There you are, its Friday night and you’re out on in the pubs when all of a sudden, this mean looking character approaches you to try to start a fight. You decide to high tail it out of there, but its no use - he has caught up to you outside on the street. You are faced with the responsibility of defending yourself against a scary looking guy, meaner than you, who looks as if he could clean the street with you - what do you do when fighting him is your only option?

The objective:
strike first and create an opening whereby you can get away as soon as possible.

What Not To Do:

1. Do not contest his strength. The worst thing you can do is to try to go “toe-to-toe” with someone bigger and stronger, let alone younger and bigger boned. You will likely be overwhelmed as you need to have superior speed and ability to match his superior size and strength.
2. Let him hit you first. When you know you are facing imminent physical harm, the law provides for you to use reasonable force to protect yourself. Here, since you are dealing with someone larger than you, who is the agressor the so-called “disparity of force” is against them.
3. Try any movements that require the use of fine motor skills. When you are put into what your nervous system thinks is a life-or-death struggle, you have a massive adrenaline dump. This is good in one way, it provides for the “fight-or-flight” response which will give you the heightened awareness to survive. But it is bad, as adrenaline degrades your fine motor skills too rapidly to render them useful. The fine book “Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge” talks about this in great detail.

What To Do:

Attack his weakest areas with gross motor movements. An old military maxim is to destroy the enemy’s systems, is to destroy the enemy. Your attacker’s systems here are: his vision, his breathing and his mobility.

His vision: Attacking his eyes with a finger jab is one of the best means of dropping a big guy. Bruce Lee’s favorite technique was the finger jab, deployed with an open hand, with the fingers outstretched. Just think of it as a jab would be in Western boxing, but rather with the fingers - flicking them into the opponent’s eyes. To avoid telegraphing the move, try to come upwards on a 45 degree angle, rather than horizontally. Not much force is needed to create an opening for escape.

His Breathing: A solid strike upwards into his nose with the heel of your palm will generate enough force to break his nose and cause temporary breathing issues. Forget the urban myth of driving the nose bone into the brain. The thing about the palm heel strike is that a) you dont have to learn to punch like a boxer, and b) you can deliver maximum force while not having to worry about hurting your hand. I once saw a 250-260 pound bully get dropped by a little 160 pound guy with one shot with this move! Lean into it and make sure that your feet, hips and torso are all into it.

His Mobility: Here we are talking about on of the hardest targets to block - the knees. The best way to attack them is with a low-line side kick, while leaning away from your attacker. Again, the incomparable wisdom of Bruce Lee - the side kick to the knee was one of the three favorite self-defense moves he advocated. (besides the finger jab to the eye and the vertical fist jab)

*dislcaimer* You could seriously injure someone if you dont use force judiciously. You and you alone are responsible for your actions. This level of force again, should only be used when there is no chance of avoidance or evasion/escape - which is really what self defense is all about!

For years criminals have been using so-called bump keys to defeat most of the standard locks, which are no doubt the same class of locks and deadbolts you probably have on your house right now. Any sort of conventional pin and tumbler lock is vulnerable to a common key which the crook has modified into a so-called “bump key”.

What a bump key is, is nothing more than an ordinary key that has had its teeth filed down to the depth of the inner groove which runs along the length of the key. Again, the Net is rife with examples demonstrating how make a bump key.

What you need to know is that this type of threat can be totally eliminated with higher-end locks and deadbolts like Medeco locks and Schlage Primus line. And yes, having a monitored home alarm system can add to the security that high end locks can offer. So can home safes, diversion safes, neighborhood watch programs, and doing whatever you can to avoid making it easy for a thief to target you in the first place.

How much is home security worth to you?

Some of us are not a good fit for doing some jobs around the home that require “handyman” type skills. Fortunately there is no shortage of online how-to guides with thorough instructions on how to install locks in your home.

Installing Doorknobs and Locks is one, and another top-notch how-to video guide is How to Install a Deadbolt Lock.

An interesting study of the physiological changes within the body when threatened with a life endangering situation:
“In the study of combat human factors, one of the most challenging problems has always been how to validate the survival stress response.”
Combat Human Factors: Triggering the Survival Circuit.

Muay Thai is perhaps one of the most practical martial arts you can learn, besides also being one of the best workouts you can imagine! Learn to use your head, fists, elbows, knees and feet as weapons, plus also the rigorous conditioning techniques that go along with the art in this free Muay Thai e-book!

Sometimes cheap can be better. Rather than spending a pile of cash on an obvious home safe, or a floor safe which can be easily detected, a fake receptacle safe can be the way to go. You can purchase something like the one pictured above, or craft your own by disconnecting or hiding the wiring and using an empty receptacle box. OR maybe even get a drywall saw and “install” a new receptacle for The dimensions of such a unit usually are 5″ high x 3.5″ wide x 2.5″ deep. That’s plenty of space to hide your wedding rings, heirloom jewellery or any stash you want to keep others from finding.

