There are roughly 64,000 possible combinations for a standard Master Lock padlock. If you don’t know the combination (and there aren’t any bolt cutters handy), it can take a long, long time to crack that lock. Well, that used to be true. Hacker Samy Kamkar has devised a method for unlocking any Master Lock printed combination lock in eight or fewer attempts, and all you need to do is spin the dial a few times.
This hack is based on feeling for resistance as you spin the lock, then noting where on the dial it’s happening. Kamkar has built a website where you can input the numbers to have eight potential combinations generated. If you’ve entered the right data, one of those combinations should open the lock.
It starts with pulling up on the shackle (that’s the locking bit) and spinning the dial slowly from zero. You’re looking for the first two places the dial locks up that are centered on a whole number less than 11. Drop those into the tool and let up on the shackle until you can spin the dial freely. With a little upward pressure, the dial should get hung up in the same place once per turn. This might be a whole number, or it might be in between two, enter the value in the next box and hit “find combos.”
The site will list two possible numbers for the last digit, which you can check by pulling up on the shackle while hovering over each one. The number with more give in the dial is the final part of the combination. Then it’s just a matter of trying the eight middle numbers with the confirmed first and last digit to open the lock.
Kamkar developed the algorithm to crack these locks when reading up on a known hack that reduced the number of possible combinations to 100. He also took one of the locks apart to examine the combination mechanism. The real key was when he realized that the first and third digit of the combination, when divided by four, always return the same remainder.
Don’t expect the Master Lock people to get too frazzled about the hack. It’s still far from instant and these are mostly cheap locks that no one is using to protect anything vitally important. Still, neat party trick.
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