Given that the robot's software can be programmed to guess PINs in any order the user chooses, it may be able to crack phones far faster than that 20 hour benchmark.

Admittedly, this isn't the most elegant security threat we've ever seen, but it works. Meet R2B2, a 3D printed robot that punches PIN combination after ...

Designed by a hacker, the "Combo Breaker" can figure out a lock's combination and get the thing open in less than 30 seconds.

In short, that means Seidle’s robot can quickly reduce the safe’s possible combinations to 1,089—33x33x1—meaning it takes, at most, 72 minutes to try each one.

Security researchers have built a robot with one goal in mind: to crack your smartphone’s PIN. Using 3D-printed parts, servomotors, a plastic stylus, an Arduino microcontroller, and a cheap ...

Nathan Seidle’s wife gave him this already locked safe as a gift with no combination. Weird present, but he loves a good challenge. So he built a safecracking robot.

Watch the video from WIRED below to see Seidle's robot in action, which effectively whittled a four-month safecracking project down to an impressive 15-minute job.