Need to open a DIEBOLD SAFE

Well, obviously the folks that will use electronic locks do go there, but I was thinking (somewhat vaguely) more of something mechanical like a "wax or grease clutch" that would heat up with excessive repeated dial spinning and disengage the dial and the rotors, as I was contemplating a servo motor spinning the dials for hours on end. But it's really not needed or particularly useful, since there have been other solutions for decades that work fine for the purpose.

The typical small-firesafe (not much of a safe) type electronic lock seems to be battery powered, locked forever if not powered, remembers combination in non-volatile memory if the batteries die or are removed, and the batteries can be replaced from outside. Presumably they fry and stay locked if overvolted. If it's got power to take a combination, it has power to note that it's had 3 wrong attempts in the past 5 minutes, or whatever time limit you pick.

As with any, if they can pick it up and take it with them, it doesn't matter how it's locked, it will be opened. If they can't pick it up and want what's in it badly enough, they'll have means to cut it open or they'll make you open it for them... And if it's yours and it fails locked, you'll cut it open or get it cut open. I think the last time safes came up in the group there was a shaggy dog story of someone who whimsically built a vault door (surplus, perhaps) into the basement, which became known, which lead to him unlocking it (rather shakily) at gunpoint one night (nothing to speak of in it per the shaggy dog) which lead to the door being removed from the hinges for the remainder of his tenancy in the house.

I do think that the dial-spinner would be a good robot project - buy the cheap safes with lost combinations, park them in the corner until the robot non-destructively unlocks them, remove goodies if any (possible but unlikely, since goodies in lost combination safes tend to lead to the owner of said goodies having the door cut off) and sell the unlocked, undamaged safe for a better price. But it would require at least enough information to know that "this lock has to be spun 4 times to the right before the first number", etc.

Master padlocks are easy. But, I am SURE he was referring to secure file cabinets and safes at Los Alamos during the Manhattan project.

Jon

My only experience is with the 5-number safe in our lab. It twirls the dial when the unlocking handle is pulled up.

Jon

O.K. You were thinking of powered attempts, not hand attempts, that does make a difference.

O.K. That works. I've avoided those because I was not sure that the batteries could be replaced from outside -- or that the safe could be opened after the internal batteries died. :-)

And then start ignoring any more input until the required quiescent period had elapsed.

:-)

I had an opportunity to bid on a used government surplus vault door, but just getting it home would be difficult enough. :-)

And typically, the government security file cabinet locks (three setable numbers) jstart off to the left, not to the right (required, if the final motion to withdraw the bolt is to be in the proper direction.

Enjoy, DoN.

Well ... I have seen file cabinets made into sorta security ones (assuming that you don't cut the sheet metal to get in) by a vertical bar through the drawer handles and into a welded ring at the bottom, and bent, flattened, slotted for a hasp, and secured with the S&G combination padlocks -- those had numbers up to 50 on the dials, and were setable like the built-in safe combination locks from the same company. Of course, a lot fewer combinations possible. 125,000 assuming that all possible numbers could be used. A mere 4,629 if any number within +/- 1 from the nominal number would work.

These were normally used for FOUO (For Official Use Only), not really classified stuff. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

Jon Elson wrote in news:seGdnWQttPMmuO7NnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com:

I don't know much at all about safes... but I do know a little bit about math.

If there are (as has been suggested up-thread) 100 numbers on the dial, "try them all" is not practical, as there will be either 100*99*98 = 970200 possible combinations (if a number cannot be repeated) or 100^3 = 1 million (if it can). Assuming five seconds per try, with a standard 40-hour work week, the OP could expect to finish trying them all by the end of June.

If there are only 45 numbers on the dial instead of 100, he might finish by the end of this month.

them all" is not

(if a number

per try, with a

the end of June.

Five seconds per try is not practical. Four full turns (or more) to the left, stop on first number. Go past the second number to the right twice and stop on it the third time. Left again, past the third number once and stop on it the second time, then go right to zero (assuming normal dial position), turn the little turnbar in the center of the knob, rotate right to hook and withdraw the bolt, and then operate the lever to unlock the door/drawer.

You can't go very fast on these or the inner discs will overshoot the numbers (and thus the proper stopping place) by inertia. (This on the S&G locks, the Mosler are both somewhat more tolerant of that, and have a low inertia dial, so you can't spin it freely -- it takes effort.)

On either lock, you want a thumb ready to press on the OD of the dial to slow it to the target and then hold it there while you shift your grip.

My own feeling is that it would be more like a minimum of 30 seconds, and likely 45 per try, which makes the time required grow rather rapidly. :-)

the end of this

Multiply by at least six for the longer time to work the combination, so you are up to a half working year with the smaller number of combinations.

