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How Safecracking Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of My
0:03
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryan over there,
0:15
Speaker 1: and there's guest producer and Loll Loll today and this
0:21
Speaker 1: is Stuff you should Know. I over enunciated Lowell's name
0:25
Speaker 1: because I didn't want you to perk up and be
0:27
Speaker 1: like Noel. I wanted the people who who get perked
0:31
Speaker 1: up by Lowell to perk up. That's right, which is
0:34
Speaker 1: to say the whole world. And you know, I think
0:38
Speaker 1: about it. I think Lowe has said in once before. Yes,
0:43
Speaker 1: and did we record two episodes? I don't know, but
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Speaker 1: Lowell even got a shout out at a live show,
0:50
Speaker 1: that's right, So we have released an episode with Lowell.
0:52
Speaker 1: So this isn't as far as everyone is concerned. Yeah,
0:54
Speaker 1: that's a I don't know if we ever told Lowell,
0:56
Speaker 1: but yes, he got a shout out. Did we ever
0:58
Speaker 1: tell you that lot? No, he's not answering. He knows
1:03
Speaker 1: what he's doing. Look at my thumb here and you'll
1:06
Speaker 1: notice that the double band aid I uh cut pretty
1:11
Speaker 1: deep into the tip of my thumb, slicing a bagel
1:15
Speaker 1: with the brand new sharp serrated knife. And uh, it's amazing,
1:20
Speaker 1: how like how much not having the use of a
1:24
Speaker 1: thumb takes out of your life? Yes, man, it's I'm like,
1:30
Speaker 1: I can't believe just because it really hurts, so I'm
1:33
Speaker 1: not using it, but everything from like unbuttoning my pants,
1:38
Speaker 1: two buttoning your pants, buttoning my pants. I'm like, man,
1:43
Speaker 1: I usually just pop it off with my left thumb um.
1:46
Speaker 1: But there's so many things that I'm not able to
1:48
Speaker 1: do or have a struggle to do. And trust me,
1:52
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining generally about this is an affliction in life,
1:57
Speaker 1: but just to point out, like the deal with like
1:59
Speaker 1: just one thumb, you really got to rethink some things. Yeah,
2:04
Speaker 1: it's crazy because you hear those things like you know,
2:06
Speaker 1: you you can't really walk if you're missing your peaky
2:08
Speaker 1: toe or your big toe or something like that. It's like,
2:12
Speaker 1: try me. That sounds like a wager to me. But
2:15
Speaker 1: when you when you injure yourself like that, you really
2:17
Speaker 1: find out just how true that kind of thing is,
2:19
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and especially of course texting has been maddening. Yes,
2:26
Speaker 1: to try in one thumb text you need to just
2:29
Speaker 1: now is the time to start using Sirie to text. Well,
2:33
Speaker 1: I have I don't use Siri, but whatever, the the
2:35
Speaker 1: little microphone button when I voice to text or whatever.
2:39
Speaker 1: Sure it works pretty good. Yeah, but you can do
2:43
Speaker 1: like you can just say series send a text. I
2:46
Speaker 1: haven't tried this myself, but you just say the text
2:48
Speaker 1: and then it sends a text text rather than a
2:51
Speaker 1: voice recording. Oh no, no, no it when I say
2:54
Speaker 1: voice to text, I mean I say it out loud
2:56
Speaker 1: and it makes it good to text. And you're using
2:59
Speaker 1: something other and Siri. Huh, Well I just hit the
3:02
Speaker 1: little microphone button. Huh. I gotta try that because I
3:05
Speaker 1: know the microphone button. Then you're speaking of well, there's two.
3:08
Speaker 1: There's one that where you're talking about where you can
3:11
Speaker 1: record a message. Uh, and then there's one when you
3:14
Speaker 1: go to type in the very bottom. Oh no, did
3:19
Speaker 1: you hear that? Sorry? Oh this is so boring, everybody.
3:24
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Thumbs down. No, you can, but the
3:31
Speaker 1: it's incomplete, so chuck. Um. We're talking about safe cracking
3:35
Speaker 1: obviously today obviously, and there have been some really great
3:41
Speaker 1: safe cracking movies, movies that featured safe cracking. What's your favorite?
3:46
Speaker 1: Die Hard is as far as safe cracking goes. That
3:50
Speaker 1: had its own subplot, but that's not my favorite safe
3:53
Speaker 1: cracking movie. Favorite safe cracking movie is bad, Sannah. Okay,
3:59
Speaker 1: so you know what's funny. When I was looking over
4:01
Speaker 1: this list, I got to die Hard and I was like,
4:04
Speaker 1: there's no safe cracking and die Hard is that right?
4:07
Speaker 1: Really it's its own thing, and no, it's I think
4:10
Speaker 1: because it's a vault. It temporarily tripped me up because
4:13
Speaker 1: I was thinking about small safes, but a vault is
4:15
Speaker 1: a large safe. And then I felt like a dumb dumb. No,
4:19
Speaker 1: don't you can feel like a dumb dumb for cutting
4:22
Speaker 1: your own thumb off. Man, it was bad. But other
4:25
Speaker 1: than that, immediately ran and showed it to my daughter
4:27
Speaker 1: because she's been obsessed lately with I've been telling her
4:30
Speaker 1: stories of being injured as a child and I never
4:33
Speaker 1: broke bones, but you know, I cut myself and had
4:36
Speaker 1: stitches a bunch of times. Um, I would advise you
4:38
Speaker 1: to knock coom Wood here. Yes, it's been a while,
4:41
Speaker 1: but she was She's constantly asking me, tell me about
4:43
Speaker 1: the times you got cut. And so finally I had
4:45
Speaker 1: a real world experience. I ran in there and went look, look,
4:48
Speaker 1: this is what it looks like. Look at all that blood.
4:50
Speaker 1: What did she do? Did she faint? No, she just
4:52
Speaker 1: kind of looked at it and was like, oh, oh, okay, cool.
4:55
Speaker 1: She's going to be the same person to look up
4:58
Speaker 1: wounds later on on. It is but the safe cracking
5:03
Speaker 1: movies I think. Uh. I mean, I'm a big fan
5:06
Speaker 1: of Oceans, Love the Boy, Sexy Beast. It's hard to beat.
5:11
Speaker 1: It's a great movie. I don't recall the safe cracking
5:14
Speaker 1: in it, though, is is that? What? Um? Uh? What's
5:18
Speaker 1: his name? M what's his name? I want to call
5:21
Speaker 1: him Edgar Winners? Obviously that's not it great great guitars.
5:25
Speaker 1: What is his name? Are you talking about? Ben Kingsley?
5:29
Speaker 1: Are you talking about? You might remember if I say
5:35
Speaker 1: this and uh slight spoiler. But I thought it was
5:39
Speaker 1: one of the more imaginative highest scenes ever filmed because
5:42
Speaker 1: it was underwater. Remember that. No, I don't. They flooded
5:47
Speaker 1: it as part of the I think it's it's been
5:50
Speaker 1: a while, but I think it's part of disabling security.
5:54
Speaker 1: So they did the whole thing underwater, which was really
5:57
Speaker 1: a twist I had not seen before. That's neat. I
6:00
Speaker 1: gotta go back and see that movie then, because I
6:02
Speaker 1: remember it being good. It was great. Okay, so that's
6:05
Speaker 1: your best safe cracking movie maybe, I mean I love
6:08
Speaker 1: that movie a lot. Okay, so we've got We've got
6:11
Speaker 1: Sexy Beast and Bad Santa and with die Hard is
6:15
Speaker 1: an honorable mention, that's right. So in each of these
6:18
Speaker 1: movies they're actually probably fairly true to life if I
6:22
Speaker 1: remember correctly. And die Hard they had a devil of
6:24
Speaker 1: a time getting through that safe. They're using industrial drills
6:29
Speaker 1: to try to drill through the lock. And Bad Santa
6:32
Speaker 1: he tried everything and finally managed to smack it open
6:35
Speaker 1: with a sledgehammer at least the one scene that we
6:38
Speaker 1: were shown with him robbing the safe. And then obviously
6:43
Speaker 1: I don't remember Sexy Beasts. But normally, in like a movie,
6:46
Speaker 1: when you watch somebody cracking a safe, they're like, you know,
6:50
Speaker 1: some pink Panther esque cat burglar who wears like black
6:55
Speaker 1: leather gloves and like twist the dial a few times
6:58
Speaker 1: with maybe like a stethoscope up to the safe, and
7:01
Speaker 1: then the safe comes open. There are actually a few
7:06
Speaker 1: people in the world who might be capable of something
7:09
Speaker 1: like that in that time, but If you expand that
7:13
Speaker 1: time to say an hour, the number of people in
7:15
Speaker 1: the world who would be capable of doing something like
7:17
Speaker 1: that expands greatly. But there's still just crumbs among humanity
7:23
Speaker 1: as far as the number of people who could actually
7:25
Speaker 1: crack a safe like that is concerned. When it comes
7:27
Speaker 1: to safe cracking, most often it is the Billy Bob
7:31
Speaker 1: Thornton brute strength method of hitting it with the sledgehammer. Um.
