My bad. I wrote that, and I probably clobbered a Kzemach post while I was at it! Sorry! The admins have the power to edit, and I must have hit "edit" when I wanted to hit "quote".
Sorry for the confusion... I'm not going to try to untangle it now, but this is my statement:
Quote:
Originally Posted by jage
I've opened two of these without the combo. With a little practice you could probably crack a cheap one in a few minutes. Not that that doesn't make it more effective than a hide-a-key- after all, anybody can come along and use a hide-a-key.
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The stor-a-key or whatever aren't bad, it's just when a realtor leaves them on your doorknob, it tends to be annoying after the second month. The first time I pulled the doorknob in question and worked the box at my leisure. The second time I opened the door and sat on a chair inside the house and worked on the box while attached to the door. Both times I was working at my leisure.
There are a finite number of combinations and in this case the order is unimportant. 310 or 130 it makes no difference. The bad news is you can set them to any number of digits, so 2 or 123456789 both work equally well. Repeating digits only matters for mnemonic devices, say you use Halloween: 1031 the second one is superfluous but useful for remembering the combo.
So opening them is as simple (heh) as figuring out which of the 10 digits are "on". Poor mechanics in the cheaper versions makes this a bit simpler than raw iteration.
I'm not saying a child could open it, I'm just refuting that they are not bomb proof protection for your key. I'm also biased, having opened these but never hotwired a car.
Again, apologies for butchering this thread!