450]  I'm the Greek, I'm the chapter lead for TOOL in Colorado Springs, Colorado,
[00:08.450 --> 00:11.930]  and this is my first DEF CON presentation.
[00:11.930 --> 00:18.150]  So, even though we're not doing this in the real, so to speak,
[00:18.150 --> 00:23.790]  I do know the tradition, so I'm going to carry it out.
[00:36.530 --> 00:37.490]  Opa!
[00:43.230 --> 00:46.210]  Shouldn't drink Lynn Leavitt like that.
[00:50.730 --> 00:56.550]  Anyone who's familiar with the Fallout franchise of games
[00:56.550 --> 01:01.830]  will know where the title for this talk comes from.
[01:01.830 --> 01:04.890]  Are bobby pins more effective than lockpicks?
[01:04.890 --> 01:07.810]  The answer is, you know, obviously no.
[01:08.070 --> 01:11.370]  But, what if you don't have lockpicks?
[01:11.370 --> 01:15.810]  Well, you planned poorly. You should have them with you.
[01:15.810 --> 01:24.110]  There's only a few states that having them on you is a crime in and of itself.
[01:24.110 --> 01:27.750]  Now, internationally, I'm not familiar with the laws,
[01:27.750 --> 01:32.230]  but obviously check your state and local authorities to make sure that
[01:32.230 --> 01:37.470]  it's legal for you to have them on your person in the state that you're in.
[01:38.310 --> 01:44.670]  Like I say, there are some states that they're not legal to have on you at all times.
[01:44.670 --> 01:51.390]  Virginia, Mississippi, Nevada, which is strange because that's where DEF CON's at all the time,
[01:51.390 --> 01:54.690]  and there's one more.
[01:55.090 --> 01:59.010]  Mississippi, Ohio, Nevada, and Virginia.
[01:59.010 --> 02:04.210]  They're considered prima facie evidence of the intent to commit a crime.
[02:04.210 --> 02:06.590]  So if you're in those locations, don't have them on you.
[02:06.590 --> 02:08.810]  So if you don't have them on you in those locations,
[02:08.810 --> 02:12.490]  what do you do if you need to pick a lock?
[02:12.630 --> 02:14.650]  Legally, of course.
[02:28.480 --> 02:31.580]  You do what we've always done.
[02:31.580 --> 02:34.040]  You make your own, right?
[02:35.120 --> 02:38.740]  You might have started with the paperclip.
[02:38.920 --> 02:44.640]  You might have actually tried the actual bobby pin.
[02:47.460 --> 02:59.040]  I don't recommend that you destroy your wife's or your significant other's underwire bra until you get permission to do it.
[02:59.040 --> 03:00.580]  Just ask permission.
[03:01.400 --> 03:05.700]  There's other things that you can use as well, like spark plug gappers.
[03:05.700 --> 03:13.500]  These work very well, but there's a lot of material there that you have to cut away if you want to make this into a usable lock pick.
[03:13.500 --> 03:20.720]  One of the things that I really like to use is street cleaner bristles.
[03:20.720 --> 03:28.140]  Street cleaner bristles, if you walk down the street, you can find them after the street cleaner's gone by.
[03:28.140 --> 03:30.760]  Or you can luck out, like I did.
[03:30.960 --> 03:41.750]  I was driving home one day, and I was in my truck, and I saw on the side of the road a broken street cleaner head.
[03:41.750 --> 03:53.050]  And so I stopped the pickup truck, and I got some street cleaner bristles now.
[03:56.290 --> 04:06.610]  One of the things that professional quality lock picks have over anything improvised is generally the handle.
[04:06.950 --> 04:13.230]  These are a HPC set here. These are out of the Tool Tremendous 12.
[04:13.230 --> 04:17.690]  They have a substantial handle to them, and it's easy to hold on to.
[04:17.690 --> 04:20.830]  It cuts down on fatigue while you're picking.
[04:20.890 --> 04:30.030]  And it just feels better in the hand than if you were to just have this and try to pick with that.
[04:30.030 --> 04:33.510]  So what I'm going to show today is how I improvise handles.
[04:33.510 --> 04:36.310]  You can do several different things.
[04:36.310 --> 04:47.090]  These are just swizzle sticks, some sort of a straw that I found to put over the outside of this homemade tension wrench.
[04:47.090 --> 04:51.130]  I did the same thing with this double-ended pick here.
[04:51.130 --> 05:00.130]  But these are all picks that I've made by hand using street cleaner bristles and a dremel tool.
[05:00.270 --> 05:03.350]  And so that's what we're going to go over here today.