7:36
Speaker 1: But that's kind of the range that safe cracking takes up,
7:40
Speaker 1: you know, from you know, a master thief to a
7:42
Speaker 1: guy with a sledgehammer. Um. Safes are are broken into
7:46
Speaker 1: in a number of different ways, and Crumbs Amongst Humanity
7:51
Speaker 1: is also the best album by who Crumbs Amongst Humanity
7:57
Speaker 1: Edgar Winner. Okay, I also was reminded when you were
8:03
Speaker 1: talking about the ways to crack in that great scene
8:06
Speaker 1: and out of sight when they finally find the safe,
8:10
Speaker 1: just raise their pistols up to shoot at it. Oh really,
8:15
Speaker 1: I still have yet to see that movie. I just
8:17
Speaker 1: saw The Lie Me. Oh that's right, great movie. It
8:20
Speaker 1: was great man. Yeah, you were absolutely right. It was
8:22
Speaker 1: a very good movie. Yeah. I had a feeling you'd
8:25
Speaker 1: like that one. You'd like out of sight you. Okay,
8:27
Speaker 1: I'm gonna watch that one next. I promise I'm not
8:29
Speaker 1: gonna throw any turkeys your way. Please don't. I know,
8:32
Speaker 1: I know you won't. I don't think you ever have
8:36
Speaker 1: throw a few year away. Nah, surely I have. I
8:40
Speaker 1: take pride in the fact that I have. Well, I mean,
8:44
Speaker 1: one man's turkey is another man's great, like the troll
8:47
Speaker 1: Hunter and stuff like that. You've thrown my way. Troll
8:49
Speaker 1: Hunter is great. Yeah. See, some people might say it wasn't,
8:52
Speaker 1: but I didn't discue your your way. Who doesn't like
8:56
Speaker 1: troll Hunter? You've heard people who don't trolls. They're like,
9:02
Speaker 1: it's graphic and disturbing. Well, this is what I proposed, Charles. Okay,
9:07
Speaker 1: we have been a bit like um, a little black
9:10
Speaker 1: and white cartoon donkey swatting at flies with his tail
9:14
Speaker 1: and starting this one. So I proposed that we take
9:17
Speaker 1: an ab break already, yes, collect ourselves, and come back
9:21
Speaker 1: to save cracking with guns blazing. Alright, very controversial. Let's
9:26
Speaker 1: do it all right? You ready? So I was taking
9:51
Speaker 1: a poop this morning. Yes, I'm ready. And the first
9:56
Speaker 1: thing I want to say is, uh, in this house
9:58
Speaker 1: stuff works article, they talk about, and it makes a
10:00
Speaker 1: lot of sense. The one fundamental weakness of a safe
10:04
Speaker 1: is the fact that you know, if you lose the
10:07
Speaker 1: combination or something happens, you've got to be able to
10:10
Speaker 1: get into it. Still, and therein lies the true weakness
10:14
Speaker 1: is that you have to be able to get into
10:15
Speaker 1: it without knowing the combination, right Like, it has to
10:20
Speaker 1: be accessible to anybody who who needs to get into it,
10:24
Speaker 1: which in some of those anybody's can be burglars. So
10:27
Speaker 1: the fact that you can't just encase it in concrete
10:30
Speaker 1: and hide it away from humanity, even crumbs of humanity,
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Speaker 1: um means that it is a vulnerable place to put
10:36
Speaker 1: your stuff. Yeah, but I was wondering, surely they could
10:40
Speaker 1: make a truly uncrackable safe with the the sales caveat
10:45
Speaker 1: of like, hey man, you're buying this thing. If you
10:48
Speaker 1: lose the combination, you are screwed. But it is truly uncrackable.
10:54
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know. I mean it sounds like
10:57
Speaker 1: from from this article like there's some way to get
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Speaker 1: through to any safe. It's just degrees of difficulty. Because
11:05
Speaker 1: the other the other kind of thing about this whole
11:07
Speaker 1: thing is like any safe is inherently vulnerable because people
11:11
Speaker 1: can get to it. But the longer you can make
11:14
Speaker 1: it um take to crack a safe, the longer the
11:20
Speaker 1: amount of time you can make it take, um, the
11:23
Speaker 1: less chance you have of actually being robbed. Like there
11:26
Speaker 1: might be some guy sitting at your in your house
11:29
Speaker 1: trying to crack your safe, but if you have a
11:31
Speaker 1: really good safe, he's either going to give up or
11:35
Speaker 1: spend enough time there that he gets caught. Um And
11:38
Speaker 1: either way, your stuff should be protected. That seems to
11:41
Speaker 1: be what they're after when they make safe. Yeah, and
11:44
Speaker 1: you know what I did yesterday while I was researching this,
11:47
Speaker 1: did you buy a safe? Safe? It's something that had
11:50
Speaker 1: been meaning to do for like two years and finally
11:53
Speaker 1: I just did it. And the kind of safe that
11:56
Speaker 1: we're talking about here that a lot of people keep
11:58
Speaker 1: in their homes. Uh. If it's not like you know,
12:00
Speaker 1: some people have gun safes and things like that, but
12:03
Speaker 1: is is a fire safe. And that's basically like, let
12:06
Speaker 1: me put imported documents or irreplaceable things in here. They're
12:10
Speaker 1: generally pretty small, uh, and they keep your stuff safe
12:14
Speaker 1: from like flood and fire is a general idea. Then
12:17
Speaker 1: there are burglary safes, which don't keep your stuff safe
12:21
Speaker 1: from fire. In fact, if there's a fire, will probably
12:23
Speaker 1: cook it. Uh, but that is a little harder to
12:26
Speaker 1: get into what I want. I mean, I got the ultimately,
12:30
Speaker 1: I got the fire safe, but what they don't make
12:33
Speaker 1: and I think, I don't know if it's a guy thing,
12:35
Speaker 1: but what I really wanted was one of those safe
12:38
Speaker 1: with like the little spinny wheel on the front of it.
12:41
Speaker 1: It looked like a super movie type safe. I think
12:46
Speaker 1: those are several price points beyond whatever safe you've got.
12:49
Speaker 1: I think those are really expensive safe. They are, and
12:51
Speaker 1: that's not what I need. So I was just like, no,
12:53
Speaker 1: just get the one that's like whatever. I think it's
12:55
Speaker 1: a couple of hundred bucks. So, yeah, you've got fire
12:58
Speaker 1: safe and you have burglaries safe, and they do two
13:00
Speaker 1: different things. And I was like, surely somebody's come up
13:03
Speaker 1: with a fire fire resistant burglar resistance safe and know
13:06
Speaker 1: that apparently isn't the case. There apparently still two different things.
13:10
Speaker 1: But there's also a certain degree to a fire resistance safe.
13:16
Speaker 1: Um that makes it kind of a subsection of a
13:19
Speaker 1: fire resistance safe called a media safe, where your digital
13:24
Speaker 1: documents are going to be protected in the amount of
13:26
Speaker 1: fire or in the event of a fire. Yeah, and
13:29
Speaker 1: I mentioned gun safes. Those are the closest, uh to
13:33
Speaker 1: what I'm describing as in cool looking like they're kind
13:37
Speaker 1: of the tall things that look like you would find
13:39
Speaker 1: in an old timey bank with the big wheel that spins,
13:42
Speaker 1: and that's where you can put in like rifles and
13:44
Speaker 1: stuff like that, not like the little handgun safe you
13:47
Speaker 1: might keep under your bed or whatever. Right, And then
13:50
Speaker 1: depending on the kind of safe you want, it will
13:52
Speaker 1: be rated one way or another. If it's a fire safe,
13:54
Speaker 1: it will be rated for how many hours it can
13:58
Speaker 1: withstand a certain amount of temperature, usually about the temperature
14:01
Speaker 1: of a house fire. Um. And they also usually rate
14:04
Speaker 1: them so that they'll survive about a twenty to thirty
14:07
Speaker 1: ft drop, as if the floorboards that are holding the
14:12
Speaker 1: safe up on the third story of the house have
14:13
Speaker 1: burned through and the safe falls all the way to
14:15
Speaker 1: the foundation. Yeah, that's another one too. A burglar safe
14:22
Speaker 1: isn't going to protect your stuff in the fire, like
14:23
Speaker 1: you said, it's gonna cook it. But they're also rated
14:26
Speaker 1: for how difficult it is to penetrate. And um, there
14:29
Speaker 1: are a lot of things that manufacturers add to a
14:34
Speaker 1: burglar safe, which is you know, iron clad, UH steel frame,
14:39
Speaker 1: steel bolted, usually multi um multi bolted, like when you
14:44
Speaker 1: turn that that that lever the handle to open the safe,
14:48
Speaker 1: to unlock it, there's usually two three, four, depending on
14:52
Speaker 1: how big the safe is, bolts that are holding it
14:55
Speaker 1: in place that you're you're releasing UM and there's a
14:59
Speaker 1: lot of other like kind of bells and whistles that
15:02
Speaker 1: they add to UM two safe to protect them from burglary. Yeah,
15:06
Speaker 1: you know what I was thinking too when I was
15:09
Speaker 1: and we'll get to it later on. But one of
15:10
Speaker 1: the methods is to you know, get us blow a
15:14
Speaker 1: hole in it where you can get a screwdriver in
15:15
Speaker 1: there and take off parts from the interior. I love
15:19
Speaker 1: that method. I was like, rivets, well, I got screws
15:22
Speaker 1: in there, right, It seems like a no brainer. It
15:26
Speaker 1: really does seem kind of surely there's people have figured
15:30
Speaker 1: this stuff out by now, you know, I know, maybe
15:32
Speaker 1: we should, you know, when this whole thing drives up,
15:35
Speaker 1: get into the safe design industry, I think we might
15:40
Speaker 1: or safe cracking. Sure. Okay, So with UM we'll talk
15:46
Speaker 1: about some of the methods that manufacturers used to foil burglars.
