This story is in response to this post.
When the high school I was in built a new building they decided it was time to get a master-key system for all doors on campus. The old system of each door having a different key proved to be too unorganized and too costly (copying a key for each faculty member for each room they need access to).
The new system would have one key that worked for all doors which was meant for the highest echelon, we named this the Great Grand Master Key. The next key worked on all doors except for some offices and was meant for administrators, we called this the Grand Master Key.
One level down was what we called the Master Key which was issued to Rabbeim and worked on all doors except for the administrative offices. Then there were lower keys which we just named after the position title that it was issued to- Sanitational Engineer, Secular Teacher, Dorm Counselor, Macher…
The new system was supposed to be very secure and with each faculty member only having one key there shouldn’t have been too many floating around that may end up in the hands of a student.
One of the administrators claimed that it was impossible for a student to get a copy of [what we later named] the Great Grand Master Key since there were less than 5 keys made. I made it my goal to get myself a copy.
The first thing I had to do was figure out the different tumbler configurations for each lock and the depth of the teeth on the different keys issued. Once I had enough information I’d be able to extrapolate from there as to what the teeth on the Great Grand Master Key looked like.
It took about 9 months but I finally had what I felt where accurate diagrams off all the tumbler configurations of every doorknob on campus. (I found out later on that I made one slight mistake- the secular teachers didn’t have access to one faculty restroom that I assumed they had access to.)
There were only three knobs that the Grand Master Key didn’t have access to- two were on the two doors of one office where one was always kept unlocked since it had a Simplex Combination lock on it (which we had the combination to) and the book room / records room which was in a rarely used office that the Grand Master Key had access to (we could have climbed through the drop ceiling when we needed access). I was willing to settle for the Grand Master Key but my friend Zevy (click on his name if you’re not familiar with him) wouldn’t hear of it.
One Friday Afternoon I offered to help out with a mailing and when the administrator I was working with stepped out to buy some stuff for Shabbos I went over to the drawer and looked for a key with the cuts that according to my extrapolation calculations the Great Grand Master should have looked like. I compared it to a copy of the Grand Master and the first tooth was cut a drop lower as I thought it should have been. It was also mislabeled as Zevy had predicted.
Fast forward a few months.
One of the Rabbeim “misplaced” his key and it was suspected that it got into the hands of the student body.
I immediately got back to the drawing board to try and figure out what the locksmith would do to disable the “Rabbeim” key in the most cost effective way. The method I came up with swapped one tumbler in most locks and filing down tooth number two on all keys from “Rabbeim” and lower. For some reason the decision was to replace all the tumblers is most of the locks involved and now faculty members would have to have two keys. (I could never figure out why it was done like that, but I wasn’t about to ask.)
Zevy said that we should give them a two week grace period to enjoy their new locks before we get the new key. The faculty members were told to be more careful with the keys and not to lend them out but two weeks was enough time for me to prove something crucial- the first two teeth had to have the same cut. During lunch (after the 14th day) an administrator asked if I could help him with a mailing, they had gotten some invitations back due to an incorrect address and they needed to get them out ASAP. I agreed to help as did another friend- let’s call him Rafi.
When we met Zevy later on her told us that the grace period is up, I took out the key and waved it at him. You should have seen the look on his face.
The next year two kids were caught with lower level keys and they decided to change all the locks under the Grand Master Key level.
Before my computations were even done and well within the two week grace period I got a knock on my window in middle of the night. It was Simcha, another friend who needed to borrow the new key. Luckily, there was a new administrator who thought that the more keys you have the more chashuv you are, so he hung his keys outside of his pants. I had gotten a good look at the key while he was standing in the hallway talking to someone. I explained to him Zevys rule so we woke Zevy up to see if he was going to grant an exception- he did.
There were some more complications- after the two kids were caught with the keys the maintenance guy built a wooden box where the keys were kept and the box was kept padlocked at all times. (Unbeknownst to us we had the key to the padlock before it was put on- I’ll have to get to that part later.)
I gave Simcha the key to the office and told him how the teeth on this key should look. I also told him that the box was padlocked but the hinges were screwed in from the outside. To make things more complicated the screws were spray-painted so that if anyone tampered with them it would show- or so they thought. (I wouldn’t call this being paranoid since they didn’t just think that guys were after they key- they knew it!) Although Simcha had delicate fingers (he trained me in the use of soldering irons) he couldn’t pick locks, what he did do though was cut tiny slits in the paint so that chips wouldn’t fall out when he removed the screws.
He then went across the hall where an administrator was still working (he saw the lights on from outside and looked into the window), ever so slowly he silently slid in the key, turned it to see if it was the correct key and then removed it.
After replacing the screws on the box the damage to the paint on the screws was only microscopic.
To end off- some may be wondering how we got the key to the box before it was built. The key was one of two keys (I’m not sure which one) so here are both stories.
Someone forgot to cancel the milk order before Pesach once and it kept on getting delivered over Pesach. The policy was that the fresh milk couldn’t be served until all the spoiled milk was consumed (and the order still kept on coming). Finally I had an idea- the lock on the fridge was a medium security lock (it had wafers inside instead of tumblers). After getting a good view of the key I was able to file down a bedieved copy (wafers are more forgiving than tumblers). I’ll let the reader figure out where all the spoiled milk went.
That may have been the key; the other possibility is that it was from the same family of padlocks used on gates in the fence that surrounded the campus. So how did we get that? One of the Rabbeim had the key on his Shabbos belt since he didn’t use the Eruv. I think I’ll have to leave the rest to your imagination…