I was just curious, has anyone ever attempted to divine the combination of a safe by x-rays?
I think one of the problems would be the distance of the wheels to the film. Focus might be problematic. You would have to bombard the safe from the back thru the lock to the film. Trouble is, there might be much in the safe that alters the radiation on the way to the wheels.
Yes (not me, personally). That's why the make x-ray resistant locks with derlin (plastic) wheels.
Given that in most cases a Group 2 lock is quite sufficient -- and indeed may have advantages -- group 1Rs don't get used very often. They're mostly used by the government since they're the folks who are more concerned about surreptitious repeated entry... and about folks being willing to risk giving themselves dangerous doses of radiation in the process. (Remember, you're trying to do X-ray metal thru metal, and you'd probably have to do so repeatedly...)
Talk to your local safe technician about how best to spend your security dollars.
and new locks with NO wheels..
--Shiva--
... which are also Tempest-rated.
There are a whole series of stories about Russian spies smuggling in radiation sources (radium, etc.) to a secure US government facility, putting the source on one side of a safe/vault door and film on the other, then trying to guess the combination from the image. The idea is that he could come back later and open the door. I've never seen a credible account (charges filed, equipment recovered, etc.), but it caused enough concern to create a set of "radiation rated" locks with UL ratings of "Class 1R", etc. The inner workings are made of plastic so that the x-rays go right through them without leaving an image (sort like it does with skin and muscle).
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