Practically speaking, this means that poorly resourced individuals and groups with cheap, old computers are able to encipher their messages to an extent that they cannot be deciphered by all the secret police in the world, even if they employ every computer ever built in a gigantic, decades-long project to force the locks off the intercepted message.
That brought the senior Iraqi officer who runs the directorate, Gen. Hussam Muhammad Amin, hastening to the site carrying a hand drill, presumably to force the locks, as well as Miroslav Gregoric, the Yugoslavian-born official who is the director of the weapons inspection team's Baghdad headquarters.
The supply store was entered by forcing the lock on the front door, investigators said.
From there, the burglar or burglars forced the lock on the rear door of the Cooper Gallery, Mr. McGill said.
One refinement was to conceal the keyhole by secret shutters, another was to provide blind keyholes, which forced the lock picker to waste time and effort.
But Pop went over to the Chinese-style cabinet or étagère and tried the handle, and then opened the blade of his penknife and in a second had forced the lock of the curved glass door.
Arabella Weir, who happens to be strolling past, suggests putting a half tennis ball over the lock, "then smash it with the palm of your hand and the air pressure forces the lock up".
Firefighters, also unable to contact the spa attendant, forced the lock of the spa door from the street and, once inside the spa, released me from the chamber.
If you are worried about someone picking or forcing the lock -- which is generally easy to do -- use more secure locks including ones considered pick-resistant.
