I looked into them for some time and they are just awesome. Master Lock seems to have hired someone REALLY good at his job a couple of years ago and then decided to fire him for every other lock they make. Regarding combinations: I asked my aunt and uncle who use two of those locks about their combination. They use 7 directions and have a little mnemonic to remember it. I really want to see that design in a higher end body with sturdier, all-metal parts on the inside. I don't get why Master Lock doesn't do that. No clue. With Master Lock I am always thinking that they have NO clue what they are doing right and what they are doing wrong. Bravo to the person or team who designed that lock. I have never seen such a flawless mechanism in a lock. Most if not all combination locks are usually flawed. Even high security key locks like the Evva MCS are flawed by design. But this is just damn near perfect. Again, whoever made this: GREAT JOB!
They know exactly what they are doing which is maximum profit, there is no way in earth that if they wanted to they couldn't make great locks. The main problem is they are extremely happy mainly being a hardware store supplier and know anyone who has any knowledge of padlocks and wants high security will always look to another manufacturer. To their credit I find any of their locks with ball locking shackles are quite resistant to physical attacks which are by far the most common attacks, as people who are capable of picking locks I do think we are a bit harsh on them (myself included) for having such shit cores.
Remember, they have to cater to governments wanting access to your stuff, so they intentionally gimp their locks for authorities to have easy access with brute force. A good way to flummox them is to use some LOTO guts with a better body and shackle.
I had one in collage 3-4 years ago. The aspiring engineer that I was, made a long combination sequence. I did not use that locker all that much. One day I woke up and realized that I had completely forgotten the sequence. Some time had passed and I tried to remember the sequence and try the lock maybe twice a week with no success. Then I start to google how to open theses locks and long story short I found BosnianBill´s youtube channel. within a week I ordered my first lockpicking kit and havent stopped lockpicking since, it is such a good way to focus and distract yourself for a good period of time, not to forget when you defeat the serrated pins for the first time. As I finished my collage degree and had no Idea on how to pick this lock, I just went to my locker with a cheap bolt cutter and in a second or two it was open. Inside I found my favorite slippers that I was sure that I lost in a party somewhere. As I am writing this... The slippers are right where they are supposed to be, on my slightly too warm feet.
I bought one for the gym because I can't see well enough without my glasses to open a regular combination lock. I can go to the pool and shower just fine without my glasses, but working a combination lock was way too hard. This is perfect for those of us with bad eyes. I'm glad to hear it's reasonably secure.
Same! Has been my gym lock for longer than I can remember. Also, use it when we go to adult oriented clubs that have lockers to stow your stuff in a dimly lit area. Muscle memory opens it every time.
Yeah, that WAS pretty cool wasn't it? Outside in the bright sunlight I didn't notice it while filming, but when I reviewed the video it REALLY jumped out at you. 😀
if people arent concerend about security and only choose to use 2 positions then thats their own fault not a weakness in the lock. weakness in people's laziness....
Agreed. Plus I'm not sure what BB is thinking when he's talking about 256 possible sequences. Is he assuming only 4-operation sequences? Because overall there are 7500 _unique_ sequences that aren't solvable with any smaller sequence. Certainly there's millions of possible sequences overall as well, but they don't really count because they're virtually all duplicates of others.
That's true, but if you are running an organization and you want to give people locks and use these so there are no keys to lose and everyone can have their own combo, well, your security gets compromised.
Stephen Moore I'm not a dummy who uses 2 directions. I use 12 directions and have a numerical string to remember it, originally using the included number stickers as a guide but now just using memory as a guide.
Random fact of the day: The circuit board picture on the freeze spray can is the open-source Objective2 headphone amplifier, designed by mysteriously vanished audio expert NwAvGuy. What a weird thing to notice/recognize in one of Bill's videos!
