![]() Showing Internet users how to pick locks could actually be aiding criminals, he conceded, but he claimed that most thieves don’t have the patience - or the time - to pick locks under stress.Īnd besides, lock pickers, he said, follow a code of honor.įirst rule: All locks that are still in use are off limits, and second, hobbyists can only open locks that belong to them or that they’ve been given permission to use. “I never would’ve dreamed that that many people would subscribe. He made his first YouTube video about five years ago while holed up in a hotel room in Ecuador, and has since amassed more than 170,000 devoted followers. Johnson said he got into the lock game about a decade ago - after his bike was stolen. “There were threats after I made a silly video,” he chuckled. Johnson said his war with Master Lock has even earned him angry letters from the company, which he said threatened to take legal action after he released a spoof video in which he pops open one of the company’s locks with a squirt of ketchup. “You get what you pay for,” he warned, conceding that some of the company’s higher-end locks work well. “Master Lock, not so much,” said Johnson, 56, who hails from Fairfax County, Virginia. The former Army officer, who served 28 years on a bomb disposal team, calls up lock manufacturers to point out weaknesses in their products - and many of the smaller companies actually listen and improve their locks, he says. ![]() “They have a wide variety of locks with different styles of bodies and shackles, but all have the identical junky core,” he said. The problem, he told The Post, is that the guts of many Master locks are the same. “Stay away from Master Lock,” Johnson warns as his online alter ego, Bosnian Bill, in a November video, after opening one of the company’s locks in a few seconds by simply tapping on it with a small brass hammer. He’s used plastic zip ties, bamboo sticks and even cat food cans to open the locks dangling from gym lockers and storage sheds across the US.īill Johnson is now attracting a global following thanks to his YouTube campaign against Master Lock - offering a veritable how-to on ways to open its padlocks without a key.
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