15:50
Speaker 1: But there's one thing that's common to fire safe burglar
15:54
Speaker 1: safes just about any safe these days, and that's been
15:58
Speaker 1: a kind of a commonality for about the last time
16:00
Speaker 1: three years, and that's the fact that basically all of
16:03
Speaker 1: them have combination locks. Those wheels that you used to spin,
16:07
Speaker 1: like on your high school locker to open it. That's
16:10
Speaker 1: a combination lock, and it's the same thing. Although you
16:13
Speaker 1: probably have a much tougher, much more sophisticated one on
16:16
Speaker 1: a burglar um safe than you did on your high
16:19
Speaker 1: school locker, it's it's basically the same component, and which
16:22
Speaker 1: when you kind of get just even a rough grasp
16:24
Speaker 1: of how the combination lock works, you can get a
16:27
Speaker 1: better idea of of how people break into those things too. Yeah,
16:32
Speaker 1: and then there's a couple of different types UM categorized
16:35
Speaker 1: thrilling lee as a group one and group two. Group
16:39
Speaker 1: two is the kind you're most likely to find in
16:41
Speaker 1: someone's closet. Uh. That's usually a three number combination, but
16:47
Speaker 1: it can be one, two or three. I don't I
16:49
Speaker 1: don't see how a one number combination really helps you much. No,
16:54
Speaker 1: because you can just try like things you need to
16:56
Speaker 1: get in there exactly. That's true. But um, the group
17:01
Speaker 1: one locks, you can have up to six numbers in
17:04
Speaker 1: the combination and they are suffered to get into their
17:06
Speaker 1: sturdier uh, and they have more wheels. And you're gonna
17:09
Speaker 1: hear us talk about wheels in the wheel pack. Each
17:12
Speaker 1: number on the combination is represented by a separate wheel.
17:17
Speaker 1: So if you have a six number lock, that means
17:19
Speaker 1: you have six wheels in that wheel back right exactly,
17:22
Speaker 1: And so each of those wheels has a notch in it.
17:27
Speaker 1: And when you are doing the combination, you know left thirteen, right,
17:31
Speaker 1: fifty seven, you know left nine, combination right some mine,
17:36
Speaker 1: believe me. Um, when you when you get that combination right,
17:40
Speaker 1: what you've done is line up each of those wheels
17:43
Speaker 1: that are stacked behind one another so that their notches
17:47
Speaker 1: all line up, which allows this thing called the fence
17:50
Speaker 1: to fall into that notch. And when the fence has
17:53
Speaker 1: fallen into that notch, it's no longer preventing the lever
17:56
Speaker 1: from moving. And when you can move the lever, you
17:59
Speaker 1: can open the bolt, which opens the safe. It's it's
18:03
Speaker 1: it sounds very easy, and it's way easier. If you
18:06
Speaker 1: see like a diagram or cutaway or a cross section
18:08
Speaker 1: of it. But it's really it's really that. And I
18:11
Speaker 1: mean they came up with combination locks about a hundred
18:14
Speaker 1: years ago and there have not been too many improvements
18:17
Speaker 1: on the general design of it. It was virtually a
18:20
Speaker 1: perfect locking design, is like, right when they came up
18:24
Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, and it is kind of cool to
18:26
Speaker 1: look at a breakdown of the inside of one of these,
18:30
Speaker 1: because if you're like me and you're fascinated by some
18:33
Speaker 1: sort of simplistic mechanical designs, the combination lock is a
18:37
Speaker 1: great example of that. It really is. It really is.
18:40
Speaker 1: So just the number of wheels you have is the
18:43
Speaker 1: number of numbers in that combo um and then you
18:47
Speaker 1: know that's really it. That's your your combination lock. So
18:51
Speaker 1: one of the first things if you're trying to get
18:53
Speaker 1: into you ready to talk about breaking into these safes? Now, yeah,
18:58
Speaker 1: I mean with the caveat that this is uh, I
19:00
Speaker 1: mean I was about to say it's illegal. Technically, it's
19:03
Speaker 1: probably not illegal to crack a safe, but it is
19:07
Speaker 1: illegal to steal something. No getting illegal to steal something right,
19:13
Speaker 1: absolutely wrong. It's a free for all. It's like the
19:14
Speaker 1: purge for your stuff. Um, they they I have seen
19:19
Speaker 1: that there are laws where if you are caught entering
19:23
Speaker 1: a house with safe cracking tools, you you're automatically accused
19:28
Speaker 1: of of It's the same charge as if you have
19:31
Speaker 1: successfully broken into and stolen contents from the safe. Safe
19:35
Speaker 1: cracking it's a separate crime. There's you know, breaking and entering, larceny, burglary,
19:41
Speaker 1: and there's also safe cracking. So in addition to burglary
19:44
Speaker 1: and larceny and breaking and entering, you'll get an additional
19:47
Speaker 1: safe cracking um charge against you. And they used to
19:50
Speaker 1: be stiff. Apparently there was a guy who got something
19:53
Speaker 1: like fifty seven or seventy years for safe cracking and
19:58
Speaker 1: appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled that it was
20:01
Speaker 1: cruel and unusual for a safe cracking beef, which is
20:04
Speaker 1: I think the wording they use. But but um, it's
20:07
Speaker 1: still like its own separate thing. People will get years
20:10
Speaker 1: in prison just for the safe cracking element of their
20:13
Speaker 1: their charges. Yeah, I guess I think what I was
20:15
Speaker 1: saying was it's not inherently illegal, Like if you and
20:19
Speaker 1: I bought a safe and we wanted to try and
20:21
Speaker 1: crack it for fun, right, right, that's it's illegal to
20:25
Speaker 1: crack into someone else is safe without their uh tacit approval, right,
20:30
Speaker 1: So then that actually brings up this whole other thing, Chuck,
20:32
Speaker 1: there's a there's some of the people, a lot of
20:35
Speaker 1: the people who break into safes are professionals. They're safe technicians,
20:39
Speaker 1: their locksmiths. There are people who come to your aid
20:43
Speaker 1: when you have forgotten the combination. Um. They're very frequently
20:46
Speaker 1: called them when somebody um inherits an old safe that
20:50
Speaker 1: they don't have a combo for anymore. Um. If a
20:53
Speaker 1: bank employee accidentally locks the vault uh and there's you know,
20:57
Speaker 1: they can't open it because there's it's a time law,
21:00
Speaker 1: but they need to get in there because it's still
21:01
Speaker 1: business hours. There's like safe technicians who will travel like
21:04
Speaker 1: around the country or the world, who lead very very
21:07
Speaker 1: interesting lives because they cracked saves. And one of the
21:10
Speaker 1: things that they try to do is to make it
21:12
Speaker 1: so that it's almost like they weren't even there. So
21:14
Speaker 1: the level of impact that they have on that safe,
21:17
Speaker 1: they try to keep to such a minimum that it
21:19
Speaker 1: just needs maybe minor repairs um to to bring it
21:22
Speaker 1: back to operating level again. Yeah, can we go ahead.
21:25
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a nice little set up. I know
21:27
Speaker 1: I'm jumping ahead. But can we talk about Harry C.
21:29
Speaker 1: Miller for a minute. Yeah, let's so we'll get to
21:33
Speaker 1: what how he actually does this. But Harry Miller, he's
21:37
Speaker 1: he passed on and he was an expert safe cracker
21:42
Speaker 1: and basically the guy that came up with the with
21:47
Speaker 1: with you know the kind of thing that you see
21:48
Speaker 1: in the movies when you crack a safe without using
21:51
Speaker 1: dynamite or plasma cutters or you know, explosives or whatever.
