Picking locks

Lock picking is the art of unlocking a lock by manipulating the components of the lock device without the original key.

Although lock picking can be associated with criminal intent, it is an essential skill for the legitimate profession of locksmithing, and is also pursued by law-abiding citizens as a useful skill to learn, or simply as a hobby (locksport).

In some countries, such as Japan, lock picking tools are illegal for most people to possess, but in many others they are available and legal to own as long as there is no intent to use them for criminal purposes.

Locks by definition secure or fasten something with the intention that access be possible only with the matching key. Despite this, it is likely that criminal lock picking started with the first locks. Famed locksmith Alfred Charles Hobbs said in the mid 1800s:

Rogues are very keen in their profession, and know already much more than we can teach them respecting their several kinds of roguery. Rogues knew a good deal about lock-picking long before locksmiths discussed it among themselves...

Professional and recreational lock picking also has a long history. King Louis XVI of France (1754–1793) was a keen designer, picker and manipulator of locks, and physicist Richard Feynman picked locks for fun in the 1940s while employed on the Manhattan Project. The tradition of student roof and tunnel hacking at MIT included lockpicking, and their guide to this was made widely available in 1991 as The MIT Guide to Lock Picking.

Beginning in 1997 more organised recreational lockpicking has now grown and developed a competitive aspect in "locksport" - along with its own governing body, Locksport International

The warded pick, also known as a skeleton key, is used for opening warded locks. It is generally made to conform to a generalized key shape relatively simpler than the actual key used to open the lock; this simpler shape allows for internal manipulations.

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Wikipedia