All word lock combinations

I recently published an analysis on the Master Lock 4 letter combination locks. They have an unusual letter distribution and I was curious how many English words could be generated with those locks. It turned out that those Master Locks could create a lot more words than I had anticipated.

In light of the popularity of that post I once again worked with Rich Bragg of ClueKeeper to run the same analysis on the popular WordLock PL-004 5-Dial.

This lock seems to have fewer clichéd words, but there are a few that pop up a little too often including:

• LASER
• DEATH
• FELON
• BOOK(S)

Letter Distribution

This analysis is focused on the most current 5 disk WordLock model, the PL-004. There are 3 older models with somewhat different letter distributions and WordLock has other 4 disk products. 

The fixed-disk WordLock uses the following letter configuration:

Disk 1: L S W B P F M D T A

Disk 2: A P O R I L C E T N

Disk 3: S E R I L A N U T O

Disk 4: E L D A O S K N R T

Disk 5: R L S N T H Y D _ E

There are two particularly interesting things about this letter distribution.

First, the blank spot on the fifth disk (represented above with an underscore) cleverly allows the WordLock to represent 4 or 5 letter words.

Second, the lock has asymmetrical disks that, when all aligned, defaults 7 of the 10 lines of the lock into words:

• WORDS
• SPELL
• LASER
• BRIAN … if you consider a name to be a word
• PILOT
• FLASH
• ANOTE … while it does have a definition, this more looks like a word than is a word

While the remaining three lines are gibberish, it’s still a nifty and thoughtful feature as the lock looks cool with all of those words on its face.

What Words Can This Distribution Generate?

Here’s the spreadsheet. The left-most column contains 1,652 core English words. These are the best words that the analysis found. The further right you move, the less useful the words generally are (and the farthest right is mostly nonsense).

Analysis Methodology & Column Explanation

Absolutely everything about this analysis and its outputs conforms to the same information presented in the last letter lock analysis, so I won’t rehash it. It’s on the Master Lock post if you’re interested.

Odd Letter Distribution Hypothesis

After publishing the last analysis some members of the room escape community proposed a hypothesis about the odd letter distribution on those Master Locks:

It seemed like Master Lock may have been trying to make it impossible to spell curse words.

This seems like a valid answer for both Master Lock and WordLock’s letter selection. I cannot prove this one way or another, but you cannot generate the most popular American English swear words with these locks… so that’s probably not a coincidence.

Nevertheless, sifting through the wordlist revealed a few “vulgar” or degrading words… and I’m including them because my inner 10 year-old thinks this list is hilarious:

There are also TONS of innuendo-y words that I didn’t include… because I’m an adult.

WordLock Word List

Co-founder of RoomEscapeArtist.com.

Creative technologist, guitarist, puzzle junkie, and turner of phrases.

I fight for the user.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wordlock is a brand of combination locks, made by Wordlock, Inc., that differs from traditional combination locks in that it has letters on its dials instead of numbers. This allows the combination to be a four-letter or five-letter word or name, similar to a password, and therefore potentially easier to remember than a series of digits. Wordlocks come in luggage locks, bike locks, padlocks, cable locks and commercial locks.

History[edit]

The Chinese created the first word combination lock in the 13th Century.^[1] The idea never caught on in the West, however, until Todd Basche, former Vice President of Software Applications at Apple Inc., invented the modern word lock in 2004. He and Rahn Basche founded WordLock, Inc. in 2007 in Santa Clara, California, USA. Todd’s patented WordLock algorithm maximizes the number of four-letter and five-letter words that can be spelled on the Wordlock dials.

WordLock won the Staples Inc. Invention Quest in 2004^[2] and «Top 100 New Inventions» distinction at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s Invent Now America competition in 2008.

Possible combinations[edit]

The five-ring WordLock contains 10 letters per ring. One such example follows:

Each ring rotates independently of the others, yielding a possible 10⁴ (or 10,000) different combinations. WordLock contains one blank space on the fifth dial to make four letter words. About 2,000 words are possible as combinations.^[3] However, this 2,000 word figure does not include the many possibilities for quasi-words (BLATS or WOOT); certain names (DILAN or MOSES); and acronyms, foreign words or gibberish known only to the lock owner.

See also[edit]

• History of science and technology in China
• Memory
• Cryptex
• Combination locks

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Wordlock, Inc.
• Wordlock Patent Appl. No. 29/298,386
• Wordlock Patent Appl. No. 29/298,385
• Wordlock 30 Second TV Spot
• Security Tips on www.howstuffworks.com
• Historical Locks: «Padlocks in China»
• Schlage’s History of Locks
• «Staples Introduces Innovative Lock That Uses Letters Instead of Numbers to Create Easy-To-Remember Word Combinations»
• Wordlock Featured on Daily Grommet
• Wordlock Founders Featured on The Balancing Act Show
• Wordlock Padlock Featured on HSN

A while back I got hold of a 5 letter Wordlock padlock, which is a combination padlock but has letters on the dials instead of numbers. It’s supposed to make it easier to remember your combination. As with all the combination locks I get my hands on, I start to try and work out how to crack the combination. The last two times we used a shim to crack the combination, first on the Abus lock from my school’s lockers and then on the other cheap lock we picked up from the hardware. They both had weaknesses that let you put a shim in next to the dial and feel for a groove which helped you decode it. If you want to see how, take a look at the two linked articles above or we have some videos in a playlist on our YouTube channel that shows the bypasses in action.

