Small hand-held physical locks. On-topic uses of this tag could include: discussion of the physical design of a padlock, or appropriate uses of padlocks to protect data or servers.
Questions tagged [padlocks]
7 questions
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4-dial combination padlock: Is it more secure to zero it out or to blindly spin the dials after locking?
I am partially responsible for some resources protected by a 4-dial combination lock like this one:
There are two things that people will usually do after they've locked it:
reset all the digits to 0, so that the combination reads 0000, or
mash…
Peter Schilling
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How can you judge the physical security of a padlock?
I recently learnt to pick locks. Eager to test out my skills, I tried picking a padlock I'd been using on a secure storage box for a number of years, and found that it only had one pin - I can get into it in less than a second. It's completely…
Polynomial
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How do Travel Sentry locks work? (supposedly openable only by security agencies)
Apparently Travel Sentry locks can only be opened:
by their owner,
by the TSA, CATSA and "other security agencies".
How do they work technically?
Is there some electronics embedded with authentication capabilities?
Do the security agencies have a…
Nicolas Raoul
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How do I improve the physical security of a rack cabinet?
I've got an 8U 19-inch server rack cabinet with two locks - one on the front panel, one on the rear panel. The locks are small cam locks, but the cam part is rather thin and flimsy-looking.
I could easily break them open in a couple of seconds with…
Polynomial
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1 answer
Do dial locks have repeated numbers?
Can dial locks, such as the one below, have repeated numbers in their combination? For example, the combination 10-39-10 has the number 10 repeated twice in it. If so how often is this the case?
Unknown
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Padlocks suitable as teaching aids for public key cryptography - do they exist?
When explaining public key encryption, people commonly use the imagery of keys and padlocks. However, most padlocks have only one key (i.e. only one bitting), and work like this:
The padlock can be locked without any keys; and
The padlock can be…
sampablokuper
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When they make physical locks, do they really just make a few variations of the keys and then mix them together and sell?
I always assumed that each lock is unique and can only be opened with the keys it was sold with (or any copies made later from those originals). But the truth seems to be that they just make "a few" variations (10? 100? 1,000? 10,000?), mix them…
