Wednesday 19 March 2014

A compromised SureLoc?


These two SureLoc padlocks are standard equipment with me every time I go travelling. I had bought them about five years ago because of some assurances on their reliability. And, I've been pretty satisfied with their performances.

It wasn't any different when I used these two padlocks again on my luggage during my wife and I's trip to Hong Kong a few days back. Like what I normally do, I'd zip up my luggages, put the padlocks on and then throw the keys into my pouch, retrieving them only when I reach my destinations.

But after arriving at the Ibis Hong Kong Central and Sheung Wan, I discovered to my horror that I couldn't find the keys to the red padlock. Searched everywhere about my person but still I couldn't find the keys. Have I forgotten to bring them along with me? Horrors, what am I going to do with a locked luggage that could not be opened?

In desperation, I pushed the yellow keys into the red padlock's slot and started jiggling. Suddenly, I felt something had yielded inside. The mechanism must have fallen into place as lo and behold, the padlock snapped open. I gave a big sigh of relief as I quickly unzipped my bag.

However, I am puzzled as to how I could open a padlock with a key that doesn't belong to it. Whether of not both padlocks belong to the same manufacturer was irrelevant. The big concern here was how it could have happened at all. SureLoc is supposed to comply with some standards but I'm able to use a different set of keys to unlock this padlock.

When I got home finally, I searched through my cupboard and sure enough, I found the red padlock's keys there. They opened the red padlock smoothly enough. No jiggling whatsoever. Mmmm....




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