21:57
Speaker 1: And he became the foremost genius an authority kind of
22:02
Speaker 1: worldwide for safe cracking, such that he taught the FBI,
22:06
Speaker 1: he taught law enforcement officials. Uh. He was hired privately
22:11
Speaker 1: during World War Two. He opened up a gold bully
22:13
Speaker 1: on chest for Shanghai check. He there was a dictator,
22:19
Speaker 1: uh full gen Cio Batista. He hired him to open
22:23
Speaker 1: safe that have been captured from Fidel Castro. During the
22:27
Speaker 1: Roosevelt administration, he was called to the White House to
22:30
Speaker 1: open a safe after the assassination of the guy who
22:35
Speaker 1: the only person who knew the combination. So he had
22:39
Speaker 1: a really like you were saying, a really exciting life.
22:41
Speaker 1: And he was the guy. Uh he was known as
22:43
Speaker 1: Miller the safe Man. And after a while he was
22:46
Speaker 1: able to crack any safe within twenty minutes by manipulation, which,
22:51
Speaker 1: like we said, is is using your hands and your
22:53
Speaker 1: ears and your eyeballs. Yeah, and he created eventually a
22:58
Speaker 1: manipulation proof lock, which was the first innovation in like
23:02
Speaker 1: seventy a hundred years in lock technology. Yeah. And then
23:07
Speaker 1: he ended up and apparently in Kentucky. And I think
23:09
Speaker 1: you and I should totally go to this place at
23:11
Speaker 1: some point. There's a museum that houses uh more than
23:15
Speaker 1: twelve thousand locks that he's collected dating back to hreds.
23:21
Speaker 1: That's pretty awesome. Yeah, the UM like safe technicians and
23:26
Speaker 1: locks guys, they just collect safe in old locks and
23:30
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Yeah. This, this guy's collection is neat.
23:33
Speaker 1: So his his legacy, Chuck was, I mean, it's still alive.
23:37
Speaker 1: And well there was a guy named Jeff Star who
23:39
Speaker 1: died I think last February, UM and he was the
23:44
Speaker 1: eight time winner of the Lockmaster's International Safe Cracking Competition,
23:48
Speaker 1: which is basically the world Championship of of safe cracking.
23:53
Speaker 1: Like he worked for the government too. There was like
23:55
Speaker 1: some ship in the Persian Gulf who's safe was um
23:59
Speaker 1: locked and nobody could get in. They flew him out there. Uh.
24:02
Speaker 1: He was just like this master safe cracker and came
24:05
Speaker 1: across another guy, um that um Jeff Manna interviewed in
24:10
Speaker 1: The Atlantic named Jeff. I'm sure he goes by Jeff,
24:14
Speaker 1: but I always pronounced it Jeff anyway. Um, he his
24:18
Speaker 1: name is Charlie Santory. He's pretty pretty cool. He's got
24:21
Speaker 1: like kind of this um criminals swagger to him, Like
24:26
Speaker 1: he wears Fedoras and stuff like that while he's cracking
24:28
Speaker 1: in the safe. But he's like, you know, he's a
24:31
Speaker 1: he's a safe cracker. He's on the up and up
24:33
Speaker 1: from what I understand out in l A. But there's
24:35
Speaker 1: a lot of like really interesting interviews with safe crackers
24:38
Speaker 1: out there that they'll they'll all share information, but you
24:42
Speaker 1: can tell, and I've figured this out in the research too,
24:45
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff they're not they're not sharing.
24:48
Speaker 1: It's really tough to go figure out how to crack
24:53
Speaker 1: a safe just um, you know, without becoming part of
24:57
Speaker 1: like the inner circle of safe crackers. From what I
24:59
Speaker 1: can tell been with the information that's out there, and
25:01
Speaker 1: there's a lot of information out there, it's just there's
25:03
Speaker 1: not a lot of it that's complete from what I
25:05
Speaker 1: can tell. Well, before we jump into lock manipulation, which
25:09
Speaker 1: is uh, the one that Harry Miller had perfected. Uh,
25:13
Speaker 1: we'll go sort of with the dumb dumb methods. When
25:16
Speaker 1: you get your safe, it's gonna have it's it's called
25:19
Speaker 1: a tryout combination, or basically the default combination that it
25:23
Speaker 1: comes with. And a lot of people don't reset this,
25:27
Speaker 1: even though they tell you really need to reset your combination,
25:30
Speaker 1: some people just don't do it. And uh, they are
25:33
Speaker 1: known combinations. So the first thing a safe cracker will
25:37
Speaker 1: try is that default combination, because you never know, you
25:41
Speaker 1: might have a fifty shot of that thing opening up
25:43
Speaker 1: without anything other than just twisting the old dial right exactly. UM.
25:49
Speaker 1: And you know, since so many of them are like
25:51
Speaker 1: industry standards, they'll just use you know, they'll try a
25:54
Speaker 1: few of them, maybe spend a couple of minutes just
25:57
Speaker 1: giving it a shot, and if it happens, awesome, there's
25:59
Speaker 1: all so something called daylocking, which is if you have
26:04
Speaker 1: a safe and you dial in the combination of the safe, um,
26:09
Speaker 1: you can turn the lever and open the safe. You
26:12
Speaker 1: can also close the safe and close the lever without
26:15
Speaker 1: changing the combo again, so it's technically unlocked. You just
26:19
Speaker 1: have to open the lever to open the safe, and
26:22
Speaker 1: apparently a lot of people just kind of leave their
26:25
Speaker 1: safes that way. And if you're a burglar, step one,
26:28
Speaker 1: even before you try some of those industry standards combinations
26:34
Speaker 1: try out combinations, is yeah, try the lever. Just try
26:37
Speaker 1: that first, Yeah, because I guess you don't want to
26:39
Speaker 1: spin the thing at all, because that would reset it
26:42
Speaker 1: right exactly. Uh. The other thing you can do is
26:46
Speaker 1: just look at the safe and see if there's a
26:48
Speaker 1: sticky note on it with the safe combination, because there
26:51
Speaker 1: are plenty of dumb dumbs who do that as well.
26:54
Speaker 1: I love that one too, or screwed scribbled on the
26:57
Speaker 1: wall nearby or something like that. Yeah, there's even if
27:02
Speaker 1: you went to the trouble of hiding it, it's probably
27:07
Speaker 1: in the same room as the safe, and it's probably
27:10
Speaker 1: on some little scrap of paper that you tried to
27:13
Speaker 1: make look as innocent as possible. But to to cab
27:16
Speaker 1: burglar a safe cracker, they're they're going to be able
27:19
Speaker 1: to say this is the combination to the safe. Thank
27:22
Speaker 1: you chump. Yeah, like it says, um, you know, they
27:25
Speaker 1: just scrambled the word safe and it says off say combination. Right,
27:30
Speaker 1: they use pig land. That'll that'll trick them. So we're
27:36
Speaker 1: at the point where we're at lock manipulation. And uh yeah,
27:41
Speaker 1: this is the process of opening a safe without drilling it,
27:44
Speaker 1: without defacing it. This requires you too. This is what
27:48
Speaker 1: you see in the movies. But it doesn't go down
27:50
Speaker 1: like you see in the movies because it takes a
27:52
Speaker 1: lot longer than it does in the movies. Even Harry Miller,
27:55
Speaker 1: the most genius safe cracker of all time, apparently, uh
27:59
Speaker 1: it took him like twenty minutes. So in a movie,
28:01
Speaker 1: you don't have that kind of time. You got they
28:03
Speaker 1: do that thing in like thirty seconds, right they do.
28:06
Speaker 1: And and so when you see like, um, someone in
28:09
Speaker 1: a movie um using like a stethoscope, that's actually kind
28:13
Speaker 1: of accurate. That's not far off at least um so
28:18
Speaker 1: that that's not entirely made up or anything like that.
28:21
Speaker 1: But it takes way longer, Like you're saying. The reason
28:24
Speaker 1: why it takes way longer because you're actually graphing the
28:27
Speaker 1: these different attempts. You're making over say all hundred numbers
28:31
Speaker 1: of the dial. You're doing them two to three numbers
28:33
Speaker 1: at a time, and you're going through this procedure um
28:36
Speaker 1: back and forth to kind of find where possibly the
28:40
Speaker 1: um those slots and the wheels line up for each
28:43
Speaker 1: each number. And because this takes so many attempts, say
28:48
Speaker 1: so say just real quick, say there's like four wheels
28:51
Speaker 1: in a lock um. That means that for every single
28:55
Speaker 1: one of those wheels, while you're trying to figure out
28:57
Speaker 1: the number over a hundred numbers, you're doing them in
29:00
Speaker 1: increments of two, right, And for each one of those
29:03
Speaker 1: increments of two, you're graphing down where you think the
29:06
Speaker 1: lever is, and this takes a tremendous amount of time.
29:10
Speaker 1: After you graph it, you have to go back and
29:12
Speaker 1: look to see where these dips are, where it seems
29:14
Speaker 1: like the levers are, and then you start to narrow
29:17
Speaker 1: down where the number might be for each of those wheels.