[05:04.310 --> 05:11.550]  The basic idea is just to give some heft to the tool.
[05:11.790 --> 05:15.630]  Something to hold on to, something to give it some rigidity.
[05:17.010 --> 05:20.930]  There's multiple different things that you can get from hobby stores out there.
[05:20.930 --> 05:24.750]  This is a plastic that can be used.
[05:24.750 --> 05:27.510]  I tend to prefer brass.
[05:27.510 --> 05:37.990]  But there is also, let's see here, a couple of them that I've used an aluminum tubing on.
[05:37.990 --> 05:42.250]  And it all works basically exactly the same.
[05:42.250 --> 05:55.830]  Whether or not you're using a square stock like this, which gives you a little bit more of a feel that's similar to this type of pick.
[05:55.830 --> 05:59.850]  Or if you're using round stock.
[06:00.070 --> 06:03.850]  Again, I tend to prefer the round stock.
[06:03.850 --> 06:08.050]  Just maybe for aesthetics. I have no idea why.
[06:10.130 --> 06:13.510]  There is a benefit to using square stock.
[06:13.510 --> 06:21.970]  And that is that these flat picks and a square handle don't roll away.
[06:24.690 --> 06:30.810]  So the first thing to do is essentially figure out which one you want to duplicate.
[06:31.470 --> 06:35.330]  I like to mask things off and hold them in place.
[06:35.390 --> 06:37.690]  Get a good piece of stock.
[06:37.690 --> 06:45.850]  If it's rusty like this, I'll take a piece of, again this is improvised, right?
[06:45.850 --> 06:48.970]  This is actually wood sandpaper, but I'm going to use it.
[07:09.730 --> 07:17.650]  Okay, now that I have this relatively cleaned up, I'm going to take the pick that I want to duplicate.
[07:17.650 --> 07:22.130]  I'm going to do this one from the Tremendous 12.
[07:24.810 --> 07:27.810]  Man, I have the hardest time with that word.
[07:32.670 --> 07:33.750]  Sinusoidal.
[07:35.370 --> 07:37.450]  Yes, so sinusoidal.
[07:39.770 --> 07:42.170]  We're going to duplicate this one.
[07:42.410 --> 07:58.650]  What I like to do is match it up and then tape it in place with just some sort of tape to keep it in place while I trace onto it.
[08:50.020 --> 08:52.820]  So that's the basic gist of it right there.
[08:52.820 --> 09:00.280]  So now it's copied onto the stock and next I'll get out the Dremel tool and I'll cut it out.
[11:44.590 --> 11:57.470]  So anyway, it's not identical. I can take more off of the one that I'm fabricating, but at this point in time, it's close enough.
[11:58.190 --> 12:05.930]  Like I say, I can take more off as needed, but I also want to make sure I retain the strength of the pick.
[12:08.250 --> 12:12.470]  OK, now for the handle, I'm going to use brass.
[12:12.470 --> 12:19.370]  I want the overall length to be just about the same size as all of the standard picks.
[12:19.370 --> 12:24.130]  So I'll kind of measure it and put a mark on it.
[12:34.680 --> 12:39.220]  That will be the overall length of the pick approximately.
[12:39.340 --> 12:44.280]  And then as far as the handle goes, how much of that needs to be handle.
[12:47.300 --> 12:51.300]  Somewhere in there. It's not an exact science.
[12:53.440 --> 13:05.090]  We'll cut the pick off with the Dremel, but we'll use a tube cutter for the handle stock.
[13:54.530 --> 14:08.290]  I ended up making two. This one here with the round stock, and then I decided to make one with the square stock for the handle.
[14:08.290 --> 14:15.190]  Go over what I do to secure the pick within the handle.
[14:15.190 --> 14:19.590]  And that's essentially just some epoxy putty.
[16:44.570 --> 16:47.830]  I forgot I was working on cardboard here.
[16:48.630 --> 16:50.910]  JB Weld sets up pretty quick.
[16:51.570 --> 16:56.590]  Put as much in the handle as you can.
[16:56.590 --> 17:01.610]  Press it in there, and then press the pick in.
[17:01.610 --> 17:07.450]  This stuff, I can hardly work with it anymore. It's almost completely set up.
[17:07.710 --> 17:13.610]  But you still can do a little bit more.
[17:22.420 --> 17:26.880]  Oh man, it's not even sticky anymore. It's done.
[17:27.240 --> 17:29.240]  It is JB Welding.
[17:40.570 --> 17:52.530]  So one of the things about working with your own picks is you can make your own designs based off of some need that you might have with a specific lock.
