Nobody could agree where the name came from. Some said it was a handle built out of code — “nckreader,” a scraper of things meant to stay hidden; “samlock,” a nod to a locksmith who never used metal. Others swore it was older, a folk-ghost born from failed privacy systems and the pockets of hackers who liked to leave a calling card. What mattered less was truth and more the magnetism of the rumor: where samlock went, locked things opened, and where samlock looked, patterns unfurled like maps.