History

     Locks protect you and your belongings from theft and other unmentionables. But what do we actually know about where and when they came from? The History of Locks by Mary Bellis gives a brief, yet informative overview about locks and their origin. The article could use some beefing up, however. The author leaves the links to her sources at the bottom of the page and leaves the rest to the reader, instead of adding more text and images to her work.

     The first locks existed in ancient Egypt, and is at least 4000 years old. It resembles a modern day pin and tumbler lock, and was constructed of wood. In 1778, Robert Baron increased lock security and patented the double-acting tumbler lock. Joseph Bramah, quite the inventor, created an "unpickable" lock, along with a beer pump, and a quill sharpener. James Sargent patented the time lock mechanism, a lock that is only unlockable at a specific time of day. Harry Soref was the creator of the Master Lock Company, and created locks by laminating metal, enabling strong locks to be mass produced cheaply.

This article could have been much longer given the amount of research done, but it seems the author intended for the article to be that short. Because of this, that made the article nearly useless for my needs because I am going to end up doing more research anyways, all this did was give me a basic overview.

History Continued

     A Short History of Locks by Biddy Walcot provides a much better description of the beginnings of locks and lock picking. The text is longer yet easy to read, and the paragraphs provide important facts without boring you with a lecture. More images and text features would have been appreciated, but do not seem necessary in this article.

     The list starts off with the ancient Egyptians, just like the other article. However, Walcot actually talks about the ancient Greeks, a very important society in history as far as technological advancements are concerned. Even more so for the ancient Romans, who improved the locks with better materials and warding. However, after that, no  new locks were created for nearly 1,700 years. People attempted to improve on and add to the design, by creating more complicated keys, obscuring the lock, and even creating fake locks as scapegoats; but in 1778 Robert Barron patented the double acting tumbler lock, which was later improved upon by Jeremiah Chubb in 1818. Later that century, in 1848, Linus Yale improved upon the old Egyptian design and created the Yale lock, one of today's more commonly use domestic locks. Combination locks, which had already been existed, were modernized in the1870's. The main advantage of the combination lock is that there is no keyhole to be picked. Potential burglars had to find a different way to get into safes.

     Walcot's article is very dense with facts and can easily confuse you. Previous knowledge is certainly required to get an adequate amount of information from this, but what you do find out from it is incredibly useful and interesting. Overall, superior to Ask.com's article in terms of details and structure, but not exactly good for an introduction.

Is teaching lock picking a good idea?

     Oakland's Mayor, Jean Quan, is supporting lock picking by offering classes in her town. She is attempting to fix a problem that residents are having, with becoming locked out of their houses. However, there are plenty of people, ready to criticize her idea. In the article, Mayor Jean Quan Promotes Lock-Picking Classes, Gives Young Burglars a Chance to Succeed, people berate her for her decision to basically provide criminals the means to entering other people's houses. They compare it to "The fundamentals of armed robbery" and have made her realize that the phrasing of her statement wasn't exactly the best.
     I believe that Jean Quan had good intentions, but the world doesn't need everyone to know lock picking. It is good of her to make people aware of the ineffectiveness of certain locks, but it also means that criminals would learn from that, too. To be fair, lock picking is by far the least effective way to bypass a lock, and it takes hours upon hours of practice to be able to pick locks. Then, adding the fact that the lock is unfamiliar, and you've got yourself half an hour of work, just for one lock. In the end, though, not a good idea.

Lock Picking as a Sport

     BBC News' Hackers turn to lock picking for sport interview several members of a Dutch lock picking club called Toool. This organization is all about learning how to pick locks for sport. The article gives a quick overview of what the club is about and some elements that make it unique. For example, the sport itself is more of a sit down activity, the participants preferring to use locks detached from doors. They also enjoy the challenge of picking a lock the hard way, so any new lock picking tools are usually avoided.

      This article is well written, and covers quite a lot for it's length. However, I think that they could have expanded a bit more on this topic, such as going into further detail about lock picking competitions. More detail in other areas would have helped quite a lot, and more statistics to go with the opinion.