Cufflinks that open hand-cuffs

Coming soon from Sparrows Lock Picks: a $59 pair of cufflinks that integrate a set of handcuff keys. Yet another reason to regret the fact that none of my shirts have French cuffs.

Upon first glance, The Sparrows UNCUFF LINK appears to be a standard pair of cuff links. However, a covert, hidden handcuff key has been engineered in to the design. This concealed hand cuff key will to open almost all Standard Hand cuffs. It’s also designed to hold your French Cuffs closed. A must have for any international SPY or the average citizen looking for some styling carbon fiber inlaid cuff links that happen to open Hand cuffs.
*WARNING: The use of this product under some circumstances may result in you being shot.*
Don’t Break the LAW

SPARROWS UNCUFF LINK (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: fashion • Gadgets • gift guide • happy mutants • locks

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

ethicalcannibal

These seem like they could be a cool DIY project, actually.
http://imcravingpresidency.tumblr.com/ SedanChair

I can just see some drunk banker trying to use these in the back of a cop car. “Screw you pig I’m out of here. I’m OUT OF HERE MAN I’M GOING GALT” *writhes around trying to open handcuffs*
- nixiebunny
  
  GODDAMMIT where is the door handle?
- eldritch
  
  Why would a banker, drunk or otherwise, be in the back of a cop car in the first place? Short of something like murder or grand embezzlement, that is.
  
  They can get away with selling this because the sort of people who routinely wear cufflinks are exactly the sort of people who don’t NEED keys to hand cuffs (short of fetish play). When you can pay or influence your way out of trouble, you don’t get arrested for anything that isn’t REALLY important. I’ve witnessed it personally, sadly.
  
  Now if they were selling hoodies or athletic shoes with lockpicks secreted away inside them, there’d be hell to pay…
  - SamSam
    
    Bankers snap and and commit stupid crimes and get thrown in the back of police cars too, you know. It’s not just something that happens to the hoodie-wearing lower classes…
    - dragonfrog
      
      I suppose it may be true – they just get off without punishment, because the fact of having been arrested is “punishment enough” for some reason.
  - Lupus_Yonderboy
    
    Huh, the intarwebs say that I only have Amazon to pay.
    
    http://www.amazon.com/Zipper-Pull-Non-Metallic-Covert-Handcuff-Lanyard/dp/B005IQSRA6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1353021835&sr=8-2&keywords=covert+handcuff+key
    
    Although, given the working conditions in their warehouses, I guess hell is as good a modifier as any.
http://www.hisnameistimmy.com Tim in SF

If you can get yourself out of handcuffs, you are more than likely to be tased shortly thereafter. Or shot.
Ramone

So they’re Anti-Hand-Cuff-Links? Cool!
HDN

Heck be nice to have to just loosen them up after the bastards crank them down on you. I don’t need to escape, just some relief, hypothetically.
gumbowing

Just the thing for felonious plutocrats. Even so, expensive lawyers and lots of money beat handcuff keys every time.
vintermann

I think that as a matter of principle, one should not use the passive voice in that manner, as it downplays the actor’s free choice in the matter. Especially when it comes to something as serious as shooting, that’s bad.

So instead I would say, “Some people might decide to shoot you”. Even if you comply with a threat of violence, never accept the logic that his actions are caused by you rather than him.
- bkad
  
  That’s an interesting thought. I hadn’t thought about that before.
  
  Though I think in the case where you picked your cuffs while in police custody, and are shot or tazed by the police because they are threatened by your unexpected freedom (and apparent criminal intent, for both the foresight to have these keys and the bad judgment to use them while in custody) — in that case, I think that event IS caused by you.
snagglepuss

And Q never thought of this. Some secret-agent gadjet-monger he turned out to be,
- http://profiles.google.com/spacewatcer Marios P.
  
  He should be fired
- http://twitter.com/stuck411 David
  
  Q put a laser into a Rolex and a diamond honed saw into an Omega. (I think those were the watches.) Q preferred overkill.
- welcomeabored
  
  I love to watch the new Daniel Craig Bond movies for the action, but I wish the storylines were more clever. The new ‘Q’ is played by Ben Whishaw, only 32 years old. Wouldn’t the old ‘key in the cufflinks’ gambit be a bit obvious for this Gen X quartermaster? You would think any Bond villian worth his salt would tell his henchmen, if they’re lucky enough to get Bond in handcuffs, to strip him of any and all things metal, and that Q branch would anticipate this.
  - snagglepuss
    
    Q knows that the more complicated a gadget, the higher the fail rate. (The new generation of Bond movies up the realism, so to speak – At least, in comparison to the Moore / Brosnan shitfests)
    He appreciated Old School simplicity and reliabilty. I’m more concerned with the fact that most cops seem to prefer plastic zipstrips as cuffs these days, an item against which these cufflink-keys are 100% useless.
TheMudshark

I´ll be sure to wear my sunday best to the next riot.
failquail

Can’t help thinking that printing a GIANT LOCK ICON on them kind of defeats the stealthy key aspect of these. :P
- peregrinus
  
  I noticed that too! But then I reflected on the observational capabilities of donuts attempting to recall the Miranda sequence whilst simultaneously applying freedom bracelets, and concluded that no, they’d never notice.
  
  A fine addition to the cufflinks would be a glass-hammer.
  - SamSam
    
    The glass hammer would fit in the heels of the Armani shoes, of course.
http://twitter.com/stuck411 David

Probably more useful for the forgetful bdsm guy in the crowd than for anyone else. Still, swaggingly cool. I’d get a pair. More useful, however, would be a belt with hand cuff key in the belt buckle as well as one concealed in the back for when your hands are cuffed behind you.
welcomeabored

{Reply to David}: Bound but still fully clothed? Hell, international spies are violent, fast, treacherous and resourceful (also devastatingly handsome and consummate lovers). One can understand when a super villain and his henchmen inevitably lose, but a dominatrix that fails to maintain control? What is the world coming to?