[17:53.150 --> 17:59.890]  This pick is one that I use quite regularly. It seems to work fine.
[17:59.890 --> 18:01.950]  Here's the one that we just made.
[18:02.290 --> 18:06.010]  I'll probably clean this up over time.
[18:06.010 --> 18:11.950]  And tighten up the cuts on it a bit.
[18:11.950 --> 18:16.710]  Let's see how I like the square handle. It might be interesting.
[18:17.670 --> 18:23.390]  Here's the one with the round handle. Basically the same pick, but just with the round handle.
[18:23.410 --> 18:26.130]  I made that one today as well.
[18:26.790 --> 18:34.910]  This is a pretty standard cross section right here.
[18:34.910 --> 18:43.150]  This one I made quite a while ago. I actually even took solid brass stock and put it into the base.
[18:43.150 --> 18:47.470]  I think that's probably a little bit too much because they do break.
[18:47.970 --> 18:53.910]  But like I say, you can make the specific pick that you want.
[18:53.910 --> 19:00.810]  This one has a larger diameter barrel for the handle than the rest of them.
[19:00.850 --> 19:02.710]  Again, experimentation.
[19:02.710 --> 19:11.650]  This is just a very tiny hook pick for a very specific lock.
[19:12.310 --> 19:19.490]  Same with this here. This is a very tiny half diamond. Again, for a very specific lock.
[19:28.420 --> 19:44.340]  One thing that's important to note is that street cleaner bristles have a tendency to snap when you bend them into a tension wrench like this.
[19:44.660 --> 19:55.340]  This is similar. I put a handle on a tension wrench, but you'll notice that the bend is not super extreme.
[19:55.340 --> 20:09.640]  Like you might find on a mass produced handle like this where it's got a nice bend in there.
[20:09.640 --> 20:17.640]  You can get to that. I think it does make the metal a little bit more brittle.
[20:17.640 --> 20:26.360]  But you can make your tension wrenches out of the same material. You just have to be a little bit more careful when you bend.
[20:26.520 --> 20:33.320]  I think I showed... these are ones with a half bend in the middle.
[20:33.320 --> 20:38.980]  And this one in particular is tapered to where it will fit a smaller keyway.
[20:38.980 --> 20:52.600]  Again, the same thing that I talked about with regard to the specific picks that you can make that are specific to your lock.
[20:52.600 --> 20:58.460]  You can make a tension wrench that is specific to the lock that you're trying to pick.
[21:00.160 --> 21:01.600]  Let's see...
[21:03.560 --> 21:06.940]  So, to the question...
[21:06.940 --> 21:21.480]  Are bobby pins or improvised lock picks or homemade lock picks better than or as good as comparable to picks that you may buy?
[21:21.480 --> 21:24.700]  I think that it's very situational.
[21:24.700 --> 21:35.280]  The specific picks that I have made for specific locks were the only ones that I could get that would work for those locks.
[21:35.280 --> 21:38.940]  I had to make them and then they worked.
[21:40.880 --> 21:49.640]  The quality, I think, is better with the professional made picks, obviously.
[21:50.300 --> 21:56.480]  The reproduction is better with the professional made picks.
[21:56.480 --> 22:10.880]  But, I guess it's the trade-off between the purchasing of something and being able to make it on your own.
[22:11.200 --> 22:18.080]  For years, I didn't have access to picks or any place to get them at.
[22:18.080 --> 22:31.820]  So, I made them on my own and I think that's where the fulfillment, I guess, comes in with doing this yourself.
[22:32.180 --> 22:35.020]  Thank you for your attention to this.
[22:35.020 --> 22:46.800]  I would ask you, if you're interested in this, to please post some questions in the channel so we can answer them.
[22:46.800 --> 22:52.920]  We can talk about different materials, different ways of fabricating.
[22:53.320 --> 22:57.640]  We can poke fun at how bad I am with the Dremel tool.
[22:59.380 --> 23:04.620]  Also, if you're interested in this, look for a local tool chapter.
[23:04.620 --> 23:15.020]  Look for others that want to explore this lock sport with you and with us.
[23:15.020 --> 23:18.720]  Again, I appreciate your attention. Thank you very much.
[23:18.720 --> 23:22.360]  I hope you enjoy the rest of DEF CON SAFE MODE.
[23:23.180 --> 23:24.620]  This is The Greek.
[23:28.460 --> 23:29.260]  Yasu!
[23:31.660 --> 23:34.460]  I'm not going to drink it like I did the first time. This stuff is too good.