Robots are about to replace lockpicking kits

If you're protecting treasured first edition comic collection with a combination lock, you may want to upgrade your security. traditional combo locks are about to be toast thanks to this new robot. The contraption is the creation of Samy Kamkar, the same hacker who brought us the pocket-sized KeySweeper, capable of sniffing keystrokes from wireless keyboards. With a little help from a 3D-printer and Arduino, Kamkar's device exploits a trick he discovered which allows anyone to crack a Masterlock in eight tries or less. The programmable motor is more efficient than any lock picker, opening the lock in seconds.

The device uses a 3D-printed casing to hold its inner-workings which consist of an Arduino, a stepper motor to turn the dial and a servo to pull on the lock's hinge, checking to see if the lock has been breached yet.

The "Combo Breaker" is open source, so you can create your own using Kamkar's breakdown, posted over at GitHub. The entire device can be made for under $100, but you'll still need some programming knowledge and access to a 3D-printer to put it all together.

This invention shouldn't really endanger the security of this kind of combination lock. Combo locks like this were never that secure to begin with. If someone really wanted to get at your goods, a bolt-cutter could get past the lock just as well. Although the device is inexpensive to build, the robotic lock-picker is still a bit of a technical hurdle to most laymen. I would be more worried about someone picking the lock by hand using this method. Valuables like your Star Wars action figure collection would be better kept behind lock and key–with an actual key.

Source: Tech Crunch