BTW -- the same number can be used for the first and last entry, but should not be used for two immediately adjacent entries. And really, you want something like a separation of two or three. And the last entry should not be zero, because there is a permanent zero following that.

Enjoy, DoN.

"DoN. Nichols" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@Katana.d-and-d.com:

I was just guessing. I believe I said that I don't know much about safes. :-) So I'll take your word for it.

Let's take the lower number. That means instead of finishing around the end of June, he'll finish in mid-April -- of 2018.

But even using my guess of 5 seconds, it's hardly practical.

Thanks, DoN -- I learned a bit today. I hope the guy that suggested "try them all" did too.

I saw that -- so I decided to put in a bit of my own experience

-- living with having to check (and sign off on) each safe at the end of each day, even if it was not opened. Since my flex-time hours tended towards the late end of the day, this was usually my task. (The "checking" involves trying to open it without dialing the combination, and when that fails, noting "Not Opened" across the "Opened" and "Closed" columns and noting the time the check was performed. (Of course, if the safe opens with the handle alone, and is not signed open and closed, you call the security people. :-)

:-)

Agreed. And those times are even assuming that no mistake is made in the dialing -- and I can say from experience that mistakes are easy, and you only know that you mis-dialed when the safe does not open while it did earlier in the day with the same combination. :-) Since the odds are great that you would never notice a mis-dialed try, you could have just skipped over the one combination which works. :-)

Something which you hopefully will never need to use. :-)

If not -- let *him* try them all. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

replying to Ro Grrr, Cracka Jack wrote: Use a homemade thermic lance bro cost ;less than 30 bucks to make and will cut through freaking granite. You will get into that safe in less than 10 mins

replying to DoN. Nichols, Cracka Jack wrote: Safe combinations are permutations not combinations, order matters :-)

Of course it does. You did not quote anything of the original article, and it has been a long time, so I forget what I said back then.

Just how old an article did you followup to in this and the previous one. I strongly doubt that the original poster of the question is still on the newsgroup.

And using a thermic lance doesn't do much for preserving the contents -- which *might* be important papers.

Enjoy, DoN.

Gunner Asch on Mon, 25 Jul 2016 07:32:07 -0700 typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

It seems to me that one could put the safe on a mill (if possible), and "mill off" the hinges. Or round and round the door till it is no longer held in place.

Or look into a portable mill setup.

I have a strong box which I thought I lost the keys to. If I couldn't get it opened by a locksmith - that was the sort of route I was figuring I would be taking.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

I once read that a certain group in one of the Western State's police had discovered a method of opening safe's. They used a 8" angle grinder with cut-off wheels. This was presented in evidence at their trial :-)

Hmm ... in a real safe, the hinges are to support the door when it is open -- to keep it from falling and crushing your toes. :-)

There are a number of fat hardened steel bolts around the door

-- deep into the thickness of it -- which go into sockets in the frame. Mill off the hinges and the door is still not going to go anywhere. :-)

And the Mosler and Diebold security file cabinets have at a minimum a pair of big fat bolts going into the frame on either side of the drawer front where the combination lock is mounted. There are linkages which lock the other drawers to a lesser extent when the master drawer is closed.

And -- one which I had decades ago had a big thick door which had the multi-bolts on all sides arrangement with hinges designed to roll back into the side of the safe on the right. The rest of the safe contained a normal file cabinet. It was locked by both a combination lock and a key lock. And those combination locks are designed so if you try to drill them out, or break off the dial and then drive it through the back of the lock, a secondary mechanism double-locks the bolt, so you are back to milling off the border of the door -- which goes in steps as you get deeper. Oh yes -- the lock is also protected by cement filled with old carbide inserts, to make drilling a bit of a task, too. :-)

"Round and round the door" would work eventually -- but that would be several inches thickness of hardened steel before you get there. :-)

If you still have it -- check whether there are fat bolts which are operated by the locking mechanism. That might make full destruction the main choice. :-)

And the security file cabinets come with labels specifying how long they protect against various things, including "manipulation of the lock" and "fire". But the fun one was "0 man-minutes against forceable entry". (Explosives, I presume. :-)

Enjoy, DoN.

"DoN. Nichols" on 26 Jul 2016 04:43:37 GMT typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

A simple fireproof box, all it had was a strong latch.

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

"DoN. Nichols" on 26 Jul 2016 04:43:37 GMT typed in rec.crafts.metalworking the following:

Yeah, there is that.

Maybe just milling a circle in a face until it falls out. "Patience, grasshopper"

-- pyotr filipivich "With Age comes Wisdom. Although more often, Age travels alone."

Right, mill the steel cover off the door so you can get at the guts.

"Patience, grasshopper. This may take a while. Hardened steel is truly a bitch."

Vroom, vroom!