On teh subject of padlocks
when I started teaching I was an IT teacher - I was given 2 wheeled cabinets containing 25 laptops
The cabinets had padlocks on them so they could be locked up over lunch and after school
as soon as we saw them the Head of IT and me both commented "what idiot decided a combination padlock was a good idea with kids around"
On top of which the "IT Support" (which was rubbish - we looked after ourselves!) insisted on keeping the special ket needed to change the combination so we couldn;t even change it every few weeks!
Well - I had one class of 15/16 year old for a lot of lessons every week - you can probably see where this is going
now - I wasn;t stupid - the padlocks were stored on the hasp - but locked and with the combination rings spun round to a random point
anyway - after quite a few weeks I noticed something weird about one of the padlocks
after the kids had left I looked and realised the padlock had been opened but left looking closed but actually opened so I would notice it when I came to use it myself - but not obvious to anyone else
Personally I thought that was well done - so when I had them next I said so
One kid admitted that every time I turned my back he had another go at the padlock - started at 0000 and just worked his way up
took him WEEKS to crack it and he needed to make sure the piece of paper he kept showing how far he had got was kept safe
Pretty impressive
We asked the IT Support to come and change the number but they refused - which was weird
anyway - a few weeks later I had to go on a course for a day
when I came back this lad was dying to tell be something - and he was obviously not happy about it
turns out that the school had brought in a supply teacher - as usual - so the Head of Department had told her the combination
but she didn;t want to write ti down in case the kids found it so she memorised it
and was heard walking around the room during the lesson muttering the number
so all that work by this lad was wasted - he heard her muttering the number he had spent weeks cracking!!!
we did have an interesting discussion about secuity and stuff with the class
anyway - what was the topic???
Ughh, locks at work were a constant bane between people losing their keys or forgetting their tumbler code erc etc. We had machines we introduced 'locks' into the screens to prevent unauthorised access to settings. A very specific button press sequence was needed to unlock.
One of our machine ops proudly stood there about a week later...I unlocked it 😀
He had all shift to play with little supervision and it took him a while but he got there.
It became a disciplinary offence for them to access it shortly after.
Some people's determination cannot be dented
