I'm sure it's highly effective on cooties.

I'm also a New Zealander, with our second most popular ISP. My cap is 60GB and my upstream as fast as ADSL1 will possibly allow. Extra usage costs me $10NZD per 5GB (thanks to the govt, these costs are expected to be reduced to a mere fraction of the current by the end of next year). There is NO traffic shaping on ANY plans offered by my ISP.

I'm really not sure what @HUGH_LILLY is complaining about - aside from temporarily high bandwith costs, we have perfectly acceptable internet access.

This works with both keyed and combination padlocks, though this video makes it look easier to do than in real life. Basically what you are doing with the shim is forcing the triangular locking latch away from the U-bar.

I'd imagine he used a cheap combination lock that had a lot of space between the U-bar and the padlock holes in which to insert the shim.

* Some padlocks use a latch on both sides as a prevention measure, requiring two shims, which is much more difficult given the confined spaces.

* Completely round "security" padlocks combat shims by forcing it to bend into a poor position and crumple (I use one of these).

* A bunch of "Master" brand locks use a straight piece of wire instead of a triangular latch, which is pretty much invulnerable to conventional shim-based attacks. They're also pretty damn hard to break open.