Something Else To Make You Paranoid

A reader sent me a link to this video from a local news show about a technique for picking locks called "lock bumping." There is also a Wikipedia article here about how it works, when it was discovered, and which brands are apparently resistant to this technique.

What disturbs me about this is that while it is a rather uniquely manufactured key that lock bumpers use to accomplish this, the actual use is surprisingly simple--much easier than traditional lockpicking. The video showed a 10 year old successfully using the technique to pick a lock. These special keys are in some ways like the "skeleton keys" that were a recurring deus ex machina in bad fiction of the early 20th century, where skeleton keys allow good guys and bad to enter homes without leaving any evidence of forced entry.

UPDATE: A reader tells me:

A few months ago we had a file cabinet key lost, and one of our people had read about lock bumping. Used a small hammer and a similar file key, and it worked! Scary!