@Bosnianbill In all fairness we can't be totally sure that freeze spray did anything unless you were to test one of the locks with the hammer alone. There's a pretty decent chance just a hammer whack or three on their own could open it.....
lxRAVERxl I had one of these on my gate and it seized, couldn’t get it open with the code. I whacked the everloving crap out of it and couldn’t get it open. Although a commenter below had luck striking one and getting it open so maybe that’s just my weak arms lol
XYZZY! Thanks Bill! Mega-Frustrated I was unable to shim it, I started to methodically take mine apart, and right while I was about to take a picture of the configuration, I bumped it and all the Kings Horses and All the Kings Men will never put that magnificent piece of engineering back together again (Now that I know it can't be shimmed, I no longer feel inept.).
it's a fantastic lock for gamers from the 90's and 2000's. our cheat codes were so many doggone movements long, and we memorized that stuff so we could do it at a full run. if they put a couple of bumpers on it, we could have themed locks. that way anybody from your crew could unlock your stuff, aka buddy locker. geocache perfect.
i thought it through more. it would be a perfect puzzle cache, so you could pair the directions with the shapes on the PS2 controllers, and people could share their secret codes that were their favorites in a box you can find in the woods.
im amazed at all of the expensive toys that ive seen you play with on this channel, up to and including fully automatic weapons and military grade explosives.... but you dont have a set of $9 harbor freight security bits.
I just watched Chris Ahrens’ video again and find this lock really interesting, especially the reset mechanisms. The most important thing I learned spending nearly 45 minutes watching your and Chris’s video is that my understanding of math and mechanics is quite limited.
The math part is simple: If there are x ways to do task A, and if there are y ways to do task B, and if the tasks don't affect each other, then there are x times y ways to do both tasks A and B. (Independence of the tasks means that it doesn't matter whether A is done before B, or A is done after B, or the steps of A are interleaved with the steps of B.) If any of the "ifs" don't hold, then the analysis gets more complicated, but it's still essentially the same concept.
Master could have made this lock so much better by making the locking bar engage the bottom half so that unscrewing the screws wouldn't allow you to disassemble it while it's locked. Those 2 types of screw head may be uncommon but tools to unscrew them are easily available and cheap from China.
I've got one of those. My combination is 10 digits long using all 4 directions, not because I wanted lots of security, but because it's the first thing that came to mind.
Holy crap!I bought a hallway decent lock to lock my gas cans in the truck bed. I knew master was junk and easily picked so I gambled and bought the weirdest one I could at the home depot...figured if it was junk I'd add it to the practice lock collection. I'm pleased with it now after seeing this. THANKS Bill!
I actually can't believe that you just gave a good review of a master lock product. I have this lock because it was sold by the college and i needed a lock asap. I'm surprised at how well it worked in this video. Thanks Bill
I love these! You can open them in the dark in 1 second and a twentieth of the time of a dial combo. They're discontinued and I went out of my way to find and buy ten new-old-stock just to never run out.
I wish someone (American?) would take this mechanism and make a higher quality implementation. It has the potential to make a great combination lock if made from quality materials.
@@acfixerdude Give it a 6-"digit" minimum (average 5.7 hours to crack the combo) and make it out of hardened steel with brass mechanisms and nice tight tolerances, and you'd have a really good balance of high security and ease of use.
The other day I cut about 30 different "school locker" locks and got 2 of these Speed Dials and the shackle was considerably harder to cut, which bolt cutters, than all, but one which was a Brinks padlock
Like the lock got couple for my daughter at school she is autistic and has Cerebral palsy. This helped so much yes had to ask school and give them the combination. The principal was using like a figit toy he loved it. My daughter loves it also.
Bill: On the topic of chilling adult beverages, be careful. I tried to do that with an upside-down can of computer duster at one point. Unbeknownst to me, people enjoyed using computer duster as a recreational drug, and as a result they added a bittering component to the duster. So... I went to take a sip of my beer... and couldn't taste anything properly for the next three days.
John Hoover It was in a pint glass and I was just spraying the bottom half of it. It wasn't my intent to add it to the beverage (if you sprayed the outside of a can or bottle, there'd probably be some transfer as well, at least on the surface your lips touch on the can, and it might pour with the beer if you then moved it to another vessel).
