Yes, every lock can be picked. That is the nature of secure systems; nothing is 100% secure. Sometimes picking it takes far more work than the other methods, but it's always available.
The first lock listed, while unusual, isn't some uncrackable snowflake. It's a tubular lock, and you pick it the same way you pick any tubular lock. I've picked tubular locks with 6 pins, 4 settings per pin, so 4,096 combinations. Do you think it took me infinity time? No, it took me about half an hour on the first try. I'm pretty bad at picking locks, and I was using the wrong tools, but it really didn't take very long. That lock takes longer, but it's not an exponential increase. The way you pick a lock (if you're doing it manually) is you try every pin and see which one sticks. Then you try all the remaining pins and see which one sticks. Then the remaining, and so on, until you crack it. So it's not a question of 6 positions ^ 26 pins, it's a question of 26 + 25 +24 +23 +22 +21 + 20. Longer than 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1, but not so much that anyone should be talking about infinity.
Yes, that first lock also uses special tools. My normal pick wouldn't fit in there. But a sewing needle would. The only issue is getting torque. I expect any runner to be able to solve that problem with or without the lockpicking skill. As a GM, my ruling would be lockpicking skill applies (if you have it -- I run SR3, where lockpicking is a specialty skill not listed in the main book), with a penalty for it being freaky.
The second lock is different. The functionality is the same as a conventional lock, but its keyway makes access hard. So this isn't a skill question, but a tool question. Lockpicking skill applies, but you need a tool to be able to reach it. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what I'd use in my real-life setting (but I've never had a chance to handle that lock either). So that would be a chance for the players to do a little puzzle-solving and invent (or do the footwork prior to acquire) a tool with that degree of fine manipulation, while still being able to make it around curves. Plus some pretty significant penalties for the weird angle/leverage.
These arguments of a lock being unpickable (barring of course combination locks, which aren't pickable, they're crackable
) is, I suspect, rooted in ignorance on the functionality of locks. They're pickable. The question is just what sort of tool, and how long it takes.
The first lock listed, while unusual, isn't some uncrackable snowflake. It's a tubular lock, and you pick it the same way you pick any tubular lock. I've picked tubular locks with 6 pins, 4 settings per pin, so 4,096 combinations. Do you think it took me infinity time? No, it took me about half an hour on the first try. I'm pretty bad at picking locks, and I was using the wrong tools, but it really didn't take very long. That lock takes longer, but it's not an exponential increase. The way you pick a lock (if you're doing it manually) is you try every pin and see which one sticks. Then you try all the remaining pins and see which one sticks. Then the remaining, and so on, until you crack it. So it's not a question of 6 positions ^ 26 pins, it's a question of 26 + 25 +24 +23 +22 +21 + 20. Longer than 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1, but not so much that anyone should be talking about infinity.
Yes, that first lock also uses special tools. My normal pick wouldn't fit in there. But a sewing needle would. The only issue is getting torque. I expect any runner to be able to solve that problem with or without the lockpicking skill. As a GM, my ruling would be lockpicking skill applies (if you have it -- I run SR3, where lockpicking is a specialty skill not listed in the main book), with a penalty for it being freaky.
The second lock is different. The functionality is the same as a conventional lock, but its keyway makes access hard. So this isn't a skill question, but a tool question. Lockpicking skill applies, but you need a tool to be able to reach it. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what I'd use in my real-life setting (but I've never had a chance to handle that lock either). So that would be a chance for the players to do a little puzzle-solving and invent (or do the footwork prior to acquire) a tool with that degree of fine manipulation, while still being able to make it around curves. Plus some pretty significant penalties for the weird angle/leverage.
These arguments of a lock being unpickable (barring of course combination locks, which aren't pickable, they're crackable

And again, in SR universe, a possession spirit or Animate spell alleviates these problems as well.