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Old 05-05-06 | 05:02 PM
  #20  
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cerewa
put our Heads Together
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Joined: Jun 2003
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From: southeast pennsylvania

Bikes: a mountain bike with a cargo box on the back and aero bars on the front. an old well-worn dahon folding bike

combo locks
Anything with a combination is instantly vulnerable to means that involve no physical harm. $10 four-dial combo cable locks can usually be opened in under 30 seconds by someone that has half a clue what they are doing. These are not secure at all. Even better combination locks are 100% vulerable if a thief has enough time and patience to methodically work through the possible combinations. If you must use a combo lock of some variety, choose one that is least likely to be vulnerable to brute force (trying all the combinations) and manipulation (feeling beside number wheels with a thin piece of metal for grooves) attacks. Combo locks seem like a pretty bad idea to me in general.
The combo locks with 4 dials normally have 10,000 possible combinations, so if you can try one combo and move on to the next in 1 second, you're talking 1 hour and 20 minutes to try half of the possible combinations.

But a person who's good with combo locks can probably figure out the combination in a minute or two.
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