Most police statistics on home burglaries state that the average time a burglar spends in your home is less than 5-6 minutes, so its not likely that they will go removing all the receptacle covers inside your home to see if they are real. Just find the most out of the way spot to install it and away you go - to more peace of mind.

The following is a list of some basic ideas to implement and hopefully get your creativity flowing into thinking of ways to live safely:

1. Limit the amount of duplicates and access of your keys and keypad passwords.
2. Never ever hide keys outside. If you absolutely have to, don’t hide them all in the same place.
3. always have multiple locks.
4. Get into the habit of keeping windows and doors locked, even in the summer months.
5. Consider installing double cylinder locks and deadbolts.
6. Install extra locks on windows and doors.
7. Be careful not to let shrubs and bushes around the house offer a potential burglar cover keep them trimmed at a conservative height and width.
8. Never throw personal mail in the garbage shred or burn it instead!
9. Enter into a safe watch agreement with the neighbours to keep an eye on each other.
10. Never list your telephone number.
11. Be especially vigilant of people who try to gain access to your home who might be posing as utility company personnel. This is a favorite tactic used against seniors. Check their identification through your door peephole viewer.
12. Always keep pen and paper handy, or even a digital camera to record any suspicious activity, and try to get license numbers, etc.
13. Record all of your home electronics equipment with serial number engraving kits, and also make a video recording of your possessions and hide it in an inconspicuous place, after labelling it something innocuous and totally uninviting like "Aunt Hilda’s Wedding, 1979".
14. Never cooperate with telephone surveys or telemarketers. You have nothing to gain from this, plus, your time is far too valuable!
15. Never fall for a stranger asking for help if you are alone, or are not around witnesses.
16. Keep a mental picture of the area around the perimeter of your home and the items in it. Have they been moved? Could they have been moved into *that place* or *that position* by you or a member of your family?
17. Get to know the traffic patterns in your neighborhood and the vehicles that normally are around.
18. Vary your route when coming to and going home. Try to take different routes to and from work and try to vary your routine a bit. Remember, most breakins occur during daylight hours, or when thieves are most sure that you will not be home. Assume that they "cased" (staked out) your home.
19. Keep an eye out for someone following you, Without sounding alarmist, if you are a single female travelling alone and suspect you are being followed, make a series of turns, and if the car is still behind you in a way that defies logic, then bolt to the nearest police station. Also, try to think of potential "safe havens" on your way to and from on your daily routes.
20. If you are accosted or physically threatened, always yell "FIRE" and never "HELP". Not that I have a totally dim view of humanity, but I bet more people will respond to the former as it includes their own self interest.
21. Park as close to the store as possible, and never in dark areas.
22. Don’t let yourself run below a half a tank of gas, you might need to do some driving you haven’t planned on due to some unforeseen emergency like a medical situation, etc.
23. Never open suspicious mail.
24. Build a safe room in your home, or, if you live in an apartment, plan an escape route to a friend’s house or somewhere safe.
25. Create or join a neighborhood watch program.
26. Maintain good lighting around all areas of your home: garden, garage, etc. If you live in an apartment building, make sure that the halls, parking lots, etc are all well lit.
27. Try putting a few of your inside lights and appliances on timers. They are pretty cheap, like under ten US dollars.
28. If you go on holidays, get neighbors to check on your home, and maybe even park in your driveway. keep the place "busy" looking,full of activity and unpredictable.
29. Use a home alarm. Period.
30. Try using a security camera, or even setting up a DIY camera system.
31. Watch the level of junk mail in your mailbox this is often a signal of nobody home. Keep batteries in your flashlights working! Same goes for smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors.
32. Practice fire drills with your family. And create some incentives for the kids to make it fun for them!
33. Always have a cell phone on hand.
34. Put emergency telephone numbers in your speed dial, or even better, memorize them.
35. Be wary of anything in the house that can be used as a weapon against you. Keep kitchen knives out of plain view, but somewhere where you can access them immediately if you need too.
36. Never put your name on your mailbox or a sign outside your home.

Most police burglary statistics today estimate that in some areas over 50% of home burglaries are caused by a technique known as “lock bumping”. The average home out there has three locks, the majority of which are Yale “rim style” locks, which are the most vulnerable to bump keys.

The tool used in lock bumping is a so-called “bump key” - a special key that is created by filing down a regular key which would normally be used for that type of lock. If you hear a locksmith referring to a “999″ key, they are talking about a bump key, as the maximum setting a locksmith uses to file a key down to would be a number “9″ setting which files the key right down to the rim.

How Lock Bumping Works

Understanding how lockbumping works one has to have some knowledge of how the vulnerability of certain lock functions leave you wide open to a home burglary. The most widely used locks are cylinder locks, which offer good security against old school lockpicking techniques, but fail against bump keys.