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Nah, that wouldn't work. Propane/Butane etc are usually used, or some more dangerous compressed to fluid gasses. It's just like those regular duster, you can turn them into cold spray by turning the can upside down, which pushes the compressed to liquid substance out onto whatever you want to cool, and the subsequent expansion cools stuff down it touches. CO2 can't be compressed into liquid, and the solid CO2 sublimates far till slowly to be useful, and compressed N2 needs a thicker can to be compressed sufficiently. You are using both the evaporation as well as gas expansion to cool whatever you are spraying. So anything like butane that can be easily liquified with pressure work. The high quality ones use tetrafluoroethane, which is non flammable, and does not have anesthetic properties like propane/butane or chlorinated airdusters.
I bought one of these to use on my sailboat to keep the cabin locked and thought I’d spray it down with lubricant to keep it from rusting and locking us out. Never worked again after that. Also it had more than 1 combination from brand new, second combination I found by fluke.
I love these little locks. Obviously not for high security items but in general they are great. I use a 5 direction code on mine and they work perfectly all the time. Masterlock definitely put some thought into these
I have one from over 5 years ago because I thought it was a cool design (but not for security, of course, it's just a toy). If I remember right, you can actually set no combo at all. Basically reseting the lock will allow you to unlock it, but as soon as you slide the slider any direction, it won't open until you reset it.
These are the locks i use around my garage to lock up my tools and what not. Theyre inside so they dont need to be super secure but im glad to see that theyre half way decent. I did shange the combanation to twice the moves as stock
Hi! Great review. I still find this things interesting, particularly from an anti-picking perspective - no keyway (LOL) they are formidable. Perhaps I miss understood you, but I think the lock can have a lot more permutations than you mention -if you simply bump up the required opening directions by a few more movements. (BTW, thanks for that spot... I thought it was just limited to four (256 possibilities). Wrong. So, adding just two more direction movement gives: 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 X 4 = 4096. If we add two more (a total of eight movements, now - its then 65.5k worth of combinations to try. LOL. While 8 positions may seem excessive, it can be easily remembered as two for digit numbers (asssuming 1,2,3,4 going clockwise). So, say 3341 and 2212... that takes less than 4 seconds to do slowly... and provides a pretty darn high level of security against cracking - IMHO. Especially for 8 bucks. LOL. I hope they make a tougher version with machined parts, and a superior body. Thanks for reading.
While there is an infinite number of inputs that it will accept for a valid combination, there's only around 7500 total possible combinations that don't have shorter combinations that match that lock state. That's still pretty decent security though.
Great video. Thanks for always showing us real information! Truly though, I've cut more of these locks off lockers than I can count (by owner's request). I don't know if someone has tampered with the locks... Either through trying the fake methods of opening; or if they just seem to fail somehow after a while with normal wear & tear. They know their combo... but it just won't work. I've certainly seen worse locks. But, of course bolt cutters snip them real easily.
Or....devious mind working here... someone removed the original lock, then replaced it with an identical-colored lock just to mess with your head. Ask me how I know... (evil grin).👹
It is very easy to mess up on setting the code. I have been using one for 10 years, nearly daily use and never had a problem except when I come back from vacation and cannot remember the combination. (It's muscle memory, so I cannot tell it to someone without going through the motions.)
This is a perfect metaphor with respect to pc/server security as well. No matter what restrictions (min length, must have numbers/specials/etc) you put on a password, they're going to choose the simplest they can, and /NEVER/ /FUCKING/ /CHANGE/ it. /EVER/. And if you do require it to be changed, they're just going to increment it by 1 each time.
I used one of these for a gym locker. It's got a 7 "digit" code. I used a N 64 cheat that for some reason I memorized and occasionally still pops into my head for absolutely no reason. No chance of forgetting it, and nobody will ever guess it. If only it was solid metal and not plastic 😓
Cool to see the metal get heat treated during the burn process. I feel fine knowing the 2 methods to defeat this lock shown here are very load and not super practical. If someone goes thru all that I guess they can have my gym clothes 😂
THIS LOCK WORKS FAST WITH EVEN A SIX DIGIT CODE - LIKE 4 SECONDS IN THE DARK!! Cheap, reliable, and if you want to have reasonable security for something less than the Crown Jewels. However, if it gets wet inside and it freezes having hand warmer and some silicone spray will dry it out and prevent it from freezing again. Does not happen often. Otherwise, I use it to lock the farm gate, and actually if someone really wants in, well they can drive into the gates and shove all of it over!
