This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

A man walks down a dark alley.

He's dressed all in black, black beanie hat, black gloves.

He approaches a door, drops to one knee, and

produces from his pocket a small metal tool. He inserts the tool into the keyhole.

He deftly slides the tool around inside the keyhole until.

He's in. Security has been breached.

But only in the movies, because prospective lock pickers take note,

you generally can't do that with just a pick, or a hairpin, or a paper clip.

There are two tools you need to pick a lock,

and one of them is usually left out.

When you see people picking locks in movies,

this is the part they always forget.

The tension wrench.

This is a tension wrench. It's an L-shaped piece of metal with a little

twist in it. An L-shaped piece of metal that with one hand you insert at the bottom of the

keyhole while the other hand uses the pick to work the pins in the lock.

And hold the lock with a little bit of rotational tension.

That, by the way, is Lee Honeywell, showing our producer Sam Greenspan how to pick a lock.

Lee is a digital security expert and amateur lock-picking instructor.

I taught a bunch of people how to pick locks at a feminist science fiction convention one year.

I met Lee at her office in San Francisco. We sat in a conference room among

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