29:21
Speaker 1: And then when you finally have it narrowed down, you
29:24
Speaker 1: have it at four different numbers that you're pretty sure
29:27
Speaker 1: the numbers of the combination. You still don't know what
29:29
Speaker 1: order they go in, so you have to try every
29:32
Speaker 1: single combination of those four numbers left and right until
29:37
Speaker 1: you finally hit the one that opens the safe. That
29:40
Speaker 1: is the the standard, that's the one that Harry Miller
29:43
Speaker 1: came up with. That's the highest level of safe cracking.
29:46
Speaker 1: UM and even that takes a tremendous amount of time.
29:49
Speaker 1: To be able to do that in twenty minutes is
29:52
Speaker 1: mind boggling. Yeah, I mean, I think you hit it
29:54
Speaker 1: on the head and that what you're doing is is
29:56
Speaker 1: narrowing it down because while you are listening for clicks,
30:01
Speaker 1: just like in the movies, it's not like you turn
30:03
Speaker 1: something and you hear a click and you're like, well
30:06
Speaker 1: that's the number. Let me go back left click, Well
30:08
Speaker 1: there's the other one. Because like anybody could do that
30:11
Speaker 1: that that's super easy. And I can't believe that, like
30:15
Speaker 1: the movie going public has been buying it for this
30:17
Speaker 1: long the solid to you know, Yeah, it's kind of
30:22
Speaker 1: like that thing where um or like they don't have
30:25
Speaker 1: to reload the gun um because you know, no one
30:30
Speaker 1: wants to see him reload the gun. And I actually
30:32
Speaker 1: saw that there was a a um A focus group
30:36
Speaker 1: done in like the eighties or something at the heyday
30:38
Speaker 1: of like Schwarzenegrance Stallone and the movie studios wanted to
30:42
Speaker 1: know if people wanted to see that. They were like,
30:44
Speaker 1: do you want realistic where they stop and reload, or
30:47
Speaker 1: do you want them to just shoot a million bullets
30:49
Speaker 1: in a scene? And overwhelmingly people were responded with a
30:54
Speaker 1: million bullets in a scene. Police, that's what we want
30:57
Speaker 1: to see. I generally don't care, but when whenever there's
30:59
Speaker 1: a wee gun revolver, I still find myself counting and
31:04
Speaker 1: I try not to and it doesn't like, it doesn't
31:08
Speaker 1: tick me off, and like that's not possible. But I'm
31:10
Speaker 1: always kinda like six eight Okay, all right, here we go.
31:14
Speaker 1: I thought you I thought you were talking about that
31:15
Speaker 1: wheelgun they had in Predator that Jesse Ventura had, Remember
31:19
Speaker 1: that one? Was it a Gatlin gun? Yeah? That was amazing. No,
31:23
Speaker 1: I just mean a standard revolver. They're called wheel gun.
31:25
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying, Like this, this Stallone movie
31:30
Speaker 1: is just completely unbelievable. Exactly. That was the only thing.
31:34
Speaker 1: But so it's the same thing. My point was, I'm sorry,
31:37
Speaker 1: we got kind of far away from My point was
31:39
Speaker 1: that is a kind of boiled down, simplified version of
31:44
Speaker 1: what they're doing, but rather than just hearing the click safe,
31:48
Speaker 1: you just have to find four clicks for each for
31:52
Speaker 1: this four number combination, and then you're in the safe.
31:55
Speaker 1: You have to go over this hundreds of times to
31:57
Speaker 1: go over a graph and then go back and narrow
32:00
Speaker 1: it down X number of times depending on how many
32:03
Speaker 1: numbers there are in the combination. You have to try
32:04
Speaker 1: every combination of those numbers. So it's like a boiled
32:07
Speaker 1: down version of that. It's not entirely made up, but
32:10
Speaker 1: it's pretty far off from reality. Yeah, I mean it's
32:13
Speaker 1: the movie version. I think. What would be fun to see,
32:16
Speaker 1: and I'm surprised no one's done this yet, is for
32:18
Speaker 1: someone to kind of, uh, what's a nice way to say,
32:22
Speaker 1: take the piss um, take the piss. I believe, to
32:26
Speaker 1: take the piss out of a scene like that and
32:29
Speaker 1: have a non safe cracker be like here's you know,
32:31
Speaker 1: here's your stethoscope. It'll take like a minute, right, and
32:35
Speaker 1: for the person to say like, no, you gotta graph
32:37
Speaker 1: this stuff out and you gotta narrow it down, like
32:39
Speaker 1: you've seen too many movies that kind of right, exactly
32:42
Speaker 1: pretty creepy. I don't know, I'm waiting for it to
32:45
Speaker 1: We need uh one of the Zucker brothers to make
32:47
Speaker 1: it for us. Oh man, I miss those fans. So um.
32:52
Speaker 1: So that's lock manipulation. That is the the pinnacle of
32:56
Speaker 1: safe cracking, because whether you're a safe tech mission or
33:00
Speaker 1: a cat burglar um, you have basically left no trace.
33:04
Speaker 1: It's like you just came in and figured out through
33:07
Speaker 1: sight and sound, um, in precise detail, what the combination
33:11
Speaker 1: of that safe was, and then you opened the safe.
33:13
Speaker 1: You didn't beat it up, you didn't do anything. Um,
33:15
Speaker 1: you are even the cops consider you a master criminal
33:19
Speaker 1: in one of basically a dying or dead breed. Um.
33:23
Speaker 1: That is a very very small number of people, not
33:26
Speaker 1: just alive today but in the history of crime who've
33:29
Speaker 1: done that. Most people have looked at a safe and
33:30
Speaker 1: been like, let me just blow that open. Yeah. And
33:33
Speaker 1: I also thought lock manipulation before I read what that meant.
33:37
Speaker 1: I thought that might have been like emotional manipulation, Like
33:42
Speaker 1: you go to the lock and you're like, you probably
33:44
Speaker 1: can't even unlock yourself, can you that kind of yeah,
33:47
Speaker 1: Oh you're clad in that, yeah, and then the yeah
33:52
Speaker 1: with the sad face. So safe manipulation is well hold on,
33:56
Speaker 1: Should we take another break? Should we? I'm calling for
33:59
Speaker 1: the bra today, baby, All right, let's do it, all right?
34:25
Speaker 1: Safe manipulation, We're back, everybody. Oh yeah. Safe manipulation is
34:30
Speaker 1: sort of the the guerilla method to the technicians method
34:36
Speaker 1: that we mentioned before. And there are many ways to
34:39
Speaker 1: manipulate a safe, uh, And we'll get to some of
34:42
Speaker 1: the louder bang bang types in a minute. But drilling
34:46
Speaker 1: is the kind you see a lot in movies, and
34:48
Speaker 1: it's a really common way to get into a safe
34:52
Speaker 1: in a movie. You're generally working against a clock or something.
34:54
Speaker 1: But I don't think we pointed out a lot of
34:57
Speaker 1: times you will just try and steal the safe and
34:58
Speaker 1: bring it back to your you know, your villain's warehouse
35:02
Speaker 1: to do all the work there your layer, Yeah, where
35:05
Speaker 1: you've got all the time in the world to drill
35:07
Speaker 1: into that thing. Um. But that's generally what you're doing.
35:10
Speaker 1: You're drilling, uh. And you've got a serious drill because
35:14
Speaker 1: they do make them very tough to get into. So
35:17
Speaker 1: you've either got like a diamond bit or something to
35:19
Speaker 1: try and drill through what's usually a cobalt plate that
35:23
Speaker 1: is designed to keep you from drilling into it or
35:25
Speaker 1: at least slow it down. Yeah. Right, So, like if
35:28
Speaker 1: you use a regular you know, metal drill bit for
35:31
Speaker 1: for drilling into metal, that that cobalt plate will just
35:34
Speaker 1: eat those things up, like you'll just never get through them.
35:37
Speaker 1: But if you have diamond tip or tungsten carbide is
35:40
Speaker 1: another preferable tip um when you're drilling through it, if
35:43
Speaker 1: you're if you have enough time and enough um drills,
35:47
Speaker 1: because apparently the drill bits will outlast the drills when
35:50
Speaker 1: you're using them like this um, you will eventually punch
35:54
Speaker 1: through that that cobalt plate. UM and drilling is a
35:58
Speaker 1: is a pretty I think drilling is actually the most
36:01
Speaker 1: widespread method of breaking into safes, whether you're a safe
36:05
Speaker 1: technician or a burglar um because it's it's it's precise,
36:10
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it doesn't require anywhere near
36:13
Speaker 1: the skills of um lock manipulation. Yeah, and when you're drilling,
36:18
Speaker 1: there's a few different ways or places you can drill
36:22
Speaker 1: the you know what. A common one and a pretty
36:24
Speaker 1: obvious one is to go right through that combination lock itself,
36:28
Speaker 1: right through the face of the lock. Uh, that's a
36:30
Speaker 1: pretty easy way to do it. But that's where that
36:32
Speaker 1: cobalt plate is. So you can also avoid that thing.
