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Cracking safes for fun and profit

Matt Burns


Forget hot-wiring cars. Peeps with real skill go for safes. You see, every safe has a weekness because someone, like a locksmith or you, might need to sneak in through a backdoor. This is what the safecracker are trying to exploit. It happens to be a rare skill that a person might never need, but then again, you never know when a priceless artifact is about to be stolen by baddies and the only hope is for you to crack a large 1915 bank vault.

Grab your lock pick and follow the rabbit through the link for a some safe-breaking resources.

How Stuff Works

In this article, we’ll examine the fundamentals of this rare skill and show you the ins and outs of safecracking.

Safecracking for the Computer Scientist [34-page illustrated PDF] – a must read

We examine security against forced, covert and surreptitious safe opening, focusing on the mechanical combination locks most commonly used on commercial safes in the US.

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History of safes and safe breaking

In the last twenty years, the craft of safe cracking has tragically declined. It is no longer the glamorous activity featured in every other detective film, and the number of real criminal attacks on safes has fallen dramatically. 

Pro safe cracker

http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-6219048398291830957&hl=en&fs=true

How to crack a safe on YouTube

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjP7SwJI2bE&w=425&h=344]

Mythbusters on safe cracking

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxgPX5-cmvc&w=425&h=344]

image source: SFhistory

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Matt Burns
Matt Burns is a longtime technology journalist, now Editorial Director at Insight Media Group and formerly Managing Editor at TechCrunch. At Insight Media Group, he guides coverage and contributor programs across fast-growing tech publications. Before that, he spent 15+ years at TechCrunch, rising from contributor to Managing Editor, helping scale the newsroom and program Disrupt’s stages and TechCrunch’s other events. Earlier, he also wrote for Engadget. Matt co-founded the Resilience Conference, an event series at the intersection of defense, security, and startup innovation. There he builds agendas, hosts sessions, and launched “Launch @ Resilience,” a showcase for early-stage teams building nation-defending technology. Across roles, he’s reported on and moderated conversations in AI, mobility, frontier tech, and the hard problems technology companies face. He’s interviewed world leaders, top investors, startup founders, and public-company CEOs. Lifelong Michiganian with plenty of Silicon Valley miles, he brings Midwest empathy and an editor’s eye. Offstage, he works with teams to sharpen narrative and validate go-to-market plans, and, when possible, camping along Lake Michigan.
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