Almost all four-digit code systems whether digital or mechanical are not “Locks” but rather “Traffic Control Devices”. They don’t STOP people from entering, they just slow them down, or at best stop people temporarily.

Down and dirty…

-MOST gate codes are either 4 digits, or 4 digits plus (*/#/etc)

-MOST 4 digit codes are (year/address/phone#/SS#/etc)

-MOST key pads have worn numbers and no lockout limit. (Unlimited tries) James Bond it up.

A real gate keypad at a gov building I frequent. So sad. So true.

A real gate keypad at a gov building I frequent. So sad. So true.

(Anyone want to take a stab at this one using the “worn numbers” principle? Write down 3 or 4 guesses: Answer at bottom of article)

-If all else fails…Social Engineer your way to the code, or your way in.

Part 2:

Social Engineering.

“Oh you are at a little sleepy old military base? I’m prior military! When I was in the gate code always used to be our year of creation (xxxx- army, navy, airforce etc, a simple google search). If it’s not, we used to use the second most famous year….i bet that’s what you fellas use too. Well I’m an old man I have no need to be on bases anymore. If it wasn’t the year than our dumb ass officers thought that 1-2-3-4 was stupid, so they’d trick our enemies with 4-3-2-1 or something quite similar hahahah. Things haven’t changed much have they?…”

 

Case Study:

While serving in a reserve unit for the military I had to drive a van full of other military idiots (i say that lovingly) to a training site. Big Strong Gate, but it was unattended. The people on that particular “sleepy base” (see the pattern?) were sleeping at 7am when we arrived for training. Myself and a comrade of mine jump out and walk up to the keypad. The four-digit year of our branch’s inception didnt work. We tried it again with the # symbol at the end… no luck. Try again with the * symbol? Jackpot….. So sad….

That same week while working my full time job as a LEO I responded to that same sleepy base for a boring call for a suspicious person. While chatting with the gate guard I used almost the exact quote above and learned the NEW gate code, since they had finally decided to change the code that they had been using for the whole last year….

So for the same obstacle I had used both a mechanical code solving method that fits more in line with lock picking and then later utilized a persons-hack to learn the code after it had changed. Hopefully this starts to highlight some ideas for target-selection, one of that hardest things to teach in Tactical Lock Picking. One of the reasons I freely teach people hard-techniques for lock picking and those people then turn-around and still take my fully involved courses for instruction; because it’s one thing to sit on your couch and pick open a MasterLock No.3. It’s another thing to deal with real people, real puzzles, real objectives (something you get from attending our courses here at UncensoredTactical).

Stay Safe. Have Fun. Fuck Shit Up…and Stay LEGAL!

-RW

P.S. If you were trying to gain access to this semi-secure facility with the keypad pictured above, 3667* would be a pretty good guess 😉