Take out the three screws on the back and you can disassemble your way into it. However, one would need the proper drivers. The left and right screws are Tri-Point security screws (not triangle easily defeated with a hex key or a tri-wing). The middle screw is a unidirectional flat tip made to resist being unscrewed. A destructive attack would simply drill them out. That, and the aluminum body is my major disappointment with it. A hardened case and a different assembly means that conceals the screws unless the lock is opened would go a long way toward making it more difficult to defeat. Melting all the plastics inside might very well brick the lock unless it's pulled on vigorously while the plastic is sufficiently fluid. Not very practical as you'd need asbestos gloves to do it. See this other video on the lock which disassembles it much further. He didn't go far enough in manipulating the possible relative positions of the upper and lower wheels when setting a combination but it was getting rather long as it is. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-X8vW9lD_j-w.html There are four wheel assemblies, consisting of an upper wheel with five possible positions, a lower wheel with 15 possible positions, and a spring between them. The button moves the upper wheels. The lower wheel contains the gate, and a pin from the upper engages the lower in one of 15 locations when the lever on the back is set to operate the lock (versus in the combination reset position; see remarks on this below). Mathematically, think of it as a base-5 number system (0-4). For any particular combination, the number of possible position combinations of the four wheels is 5^4 = 625. However Getting them all to the 625 possible positions in a brute force attack with different combinations of up, down, left and right, is more difficult. Each move of the large button turns *three* of the wheels, the one in the direction of the movement and the two adjacent ones. Thus, a move to the left turns the left, up and down wheels, and a move to the right turns the right, up and down wheels. Same occurs with an up or down move (up + left and right, and down + left and right). This is ingenious as a sequence of more than four button moves that includes moving in the same direction more than once during the sequence tends to jumble the final positions of each wheel. When the shackle is pushed in to lock the lock, it rotates each wheel out of position to block the locking bar from moving with all four wheels. Pushing it in twice to begin the unlock sequence starts the wheels in a set starting location for the upper wheel, and its function is to reset their starting locations in the event someone has manipulated the button. One would think the order of the number of moves in each direction wouldn't make a difference, but it does. I've tried it. When resetting the combination, the lock is reset to a "zero" position with the upper and lower wheels disengaged from each other when the lever is set to the "R" position. The gates and the upper wheels are always set to the same positions relative to each other. The manipulation of the button to set a new combination only turns the upper wheel, not both (lower wheels are held in place by their gates with the shackle open). When it's entered, and the lever moved back to the normal "operate" position, the two wheels reengage and remain engaged. *If* the number of engagement points determined the number of possible combination settings, it's a base-15 number system and the total number of combinations possible would be 15^4, or 50,625. However, given how the combination setting procedure uses the button to move the upper wheel, there are only five positions possible and only five of the fifteen can be engaged by the pin on the upper wheel. Once set, the button can only move them to one of 625 combinations (every third possible engagement point), so the presence of fifteen pockets is moot; only five will be used. I do not believe there is a single, universal set of button moves that will always open the lock, given how the combination is set by moving only the upper wheels only - which have the reset lobes under them - which then changes its location relative to the gate in the wheel under it. In other words, the lower wheel gate location starting positions are unique to the combination that was set in the upper wheels as the upper wheels have the starting position lobe. There are 625 of them (5^4). My conclusion is the combination mechanism is sophisticated and designed to resist being decoded, or a universal button move sequence always being able to unlock the lock. It's quite ingenious. Obviously any given combination of the 625 will have multiple button manipulation solutions, as there are an infinite number possible, and an exceptionally large number of practical move sequences.
You really didn't have to freeze it. I used one on my shed and promptly forgot the sequence to open it. Two hard whacks with a hammer broke the lock and let me open the shed. It's a really cool design but, as you said, only for something like gym lockers.
It's actually possible to use more than 8 permutations on these locks, or even none (just randomise it before leaving, upon return, reset it and open). With the >4 permutations, however, you run the risk of bricking the padlock (which happened to me).
