On Lock Picking

I got my lockpick set today, and of course the first thing I did was try it on some locks I had lying around from my trip last year. Now, lockpicking was something I've intended to do for a rather long time, but I've never managed to get my grubby hands on a set before.

Naysayers like to point out that Hollywood movies show people picking locks as if they're using keys, opening locks mighty swiftly using a simple pick set. Obviously, such techniques are highly unlikely when one's faced with a high security lock. But I only had my cheap travel locks at hand, so I tried my hand at those. Being a complete newcomer to the lockpicking business, I was shocked and frankly quite alarmed that I could open those locks within around 5-10 seconds of picking them. Clearly, cheap locks aren't just vulnerable to the lock cutters of thieves: they're also easy pickings.

The next step would be for me to try out higher end padlocks, to see if they're as easy to bypass. I expect them to be more of a challenge seeing as how budget padlocks tend to have a rather limited number of pins and the higher end stuff just makes it that much more difficult given their higher level of sophistication and increased complexity in their mechanisms. As someone who's crazy about figuring out systems, this is something that should occupy me for awhile.