With this new combination padlock we used a new technique which doesn’t even need any tools, so anyone can try this technique at home. The technique ill show you works on a lot of different combination locks, especially combination bike locks which usually have the same type of mechanism.

As usual, there is a link to a video at the end of this article which talks about the lock, the technique and also a demo of the bypass, so if you’d rather watch than read, jump to the end!

How the Combination Lock Works

So here is the inside of the lock. How great is this combination? You get very limited letters you can use and each dial is different but I could still put my name. I think the lock was made for me! ????

Inside the lock you have the usual parts like the shackle. You also have the dials which turn gears underneath that you cant see in this picture. And finally, you have the core which runs through the centre. The core is the bit that moves to unlock the shackle which means you cant shim the shackle.

In the last video we showed you, the shackle went through the centre of the dials so when the dials were in the correct position the shackle slid up. In this lock you can see the shackle is actually to the side of the dials and the core is the bit that holds the shackle in place.

Here are the core and shackle removed.

The core is actually two pieces, one that slides inside the other. When unlocked the centrepiece can slide up which lets the shackle slide up and open.

If you look at the core you will see there are three vertical rows of little bumps (you can see this easier in the video). Two rows are on the outer core and one row is on the inner core. These are also arranged in 5 horizontal rows. One row for each of the letter dials. These bumps are what stops the core from sliding unless all the dials are in the right place.

Here is one of the gears. These fit over the core and then the dial fits over the gear.

You can see three little channels cut out of the gear. The three vertical rows of bumps on the core slide through these three channels when the dial is in the right position. If all five dials and gears are in the right position, the centre of the core can slide upwards taking the shackle with it and opening the lock.

Combination Lock Bypass Technique

Now that you understand how the lock works inside, you’re probably wondering how our bypass technique works? When you pull up on the shackle you are trying to pull the centre of the core up. This forces the bumps against the inside of the gears.

When you rotate a dial, when it gets to the right letter, the gear is aligned and the core slides a tiny bit upwards. This is enough so the dial can’t move anymore as its trapped, and the next gear gets all the tension. It’s the same as picking a pin tumbler lock where the core turns slightly and catches the picked pin and applies pressure to the next pin.

You just repeat until all gears are in line with the bumps, the core slides up and its open.

How to Perform the Bypass Technique

To perform this attack you need to put constant tension on the shackle. This puts tension on the gears inside which is very similar to the way you use a tension wrench when picking a pin tumbler lock.

You can pull up with your hands on the shackle but this gets tiring quickly so its way easier to attach it to something and just pull down. What we do is put another lock in our vice and hook the shackle through that lock. It’s like it’s locked onto something, like a gate or locker, and its easy to pull down and use a constant tension. Please excuse the starting combination on this lock. I swear it came like this from the shop ????

All you need to do is start with the last letter of the combination and move one by one up to the first. On this lock, you find that the last dial is the one that binds when you apply tension. Other locks could be the opposite or you might find you can’t tell the order until you start testing it, again like picking a pin tumbler.

Pulling down lightly on the lock, turn the dial. You will know when you find the right letter cause it will stick and you won’t be able to move it again. The insides actually move a bit when you get the right letter. The gear under the dial falls into the groove and the inner core can slide slightly which then causes the next dial to bind.

When you look at the parts inside you’ll see it doesn’t have any false gates. False gates are in some locks to trick you into locking up on the wrong letter and thinking you have the right code. We did find on this lock that sometimes it does catch on the wrong letter. Good thing is it seems to stick between 2 letters so you can tell its wrong. You just release tension a bit, move the dial onto the next letter, apply tension again and keep going. The most common place for it to lock up was on the final dial, the first letter of the combination. If it’s going to lock up that’s the best place for it to happen. You already know the other 4 letters so you can just turn the dial to each letter, pull-down and if it’s right the lock will open. You can see me doing this in the video to finish off bypassing the lock as it was locking up a bit.

As each dial sticks, move up to the next one. Eventually, you will get to the last one and OPEN! The lock will pop.

Pretty easy isn’t it? Here’s my latest video that goes through everything I’ve talked about above so probably easier to understand when you see it in action. I also give you a demo so you can see how to perform the technique yourself.

If you have any questions or just want to tell us about your techniques or how you go trying this, we would love to hear from you in the comments.

Until next time, have fun lock picking and we will be back soon with another lock bypass!