The Padlock is an Illusion.


I just found this. Since I had a (new) padlock handy, I thought I would give it a quick shot.

The first step was a little awkward, but it worked.

The second step was brain-dead easy.

The third step was too tedious for me to try without really needing to do it, so I just looked up the right block of codes, then looked at the code on my lock to see if it would work.

And it wouldn't! I was terribly upset about this.

But I tried it anyway... and it worked. Surprised by this result, I fiddled around a bit and discovered that the second number was really sloppy. For me, it worked on 11, 12, 13, and 14.

I didn't try all the variants on the first number, but I did notice that the first number was also "sloppy", and worked on other numbers than the number given on the package.

In other words, the padlock is a ruse; an illusion. It's not as "secure" as it makes you think it is.

Cool.


3 comments:

rbbergstrom said...

So cool it's sad, or so sad it's cool. I'm not sure which.

Victor said...

I think it's really cool. This is almost like the AD&D idea of illusion, as something which affects you only as long as you believe it. How much other things around us work simply because we believe they work -- in unobvious sense (i.e. not counting stuff like traffic rules and somesuch)?

Jeremy Rice said...

[nod] Exactly right. It's almost a placebo effect. :)