36:37
Speaker 1: And you can drill in above it and an angle
36:39
Speaker 1: and dodge the plate. I guess you know you've done
36:42
Speaker 1: your research. If you're a safe cracker, you know how
36:44
Speaker 1: big that plate is. Probably yeah, So you go in
36:47
Speaker 1: at an angle from the top, let's say, or I
36:48
Speaker 1: guess the bottom, and then you put in a fibroc
36:51
Speaker 1: to UH fiber optic camera called a boroscope. And you
36:54
Speaker 1: can just get these at a hardware store, any kind
36:58
Speaker 1: of specialty equipment. Sometimes they'll use like medical devices like
37:02
Speaker 1: that they stick in your bottom, they'll use those two. Okay,
37:08
Speaker 1: I've just seen it out there. There's a guy who's
37:10
Speaker 1: actually a master safe Cracker UM who has what are
37:14
Speaker 1: called penetration parties unfortunately named penetration parties. His name is
37:19
Speaker 1: Dave mccomi, and I believe he is the founder or
37:24
Speaker 1: at least the guy who's running the show at the
37:27
Speaker 1: National Safe Cracker International Safe Cracker support for him UM
37:32
Speaker 1: and he and UH at least one of these these
37:34
Speaker 1: UM he creates like a newsletter for the industry, like
37:39
Speaker 1: for real and in the bottom he's got he sells
37:42
Speaker 1: two scope kids with light source and cases for fifty
37:45
Speaker 1: dollars and their medical grade arthroscopes. So I mean, yes,
37:50
Speaker 1: at least some pros use the medical stuff. I'm sure
37:52
Speaker 1: they haven't been in anyone's but although if they have been,
37:56
Speaker 1: I'll bet you can get them for a deep discount.
37:58
Speaker 1: So he has held penetration parties and it has a
38:03
Speaker 1: drill bit newsletter called just the Tip, Chuck, you have
38:08
Speaker 1: been on fire my man in que four. All right.
38:14
Speaker 1: So what you're doing though when you insert that camera
38:17
Speaker 1: is once you have drilled in from above it at
38:19
Speaker 1: an angle, you put in the camera and then you
38:21
Speaker 1: can just see the whole mechanism from inside there and
38:24
Speaker 1: just line everything. Yeah yeah, yeah, rather than using a
38:27
Speaker 1: stethoscope in your you know, site and sound. You're just
38:30
Speaker 1: watching to see where the levers are and twisting the
38:32
Speaker 1: thing until they line up and there's your safe open.
38:35
Speaker 1: Which is that was news to me. I thought when
38:37
Speaker 1: you drilled into a safe your point was to like
38:40
Speaker 1: destroy the locking mechanism. I didn't realize to see, you
38:44
Speaker 1: can also drill into the safe. Um. Sometimes they'll use
38:48
Speaker 1: multiple holes depending on how easy it is to get through,
38:51
Speaker 1: one for the arthroscope and one one for I didn't
38:55
Speaker 1: realize this is gonna turn so sexual, one for the
38:59
Speaker 1: bores cope, and then one for like a punching rod.
39:02
Speaker 1: Good lord, um, and the punching rod. Will you can
39:06
Speaker 1: manipulate the inside of the lock with the punching rod
39:09
Speaker 1: to like move the stuff around while you're watching, Lord,
39:15
Speaker 1: maybe a partner's watching, who knows. Uh. There's also oh man,
39:21
Speaker 1: what is happening? I don't know, but the walls are
39:24
Speaker 1: melting all of a sudden. So there's also another backup system.
39:28
Speaker 1: Because here's the deal. Every time you find a work
39:31
Speaker 1: around to get into a safe, there's some manufacturer that's
39:35
Speaker 1: trying to destroy that work around, and there's something called
39:38
Speaker 1: a relocker, and that is tripped when your drill bit
39:41
Speaker 1: breaks through some sort of indicator, like a piece of
39:44
Speaker 1: plastic or glass that you drill through, and once that
39:47
Speaker 1: thing is breached, it's gonna trigger an auxiliary locking device.
39:52
Speaker 1: And apparently this like completely locks you out to the
39:54
Speaker 1: point where you have to go to a unlocksmith or
39:56
Speaker 1: a safe technician. Yeah. And the reason why is because
40:01
Speaker 1: it's this locking device is unrelated to the combination lock. Uh,
40:06
Speaker 1: It's it's just like basically a booby trap. And then
40:08
Speaker 1: once it's tripped there, you can't unlock it. You have
40:10
Speaker 1: to go in and drill and then manipulate the thing
40:13
Speaker 1: to open it back up. So um, it's it's kind
40:16
Speaker 1: of like a a self destruct mechanism for the safe.
40:19
Speaker 1: And because it's not related to the combination lock, it's
40:22
Speaker 1: a separate, independent lock. You can twist the combination all
40:25
Speaker 1: day long and know the combination it's not going to
40:27
Speaker 1: do anything. It's locked separately. Um and apparently not just
40:32
Speaker 1: cat burglars and and um uh, you know homeowners accidentally
40:37
Speaker 1: tripped this thing. It's pretty frequently tripped by safe technicians
40:40
Speaker 1: to um who live in dread. I read on one
40:43
Speaker 1: safe technicians forum that at the very least, when you
40:47
Speaker 1: break the glass and trip the relocker, you can relax
40:50
Speaker 1: because you know the worst case scenario has now happened,
40:53
Speaker 1: and then you have to dig your way out of it.
40:57
Speaker 1: Another drilling method is if you go in on the
40:59
Speaker 1: back side, you can drill a couple of holes. And
41:02
Speaker 1: this is the one we mentioned earlier where I thought
41:04
Speaker 1: rivets might come in handy. You put in the boroscope
41:07
Speaker 1: and then you have a really long screwdriver and you
41:10
Speaker 1: just unscrew that cobalt plate. But again I don't know
41:15
Speaker 1: why they would ever use a simple screw, So then
41:18
Speaker 1: you've got cobalt plates relockers. I also saw chuck that
41:21
Speaker 1: there was a trend early in the last century where
41:26
Speaker 1: they would add either manufacturers would put them on, or
41:28
Speaker 1: you could buy them and put them on like aftermarket parts.
41:32
Speaker 1: Um a a little like steel plate thing that you
41:36
Speaker 1: riveted onto the safe, and then inside the steel plate
41:40
Speaker 1: were extremely fragile glass vials that contained phosgene gas or
41:47
Speaker 1: incredibly potent tear gas, so that if you attacked a
41:51
Speaker 1: safe using you know, a drill or a hammer or
41:54
Speaker 1: try to drop it or something like that, you'd break
41:57
Speaker 1: these vials of gas and would basically poise in yourself,
42:00
Speaker 1: and you would be run away from the safe as
42:03
Speaker 1: fast as possible. Apparently it is a great idea, or
42:07
Speaker 1: so it was for you know, old timy days before
42:10
Speaker 1: they had laws um. But as people kind of got
42:14
Speaker 1: wise to the dangerousness of this whole thing, they started
42:16
Speaker 1: removing them. But every once in a while you'll still
42:18
Speaker 1: find an old safe. And there is a legend, an
42:21
Speaker 1: urban legend among lock um locksmiths and safe technicians that
42:28
Speaker 1: over the decades this gas turns into nitroglycerin, and so
42:34
Speaker 1: it'll actually blow up if you break these vials. So
42:37
Speaker 1: more than one bomb squad has been called out when
42:40
Speaker 1: like a locksmith came upon one of these things and
42:42
Speaker 1: believed the urban legend that he'd heard all these years
42:45
Speaker 1: this this is probably nitroglysten, when really, I mean, it
42:48
Speaker 1: was just phosgene gas, which is not good. But it
42:51
Speaker 1: certainly wasn't explosive like nitroglyscer and it certainly hadn't spontaneously
42:55
Speaker 1: turned into it. Very interesting, I thought so too. You know,
42:58
Speaker 1: I wondered if just thought about the rivet thing again.
43:01
Speaker 1: I wonder if that cobalt is so. I wonder if
43:03
Speaker 1: it's not rivetable. You know, you seem like a frog
43:09
Speaker 1: right now, you know what I mean. Though, maybe you
43:13
Speaker 1: can't rive it through that thing. I mean, if you
43:16
Speaker 1: can drill through it with diamond tip um, you could
43:23
Speaker 1: rivet it, especially if you're the manufacturer, you totally could.
