Interest group

Be extremely careful. If folks know you have these skills, even on a campus where they're common such as MIT, you are at risk of being blamed for any theft that occurs in your vicinity. Moreover, you are assuming responsibility for anyone you teach; if they abuse the skills and then say you taught them, you can get dragged in as accomplice.

It can be done -- as I say, MIT has such groups, unofficially -- but you have to be willing to be extremely hard-assed about "No disrespect intended, but I just don't feel comfortable teaching you in particular." Which generally means it can't be an official activity since that gets you into discrimination issues.

(Some of my close friends were among folks I would not teach. Not that I thought they were dishonest -- but my best guess was that they would be tempted to show off at the wrong time and get themselves into trouble.)

Conversely, you probably don't want to hide from the school entirely -- because that risks raising their suspicions and triggering a backlash.

Finally: A lockpicking group, per se, is boring and indeed self-limiting. Locksmithing is a lot more than lockpicking, and you really can't handle picks properly unless you learn some of those other skills. You may want to consider broadening your vision.

Good luck. You're gonna need it pretty desperately unless you've got an exceptionally tolerant administration, and one which actually respects its students.

Oookay.

If my neighbor taught me how to shoot a gun, I don't think the cops would charge him as an accomplice if I shot somebody.

If my uncle taught me how to drive, I don't think they'd charge him with being an accomplice if I drove the get-away car.

But lockpicking, like port probing and some other security integrity manipulations, isn't like gun shooting or owning or car driving.

Lockpicking and port probing are examples of anti-security actions which are only used by a few and not very often; the hobbyists and curious, and the professional security expert or locksmith, who typically seldom lockpicks. In case of trouble and investigation, it becomes clear that someone isn't a professional, then they are either a crook or alleging to be a curious hobbyist. Crooks allege all kinds of unvelievable things.

In the case of gunshooting, the vast majority of gun owners and gun trained are *not* criminals. In the case of car drivers, the vast majority are not get-away wheelmen.

But legal situations in which a set of picks are found in the possession of a non-locksmith are assumed to be for criminal purposes unless somehow proven otherwise -- which is not the case with a car or with a gun in the US.

Think about the perspective and then pick some different analogies to support your point of view. Those don't work right.

I'm not saying you won't get in trouble for posessing picks.

I'm saying the person who teaches a skill to somebody else can't be held responsible for the actions of the person who learned the skill, unless the teacher specifically knew that the skill was going to be used for illegal purposes.

If I knew somebody I was teaching picking to was going to break into a business and steal stuff, then yes, I'd be responsible.

But if I taught somebody picking and didn't have any idea that the skill would be used nefariously, how could I be held accountable for their actions?

Mike Easter wrote:

In this litigious age, lawyers will sue anyone with any involvement. Also, can you just imagine one student in this group later running for political or judiciary office and having to explain why he or she wanted to learn lockpicking as only a hobby?

In the locksmithing, ethics are a corner stone of the trade. As an example it is perfectly ethical to teach someone how to install a deadbolt, but we are to remain closed mouthed when it comes to disclosing how to defeat a lock.

google is you friend..

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