Posted by Greg Gilman on December 10, 2001 at 06:00:04:
In Reply to: Re: security question for magically inclined posted by Klaus on July 05, 2001 at 11:09:46:
: Dear Ian, and others, I'm so new to actual locks that maybe you won't find I have anything to say that is useful, or funny, but aybe I cn amuse us all a little with minor tales that ring of relatively harmless tales of human deception.
I will give it a go. I do know a little about puzzles: the three dimensional type, where you have to get all the colors of a type right on all the faces of a cube, or a pyramids faces, I remember a cube, that could only be opened by completely deceptive means. It lead the human mind and hands astray at first sight, highly mechanically skilled men seemed to imagine all sorts of inner complexities. It bothered me, and for a long while in my case too, before the actual solution became obvious. Pressing, pulling, trying both at once, of the many "Lever Like Interlocking Looking Pieces of what were surely Inwardly Connected Bars, of a multi -colored cube," in many forms were useless. As I sat watching the hateful thing, for I was young, perhaps 12 or 13 and was mad at the "Puzzle," out-smarting me,so long. I watched my host, an older man, absent mindedly place the puzzle in the middle of an easily rotating "Lazy Susan," cookie plate, which spun round very easily to dispense food to anyone around the table. After staring at it a while longer in disgust, he spun the "Lazy Susan," and sent the awful puzzle into a very rapid, and very well centered, spinning motion, The platform soon came to a stop, with the cube well centered, he was still sighing in disgust at the thing, eventually he took hold of the cube puzzle by two matchingly colored squares on its surface, opposed to one another, and the spinning, without our knowing it, having slipped the one internal moving part, a smooth metal pin. perhaps an inch long, pin, which had all afternoon, endless slid easily in and out of several small chambers while moving and holding it, and the puzzle "box," connected together, by these "Wards," of sort, now centered by centrifugal motion, the Puzzle Box, now lifted apart in two simple, far too too simple pieces for us, who thought we both were oh so wise, and not only was it now in two halves, solved, but one look inside showed that only a good spin, and some centrifigul force, and nothing else short of a sledge hammer, could move the locking pin into a central, and "Neutral," position, from which a light lifting motion opened it, alowing the separate halves to pass just by the center pin, that would have rock just slighly to one side or the other in the human hand, and have kept it all held together forever. Rubicks cubes came and went. The Rubicks Pyramid I solved by determining the actual inner design for its manufacture, and which parts actually moved internal parts, and which one's clearly were distractions only, best I could, and realizing that probably 70% of the possible moving parts, to again distract a person, were not at all involed in opening it: and doggedly fiddling with the 30% of the parts which were worth moving, pretty easily gave the solved effect of the right colored bit, on all sides where it should be. A real mind numbingly boring one came out recently. My friends, "Genius Kid," could do nohting with it. So now that I am a little older, I wanted to best "Junior," It had a really clever design, but again, with a very inviting, and almost by nature quick to want try distraction move, that once made, complicated the correct series of reversal moves to recreate the original pattern, basically a cube built of very oddly different and oddly arranged oddly colored pieces of plastic, which could only be manipulated in two different ways, to move the pieces, and solve the puzzle by puttng it right again. It had to be both geometrically and color correct, to be solved. After about 50 hours with that one, I hit on the deceptive move built in, right at the begining, and decided I could eventually get the thing right again, but now, having learned a few things about the inner manufacturing processes of these puzzles, I decided it was just as fair to "Solve It," by thinking, "Outside the box." I managed to get it just right to remove one integral piece, from which I was able to learn the puzzle's whole design and manufacturing proceedure. I knew the whole design: then I used a very surgeon's like care to open one piece of it with a razor sharp exacto knife, get it all back together color coordinated, tighten the entire puzzle back together tight, as this was the last step that had been used when they had manufactured it, a strong steel cable was secured tightly into place with a phillips head tensioning screw, which was then secretly glued into one of the pieces, So I followed the last assembly movements and used professional epoxy and a vise clamp to hide my little bit of, "tomb robbing." Interestingly a few years later I tried the pyramid again but was besides myself as I just couldn't seem to notice I was working my old tricks on it improperly. I just picked it up and said, oh yes, its just these bits here we have to move, when really it was a deception factor again, my system worked on the less obvious bits. Well, I had that puzzle so close to being worn out from hours of handling that I discovered its basic manufacturing process, or exactly how it was put together, slipped one "Block," free, rearranged all the colors, slipped my one block home and tightened the whole thing with a central strand of strong internal cable, and solved it differently again.
Now I would never claim these, "Outside the Box," true or fair puzzle solutions, but in their own altered reality: where I saw tem as simply challenges set forth by another inventive mind, and my mind, playing that role of the inventor perplexed by the design of another, my solutions seem as fair as when, as a kid, I was watching "The Avengers," that great British crime show, and John Steed was trying to join the "Hell Fire Club," and to do so, he had to place his hands flat on the edge of a heavy table. He sat and pulled his chair very tight up to the table. He carefully layed out his hands as described. There was a Pea in the center of the table, His one chance for admission, we were told, and I think death would result if he failed, was a test in which he had to place his hands flt ad in the ready position, away from the pea at the center, wait for someone to shout "Go!" then he must move the Pea from the center of the table, and get his hands back in their original positions, before a quick strong man with a razor sharp broadaxe, could bring this raised axe down on the table and wound him. We were shown many close ups of someone who had once passed the test, but who had lost 3 fingers doing it, lots of beeds of sweat in close up, and by deception, or misdirection again, for the cameraman and the editor had my mind so focused on the fingers, the hands, etc. here is what happened: Someone yelled "GO!" John Steed blew out a very hard breath that rolled the pea forward off the table, his hands didn't have to move at all, and the axe crashed down deep into the table top, just milliseconds after, the little Pea had rolled safely away.
I know there is a great amount of deception or distraction in crowd magick and some of the very well known and famous escape acts. I just thought I'd tell a few little jokes without divulging anything too deep on the subject of keeping, holding, hiding, and moving of valuables, while the lock remains seemingly vigilant. Hope it get a few laughs guys, ho ho ho!