43:27
Speaker 1: They're just being lazy. Let's talk about some of the
43:30
Speaker 1: other things you see in a movie sometimes, which are
43:33
Speaker 1: the use of torches um. Sometimes you will see something
43:37
Speaker 1: like an oxy acetylene torch, and they those daddies can
43:43
Speaker 1: go up to degrees useless useless you think, you think, yeah,
43:49
Speaker 1: from what I saw, like a good burglar safe would
43:51
Speaker 1: resist that. So those were the old days, yes, I
43:56
Speaker 1: or they were just never used. It might be like
44:00
Speaker 1: movie kind of thing because what I saw it takes
44:02
Speaker 1: something like a thermal lance which gets up to eight
44:06
Speaker 1: thousand degrees fahrenheight. Those are pretty cool, or they are
44:10
Speaker 1: very cool. Or get this, a plasma cutter, which uses
44:14
Speaker 1: a current of electricity to convert um highly compressed gas
44:18
Speaker 1: into plasma, which plasma is the fourth state of energy
44:23
Speaker 1: um and it gets apparently up to fifty thousand degrees fahrenheight.
44:28
Speaker 1: And we'll just cut right through a safe if you
44:31
Speaker 1: know what you're doing. But they're really hard to use,
44:34
Speaker 1: they're really dangerous and they require um extensive training. Like
44:39
Speaker 1: if you're if you're a plasma cutter guy, you're probably
44:42
Speaker 1: getting more than just the standard share of the loot
44:46
Speaker 1: um for a safe job. Well, I feel like a fool.
44:50
Speaker 1: Now we'll be here with my oxy acetylene torch. You've
44:54
Speaker 1: been going at it for a while. You're just like
44:55
Speaker 1: just gonna make a crimbrole a honey, right, make a
45:00
Speaker 1: smoky gin Anton, Oh yeah, exactly. So these plasma cutters
45:07
Speaker 1: and uh thermic glances, you can just I mean, sometimes
45:12
Speaker 1: you're trying to cut the lockout and sometimes you're just
45:14
Speaker 1: cutting a hole in there so you can reach in
45:16
Speaker 1: and get whatever you're trying to get, right, which I
45:19
Speaker 1: mean that makes sense. But one of the things you
45:21
Speaker 1: have to be careful with is not excellently burning all
45:24
Speaker 1: of like the cash inside or something like that. It's
45:26
Speaker 1: it's delicate work. It seemed like you want to maybe
45:29
Speaker 1: cut the hinges off or something like that. Is is
45:32
Speaker 1: a good way to do it. Yeah, if you know
45:34
Speaker 1: what you're going for, Like if you know they were
45:36
Speaker 1: just diamonds, if there's ice in that thing, m hm,
45:41
Speaker 1: he might be safe, go for it. But also, I mean,
45:44
Speaker 1: if you're if you know enough that the you know
45:47
Speaker 1: the placement of the stuff in there, maybe you could
45:49
Speaker 1: cut the top off of the safe and know that
45:50
Speaker 1: there's nothing high up in it, or or cut the
45:53
Speaker 1: back off because there's nothing in the back, it's all
45:55
Speaker 1: stuffed towards the front. Who knows it's not entirely out
45:58
Speaker 1: of the realm of possibility because is one of the
46:00
Speaker 1: one of the hallmarks of being a safe cracker is research,
46:03
Speaker 1: not just researching the safe you're working on to know
46:06
Speaker 1: what you're dealing with, what safeguards and securities you're having
46:09
Speaker 1: to get around, but also your mark the person you're robbing. UM,
46:13
Speaker 1: you want to have done some sort of research on
46:15
Speaker 1: them so you can, um at the very least make
46:17
Speaker 1: educated guesses about what kind of behavior they're going to
46:21
Speaker 1: engage in and putting stuff in their safe, where they
46:23
Speaker 1: would put it, how they would put it in there,
46:26
Speaker 1: what they would put in there, that kind of stuff,
46:27
Speaker 1: maybe what the combination is if they've actually changed the
46:31
Speaker 1: combination to something personal. Sure, is it diamonds? Is it
46:34
Speaker 1: bare bonds? Is it Cougarran's is it other things in
46:38
Speaker 1: movies that have heard? Is it smoleans? Uh? You mentioned
46:44
Speaker 1: nitroglystener in earlier, and this is another thing that you
46:48
Speaker 1: can do. Uh. It's called a jam shot or nitroglysteners,
46:53
Speaker 1: also called Greece if you're in the industry. Yeah, and
46:56
Speaker 1: I didn't fully understand how this worked other than the
47:00
Speaker 1: fact that what you're essentially doing is blasting this thing. Yeah,
47:05
Speaker 1: you're just making like a little funnel out of soap
47:08
Speaker 1: that you're adhering to, like where the door and the
47:11
Speaker 1: safe come together, putting some nitroglycerin in it, putting a
47:14
Speaker 1: blasting cap in there, and touching the wires together while
47:17
Speaker 1: you're very far away. You set off the blasting cap,
47:20
Speaker 1: which sets off the nitroglyctener, which blows the door off
47:22
Speaker 1: of the safe, which again you want to make sure
47:24
Speaker 1: that there's just diamonds in there, something that can withstand
47:28
Speaker 1: this blast, because that's you don't want to blow up
47:31
Speaker 1: the loot. That's not a good good move for a
47:33
Speaker 1: burglar or a safe technicsue is being called out to
47:37
Speaker 1: open a safe. If you blow the door off of
47:39
Speaker 1: your clients safe, uh and blow up everything inside, do
47:43
Speaker 1: you you're probably not gonna get paid that day. Yeah.
47:45
Speaker 1: I'm trying to picture a thief um taking the time
47:49
Speaker 1: to break into what will be in my safe and
47:51
Speaker 1: be in and finding my ziploc bag of concert ticket stubs, right,
47:56
Speaker 1: which is disappointed? I would I would suggest chucked us
48:00
Speaker 1: to leave it a daylocked. Yeah, yeah, because I mean
48:04
Speaker 1: at the very least you'll you'll have your safe. Still
48:07
Speaker 1: they'll be like this is this is useless? Worthless stuff,
48:11
Speaker 1: and you'll say not to me, cat burglar, now please
48:14
Speaker 1: leave my house. Yeah, I'm not even sure what we're
48:16
Speaker 1: gonna do. I have a feeling it's going to be
48:17
Speaker 1: in one of those things where everyone's like, you need
48:19
Speaker 1: a fire safe and we're gonna get it in our
48:21
Speaker 1: house and open it up, and then Emily and are
48:23
Speaker 1: going to look at each other and say, well, what
48:25
Speaker 1: do we put in there? Well, you put things like
48:28
Speaker 1: I don't know, like um, a tax documents maybe, or
48:32
Speaker 1: just the most eye bleedingly boring stuff you can think of.
48:36
Speaker 1: That's why a fire safe is for. It's just for
48:37
Speaker 1: basically like document storage. I know, but I can't think
48:40
Speaker 1: of any document that's not electronic these days. Well, you
48:45
Speaker 1: can put those things on a thumb drive and then
48:47
Speaker 1: put the thumb drive in the that's yeah, and I
48:50
Speaker 1: guess maybe, especially since I mean it's kind of mundane. Um.
48:54
Speaker 1: But if you treasure memories and you have a ton
48:58
Speaker 1: of of digital files, putting them on multiple thumb drives
49:02
Speaker 1: in a safe isn't a bad idea? Yeah. Or if
49:05
Speaker 1: you have an extensive collection of precious memories figurines, if
49:09
Speaker 1: you want to keep those safe, put them in your
49:12
Speaker 1: fires safe are your little holly hobbies exactly. Uh, most
49:17
Speaker 1: locks and and this safe that I got is an
49:20
Speaker 1: electronic safe, so it has an electronic lock, which allows
49:24
Speaker 1: for far greater number of groupings and combinations you can
49:30
Speaker 1: do things. Some of them you can connect to an
49:31
Speaker 1: app to open it. Some of them have like these
49:34
Speaker 1: electronic front door locks. You can have different combinations for
49:38
Speaker 1: different people, you can lock people out, so a lot
49:41
Speaker 1: more variety and an electronic lock safe, right, So this
49:46
Speaker 1: is like represented this kind of new leap forward among
49:50
Speaker 1: safe cracking because they're like, Okay, we'll learn to deal
49:53
Speaker 1: with this. There's um this. I love this. If you're
49:57
Speaker 1: a really good cat burglar, you may break into the
49:59
Speaker 1: house the night or a couple of days before you
50:02
Speaker 1: plan to break in and rob the safe and put
50:05
Speaker 1: ultra violet ink on stuff, but you know the person
50:08
Speaker 1: will touch and then you go back when you go
50:11
Speaker 1: to rob the house and use a black light and
50:13
Speaker 1: shine it on the computer keypad of the electronic lock,
50:17
Speaker 1: and you can see what numbers have been pushed, and
50:20
Speaker 1: in doing so, you can just try the combination of
50:23
Speaker 1: say like those four, six, eight numbers and pop the
50:26
Speaker 1: safe right open. I love that one that's like, that's
50:30
Speaker 1: just like nineteen eighties computer hacker movie stuff. Yeah, I
50:34
Speaker 1: feel like I've seen that in like a Mission Impossible
50:37
Speaker 1: or something. Surely we have where you sign a shine
50:40
Speaker 1: a black light and you see like the thumb print
50:43
Speaker 1: or the fingerprint or whatever on the combination. That's there's
50:47
Speaker 1: just there's no way we haven't. But the idea that
50:50
Speaker 1: someone does that in real life is just I mean,
50:54
Speaker 1: I tend not to respect criminals, but hats off to
50:57
Speaker 1: that one. That's that's some real sticktuitiveness. So, uh, is
51:03
Speaker 1: there anything else here? Um? Oh, yeah, there's there's Yeah,
51:09
Speaker 1: there was this one at the very end they say
51:11
Speaker 1: don't try this at home. By the way, this article
51:13
Speaker 1: is written on how stuff works, like you said, but
51:15
Speaker 1: it was written by a guy named Robert Valdez who
51:18
Speaker 1: who made maybe the most valuant effort I've seen at
51:22
Speaker 1: explaining in words how to manipulate locks, and then a
51:27
Speaker 1: really good job. It's just really hard to understand just
51:30
Speaker 1: reading it. But I would also shout out another site
51:34
Speaker 1: that went even deeper, like David Reest does um and
51:40
Speaker 1: they like really explain how to manipulate safe is called
51:45
Speaker 1: opening Safes. By manipulation by Gail Johnson on lock smith
51:49
Speaker 1: Ledger dot com. And I mean it's it's as detailed
51:53
Speaker 1: as I've seen for sure, So shouts out to them.