I guess that these are probably the best security locks. Better than normal combination locks. No numbers and wording to show. Means more security. More guessing time for thieves. I am going to buy this lock.
boy ...you realy did the math on this new lock,however a right or left habded person would have other waysmgood video ,i have never seen that lock,cheers Mal
I got one of these because I heard these were tough to crack vs the nigh useless dial locks. These operate so smooth, I have a 8 digit code on mine. Never forget to reset these when you lock them! Ive seen people forget resetting them and all it takes to open them is a pull. Good luck getting to my locker in a nondestructive matter. It's empty anyways.
Feel only lock. To be completely honest, I like this cheap lock. I have 2 of these. It protects my extremely valuable towel and toiletries at the gym, the other a baseball cap and other junk in my locker at work. Why because i almost didnt get into my gym locker because of not being able read the combo. I would recommend gluing the reset lever after setting the movements.
I use 5 directions and I always cover the lock with my left hand when put my code with my right thumb. You don't need to see anything to put in your directions. So fast (like 3 seconds to unlock) and works great. I have been using the same lock for the past 10 years and I use it pretty much daily going to the gym.... When it is on the gym locker, the locker is high at near eye level so my thumb is always from the bottom and goes in either direction comfortably. If they ever made a legit high quality lock with this mechanism, I would definitely consider it for my bike.
I looked at the linked video. The lock is open based on the position of four internal wheels. Each wheel has 5 possible positions. So the number of possible wheel sequences is only 5^4=625. There are many more possible flapper sequences but multiple ones redundantly point to the same underlying wheel positions. Even if you made a long sequence in an attempt to be secure, it could be the same as a much shorter equivalent sequence.
I've had one of these on my shed for years now. I don't think they're even outdoor rated but it's held up. I don't have anything in there terribly valuable, and there's a window that could be broken for access also It's very handy to be able to do the combination in the dark and still get in the shed.
a triangle screw is really easy to undo. Just get a flathead screw driver thats the width of the wide side and a smaller one to make a T with the other one and turn carefully. The middle screw looks like it would work with a thick enough flathead screw driver
I have a couple of these. I like that I can open it with one hand when I am carrying my gear. As long as you have a 4 or longer code, it is pretty secure against random picking. The weakness I have discovered is that the metal is low grade and I have broken one by hand. I have my doubts about the durability of the plastic components. For a locker at work, I like it. I would never leave it somewhere accessible to the public.
Yeah these would be great if there was a more durable/resilient version, because the security in them is technically better than virtually anything in existence that isn't electronic. (the insides consist of essentially a mechanical computer that performs a hashing algorithm, can't be cracked by touch sensing, can't be shimmed, and doesn't use any key (picking/duplicating/stealing/foiling/bumping/etc.) Ideal security involves using one of the 7-10 digit unique solutions (I wouldn't recommend an 11-digit one since there's only 100 of those), although figuring out such combinations is difficult, since there's only a 9% chance of getting a 7-digit one at random, and 0.06% chance of getting a 10-digit one at random. That said, someone carrying-around a list of all the unique combinations for this lock is far less likely than the already extremely low chances of anyone carrying around picks, unless they're specifically coming prepared to defeat this lock (in which case they're still screwed unless they have hours of time unattended with the locked object and an extremely determined will and patience).
They mention any length combination, but that's not physically possible. There has to be rollover at some point, so there would be a limit to the number of possible combinations. But that limit might be so high that it's not practical to test them all. As for a simple destructive attack I would suggest a few whacks with a regular claw hammer. For covert entry, the lock could be destructively disassembled and decoded, and replaced with another set to the same combination.
As a thief, you don't know how many steps you need. So if you use a 4 combo, you have to assume a would-be thief will try the 1, 2, and 3 combinations first. That means it will take even longer than the 4^4 combination. It's actually 1^4+2^4+3^4+4^4 which is 354. I have one and I use 8 which would mean a thief would have to try up to 8,772 combinations, and would have to try 4,676 even if they guessed the 8 combo on the first try.
