Lockpicking is one of the oldest hacker arts and one of the funnest/easiest things to do. There are great guides on the internet about how to actually pick locks, I'll link to some good ones at the end of the post. Of course, responsible lock picking is encouraged or you could end up in the slammer having your cellmate pick YOUR locks and you don't want that. Check local laws and make sure that its legal for you to possess lock picks without a license, as some states have outlawed even the possession of picks.

There are a couple ways to get some picks. You can order some off the internet, I got a pretty sweet set from Lockpicks.com for a very fair price so I recommend them. I haven't done business with any other sites, so I don't know how good they are.


How To Make Lock Picks - The funniest home videos are here

If you really wanna do the true hacker thing, you can make your own picks. I didn't realize how easy it was to do this before I ordered my picks, otherwise I would have used the method in the video. I'll probably still do that and make some more picks.

Lockpicking is fun and can be very easy (most locks) or very hard (high security locks). Its pretty interesting to know just how useless a lock is if someone with the right tools and knowledge is around... fairly scary too. Of course, don't get all paranoid. There are much easier ways of getting in your house than picking your doors.


There are also numerous videos on YouTube and Google Video about lockpicking that can be very helpful for a newbie (they were for me).