7 ms·

In today's world, the culprit will probably be found, expelled and jailed for 20 years

jimrandomh 9y ago
> "Crans, the director of facilities, said he had considered reviewing surveillance video, but that it is not “a serious enough issue.”"
- arkades 9y ago
  That was a relief. As I read the article I had this ratcheting tension as I kept expecting the next sentence to be about some irrationally overblown response from the admin.
  - aikinai 9y ago
    I had the exact same reaction reading this. I couldn't enjoy the story until I knew there wasn't an ongoing manhunt. And even then, I was sad that I had to worry so much about the overreaction so still couldn't enjoy it.
- jotux 9y ago
  Additionally: >Cornell Police Deputy Chief David Honan said CUPD had received no reports regarding the devices.
- protomyth 9y ago
  The hero of the story. I can see a lot of places that would find the prankster and subject them to all sorts of punishment for creating "terrorist" devices. Its nice to see an administrator that keeps a reasonable perspective.
  - Uhhrrr 9y ago
    I wonder if he owns a soldering iron?
    - protomyth 9y ago
      He probably didn't do it (security cams and all), but I would bet he wished he had done it. A little chaos and mystery never hurt anyone. Tis a shame people cannot handle the little mysteries anymore.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
Put a week long sleep before it starts going off.
- ratsimihah 9y ago
  How long do batteries last on these kinda circuits? Also, is there such a thing as a low power trigger that can turn on a device that consumes more power? I guess I could google that up.
  - leggomylibro 9y ago
    Most MCUs these days have sleep/stop/wakeup functionality. Basically, they can consume astonishingly small amounts of power while waiting on a trigger - usually on a GPIO pin - to wake it back up. Some MCUs also include a built-in realtime clock peripheral, often with options for running it off a separate backup power supply such as a coin cell. Those RTC peripherals can often serve the same 'wakeup' functionality without even using an external pin. So the device can setup its RTC, set an alarm for a week in the future, and then go into a very low-power sleep mode. For example, the STM32F030 or 031 would work, although their 32-bit 48MHz cores would be overkill for this application. But they are ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-M0+ which includes an onboard RealTime Clock peripheral and consumes like 5uA in deep sleep. I think TI's MSP432 lines are even more power efficient, but I don't know much about those chips.
    - markrages 9y ago
      You don't need ARM for this. A tiny PIC would be a better choice for it. (Less silicon area means less leakage current.)
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - thesmok 9y ago
    MCUs have a low power sleep mode in which their timer still runs so they can be waken up periodically.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
You're being melodramatic, but that's almost happened before: https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1f86yl/tifu_by_playing_a_thinkgeek_practical_joke_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1f86yl/tifu_by_playin... tl;dr Redditor puts annoyatron in Canadian office. Someone finds it and thinks it might be an espionage device, so sends pictures to the RCMP. RCMP thinks it might be a bomb, sweeps the building. OP somehow doesn't get fired. Obviously it's a reddit story, so take it with a few grains of salt.

> "Crans, the director of facilities, said he had considered reviewing surveillance video, but that it is not “a serious enough issue.”"

arkades 9y ago
That was a relief. As I read the article I had this ratcheting tension as I kept expecting the next sentence to be about some irrationally overblown response from the admin.
- aikinai 9y ago
  I had the exact same reaction reading this. I couldn't enjoy the story until I knew there wasn't an ongoing manhunt. And even then, I was sad that I had to worry so much about the overreaction so still couldn't enjoy it.
jotux 9y ago
Additionally: >Cornell Police Deputy Chief David Honan said CUPD had received no reports regarding the devices.
protomyth 9y ago
The hero of the story. I can see a lot of places that would find the prankster and subject them to all sorts of punishment for creating "terrorist" devices. Its nice to see an administrator that keeps a reasonable perspective.
- Uhhrrr 9y ago
  I wonder if he owns a soldering iron?
  - protomyth 9y ago
    He probably didn't do it (security cams and all), but I would bet he wished he had done it. A little chaos and mystery never hurt anyone. Tis a shame people cannot handle the little mysteries anymore.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

Put a week long sleep before it starts going off.

ratsimihah 9y ago
How long do batteries last on these kinda circuits? Also, is there such a thing as a low power trigger that can turn on a device that consumes more power? I guess I could google that up.
- leggomylibro 9y ago
  Most MCUs these days have sleep/stop/wakeup functionality. Basically, they can consume astonishingly small amounts of power while waiting on a trigger - usually on a GPIO pin - to wake it back up. Some MCUs also include a built-in realtime clock peripheral, often with options for running it off a separate backup power supply such as a coin cell. Those RTC peripherals can often serve the same 'wakeup' functionality without even using an external pin. So the device can setup its RTC, set an alarm for a week in the future, and then go into a very low-power sleep mode. For example, the STM32F030 or 031 would work, although their 32-bit 48MHz cores would be overkill for this application. But they are ultra-low-power ARM Cortex-M0+ which includes an onboard RealTime Clock peripheral and consumes like 5uA in deep sleep. I think TI's MSP432 lines are even more power efficient, but I don't know much about those chips.
  - markrages 9y ago
    You don't need ARM for this. A tiny PIC would be a better choice for it. (Less silicon area means less leakage current.)
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- thesmok 9y ago
  MCUs have a low power sleep mode in which their timer still runs so they can be waken up periodically.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

You're being melodramatic, but that's almost happened before: https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1f86yl/tifu_by_playing_a_thinkgeek_practical_joke_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/tifu/comments/1f86yl/tifu_by_playin... tl;dr Redditor puts annoyatron in Canadian office. Someone finds it and thinks it might be an espionage device, so sends pictures to the RCMP. RCMP thinks it might be a bomb, sweeps the building. OP somehow doesn't get fired. Obviously it's a reddit story, so take it with a few grains of salt.