Inside a cylinder lock, there is a barrel mechanism that turn inside a cylinder. When the barrel is turned clockwise 180 degrees, it releases the bolt, allowing the door to open.

The function of a normal key is that the pins which restrict the barrel from turning are regulated to the correct height by the corresponding grooves (the so-called “shear line” of a lock) on the key. The pins are prevented from moving past the shear line by pins known as driver pins, which prevent the barrel from being rotated past a certain point - the very mechanism that makes the lock “lock”!

Having the right key for the lock, regulates the driver pins because of its multiple ridges, as they push the driver pins to the right height for the barrel to rotate and open the lock.

Notice in the image how the locks barrel turns and traps the pins at the shear line in a proper alignment. From here all the key does is lever that rotates the barrel.

Learning lock picking is something that requires a fair learning curve, practice, fine motor skills and quite a bit of dexterity. This is not the case with bump keys!

What Makes a Lock Vulnerable to Lock Bumping?

The same innate mechanism of what makes the lock secure is exactly the same thing that makes it vulnerable in the first place! See, the driver pins and key pins all keep contact with one another through a tension created by a spring. They are not designed to separate except for when the cylinder barrel is rotated. Normally one shouldn’t be able to push the key pin without pushing against the driver pin, and also when you push the driver pin too far it blocks the shear line.

Its really an application of Newtonian physics here; when you apply force to one end of a chain of bodies, the force is transferred through the chain down the line towards the last object in the chain, all the while accumulating momentum (force). As the force is transferred from one body to another, the force builds up, thus the last object in the chain will separate from the others with the greatest force and speed (momentum).

The driver pin is what directs the force against the key pins. And with enough sudden force (ie. the “bump”), all the pins will all follow in line down past the shear line, leaving the driver pins still hovering above the shear line. The reason that all the cuts on a bump key are filed to the maximum depth (remember, the number “9″ setting?) – is because it is totally undesirable to push the driver pin down at all just in case it shifts past the shear line before the “Bump” has the chance to start the momentum.

There you go! The lock to your home has now been compromised in an instant! Your lock has now been compromised, and although just for an instant, it is long enough to allow the barrel to rotate past the shear line, and once that is done there is no further defense in place to prevent the barrel completing its turn and activating the bolt.

The Lock Bumping Technique Itself

The whole deal behind being able to bump a lock successfully is applying the force properly. After inserting the key in the lock, the key must be pulled back from the lock by one notch, giving you the space which allows you to create the momentum necessary by giving it a firm, but controlled strike into a full and deeply inserted position. One has to apply a rotational pressure on the pins to trap the key pins below the shear line, but not that much pressure that would hold the pins in place.The key hits the rim of the lock, comes to a sudden stop, which transfers the force through the notches down through the driver pins, and then to the key pins. Voila!

Proven Ways to Combat Lock Bumping

If you find yourself the victim of a home burglary which was carried out by lock bumping, the most terrible thing is, as you have probably guessed, is that there are no apparent signs of break in. There are no signs of forced entry: kicked in doors, no broken windows, etc. This will create hassles with insurance companies for sure, as most of them will do anything to avoid a claim.

The ways to protect yourself against lock bumping like getting high end locks, like mortise locks and/or installing home surveillance or home alarm monitoring systems. A new and ingenius invention looks like a much cheaper alternative than any of those to defeat lock bumping is a product called “Pickbuster“. There is even an infomercial video set up on You Tube about it as well:

There are innumerable reasons why one would suddenly want to drop out of society, vanish completely and never be found and hide in plain sight. These could range from moral and completely understandable reasons, to the immoral and utterly despicable copouts. For example, one individual wants to hide from persons who want to harm them, while another simply wants to hide from or shirk their responsibilities to others, like paying debts, support, bill collectors, loan sharks, bail bondsmen, etc.

Although movies and fiction have popularized and to some degree, romanticized stories of people who have disappeared completely, simply dropping out of sight is a complicated affair that one needs to plan fastidiously for. The planning and execution of staging your complete disappearance and eventual “rebirth”, has to effectively run its course through four stages: affirming your purpose, destroying your history, scrambling your trail, and then resurfacing.

For all of us, the one thing that stands between our loved ones and valuables is most often just a good lock. Locksmiths use lock picking techniques to let us back into our homes whenever we loose our keys. Like with all other sources of technical knowledge, lockpicking can also be used for nefarious purposes.

Since most locks are based on pretty similar concepts, You would be surprised how easy it is for someone to learn how to pick a lock, especially with the Net being full of how-to guides on the subject: The MIT Guide to Lock Picking.

Alternatives to this home security vulnerability is to get a keypad entry system, use home safes or diversion safes and install a video surveillance system.