51:55
Speaker 1: But at the end of this um this how stuff
51:57
Speaker 1: works article, it says this is all very much too legal.
52:00
Speaker 1: Don't don't do this, especially for crime. That's correct, especially
52:05
Speaker 1: for crime, especially for crime. Everybody. Um, well, that's it
52:09
Speaker 1: for safe cracking. I'm glad we did this one. Chuck,
52:12
Speaker 1: how about you? Yeah, me too, fun movie stuff, lots
52:15
Speaker 1: of body humor. Yeah, they did get body. Uh. And
52:19
Speaker 1: since we said did get body everybody, that means it's
52:22
Speaker 1: time for a listener. Man. Uh. Let me see here.
52:27
Speaker 1: This is some advice for Julia. Hey, guys, been a
52:30
Speaker 1: listener since summer of two thousand eighteen, the Summer of love.
52:35
Speaker 1: That's right, very nice. About one year after I graduated
52:41
Speaker 1: in college, go banana slugs. So, I think that's you,
52:45
Speaker 1: see Santa Cruz, right, I think? So? I began to
52:48
Speaker 1: flail around aimlessly, searching for meaning and purpose. One thing
52:51
Speaker 1: I didn't have to flail for was love of learning,
52:54
Speaker 1: especially once I discovered your show. I really appreciate the
52:57
Speaker 1: work you do and giving us listeners hundred thousands question
53:02
Speaker 1: mark of episodes to listen to remember a thousand? Oh yeah,
53:06
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can call that thousands though,
53:08
Speaker 1: didn't need to be at least two thousand. I don't know, yeah, probably,
53:12
Speaker 1: so we'll just say scores and scores. I wanted to
53:16
Speaker 1: ask a question, since you all seem like open minded,
53:19
Speaker 1: knowledgeable people, what were some of the things you did
53:22
Speaker 1: after college? High school? Uh, let's go ahead and answer
53:26
Speaker 1: each one of these. Wanted to time. Well, I'll take
53:28
Speaker 1: this one. Um. You know, I've I've talked about it before,
53:32
Speaker 1: but I worked in the film industry for a while
53:34
Speaker 1: and then worked in marketing for a little while, and
53:38
Speaker 1: then eventually was a writer like you for How Stuff
53:40
Speaker 1: Works yep dot com. So that the some of the
53:44
Speaker 1: things I did the dream job getting hired like that,
53:48
Speaker 1: you know, like we both want to the writers and
53:49
Speaker 1: it was like, hey, you're professional writers, now tried. How
53:53
Speaker 1: didn't you hold on real quick? Chuck? Didn't you turn
53:55
Speaker 1: in a movie script as as your writing sample? All
54:00
Speaker 1: I had? That's boss and you got the job? Yeah?
54:03
Speaker 1: Luckily our boss, Uh it was as a screenwriter himself.
54:06
Speaker 1: So he was like I'll take this. Yeah. Nice. Yeah,
54:10
Speaker 1: he turned it into his own and he stole it.
54:13
Speaker 1: How did you come to find yourselves where you are now? Well,
54:16
Speaker 1: I think we discovered that we got a job writing
54:19
Speaker 1: for the website and our boss said, hey, why don't
54:21
Speaker 1: you try this podcasting thing? Yeah, and boy was at
54:25
Speaker 1: a great day. In retrospect, it really was because, you know,
54:29
Speaker 1: we didn't know what we were doing, but because no
54:31
Speaker 1: one knew what we were doing and we were able
54:33
Speaker 1: to like kind of fly under the radar and just
54:35
Speaker 1: try it out, try new things. There weren't a lot
54:37
Speaker 1: of expectations or anything like that, and next thing, you know,
54:40
Speaker 1: people started listening to it. So yeah, it was. It
54:43
Speaker 1: was cool, you know, just kind of being able to
54:46
Speaker 1: do it on our own terms all these all these years. Agreed.
54:50
Speaker 1: Next question, did you ever feel like you would not
54:52
Speaker 1: find your your place and your niche speaking for myself,
54:57
Speaker 1: I very much felt that way absolutely, Although I mean
55:00
Speaker 1: the writing gig was cool, but it definitely wasn't like,
55:04
Speaker 1: all right, well, this is it for me forever, right,
55:07
Speaker 1: And I think anybody who has ever been alive has
55:12
Speaker 1: gone through that point, you know, whether you um drop
55:15
Speaker 1: out at school or whether you graduate with the pH d.
55:17
Speaker 1: It really doesn't matter. There's like some point in your
55:20
Speaker 1: life where you have a crisis of confidence either what
55:22
Speaker 1: am I gonna do with the rest of my life?
55:24
Speaker 1: Or have I been going down the wrong path this
55:27
Speaker 1: whole time and now I need to figure something else out.
55:29
Speaker 1: Everybody has that that crisis, you know, usually multiple times
55:34
Speaker 1: throughout their life. So yeah, of course we felt that way.
55:37
Speaker 1: Everybody feels that way, and if you do feel that way,
55:39
Speaker 1: don't don't get discouraged like it. You come out of
55:42
Speaker 1: that that little woods that you have to go through. Well,
55:45
Speaker 1: that sound kind of satisfies the last question from Julia
55:48
Speaker 1: as any advice for my quarter life crisis, I don't
55:51
Speaker 1: think that advice is great. And also, you know, if
55:54
Speaker 1: you are at your quarter life crisis, you've got a
55:56
Speaker 1: long way to go. So my advice is just don't
55:59
Speaker 1: stress too my uch, now try some different things. You've
56:02
Speaker 1: got time, and uh, you don't really feel that life
56:05
Speaker 1: clock ticking, at least I didn't until I was in
56:08
Speaker 1: my forties. It's true, but I remember being worried in
56:14
Speaker 1: the twenties and the thirties and everything. To you kind
56:17
Speaker 1: of have those times, you know, Yeah, but don't let
56:20
Speaker 1: it consume you try some stuff out. You don't have
56:22
Speaker 1: to be making forever decisions right now. Uh. And you might,
56:26
Speaker 1: you know, you might find yourself backing into an experience
56:29
Speaker 1: because you have tried out different things. Yeah. And even
56:32
Speaker 1: if you do have to make a forever decision, just
56:34
Speaker 1: know that very few decisions are irrevocable. And even if
56:38
Speaker 1: it is irrevocable, if you remember the mantra to be kind,
56:41
Speaker 1: be kind, be kind, those are the three most important
56:44
Speaker 1: things in life, says Bertrand Russell, then you're probably not
56:47
Speaker 1: going to make a forever decision that's irrevocable and horrible
56:51
Speaker 1: at the same time. You know what, that's great advice. Look,
56:54
Speaker 1: thanks man. Thanks. So she concludes with saying thanks for
56:57
Speaker 1: your work on stuff you should know, movie Crush and
56:59
Speaker 1: The Into the World, my favorite three podcast. I can't
57:02
Speaker 1: wait to see you at SF. Sketch Best that's from Julia. Awesome.
57:06
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Julia. Good luck with your quarter life
57:09
Speaker 1: crisis will pass. Don't worry about that. Uh. And if
57:12
Speaker 1: you're like Julia and you want to get in touch
57:14
Speaker 1: with us for advice or just to say hi or whatever,
57:18
Speaker 1: you can go onto stuff you Should Know dot com
57:20
Speaker 1: and check out our social links there and you can
57:23
Speaker 1: send us an email, wrap it up, spank it on
57:25
Speaker 1: the bottom, and send it off to stuff podcast at
57:28
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a
57:34
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
57:37
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
57:40
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.