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Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skip fines and get free internet
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoOK, the actual design of the thing where it just uses suction is incredibly idiotic, but the kid who got free wireless internet for months by taking its sim card - that's pretty brilliant.
- Jamwinner 7y agoThe alternative, tire boots, are equally asinine and more likely to damage the car. These seem fractionally better up to the point where they are hacked. Unessarily connected devices are a liability beyond measure, and it floors me that nobody seems to notice.
- cgriswald 7y agoA boot, at least, does not obstruct a now-angry driver's view. I have no doubt people will try to drive away with these devices on their windshield despite the loud noise. It's a recipe for accidents.
- trynewideas 7y agoI appreciate the many definitions of "hacking" and "turn on your defroster for 15 minutes" qualifies as a clever exploit. But at some point a bad product has to be called a bad product. A deterrent that can't deter anyone, but does less damage than a boot, is still useless, not better.
- nickysielicki 7y agoThis is a stupid question, but something I’ve always wondered about is how tow trucks disengage the clutch and/or the parking brake... am I to understand that they simply don’t? So if I park my manual transmission car in reverse and with the parking brake on, they’re just going to literally drag my car to their lot or destroy my gearbox? How is this not a bigger issue?
- sojournerc 7y agoDepends on the car and where it's drive wheels are. Also I think tow drivers are authorized to use a tool to break in to the car (non destructively) to put it in neutral if necessary.
- jimktrains2 7y agoAside: if you ever notice a teeny tiny panel that has a dimple or hole to open it with by the shifter, that's the release for the interlock that prevents changing gears without the keys. That's how you get in neutral when the owner isn't present.
- tclancy 7y agoThy pick it up by the end that actually does the driving. Not sure what happens with full four wheel drive locked. Use a full-size wrecker I suppose.
- ISL 7y ago4WD/AWD cars can be towed by flat-bed, or by putting dollies below the wheels that are on the ground.
- AngryData 7y agoThey will just pick it up from whichever end is the drive side wheel, or they will 'break' into your car and put it in neutral. Depends on the tow business though, around me they only have flat bed haulers so they will just cable your car up and drag it on. Ideally also in neutral, but they would have no problem doing it even with a locked 4 wheel drive vehicle since the cable is lifting a bit up and the tow truck is many times heavier than any consumer vehicle and it isn't enough force at low speed to cause any damage.
- tynpeddler 7y agoThey put carts under the wheels.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
- michaelmrose 7y agoIt's substantially worse because the easier and cheaper it is to extract revenue from you the more people will do it.
- AJ007 7y agoThe SIM card thing might be a felony.
- phkahler 7y agoDidnt a court recently rule that someone taking off a GPS tracker (and throwing it away?) was not theft? My memory is fuzzy on that one.
- acdha 7y agoThat’s different: in this case the student was knowingly using a metered service and would have no reason for doing so other than shifting their cost to someone else.
- FireBeyond 7y agoHow is that analogous to hacking a device so you can tether to it and use its data plan to avoid costs yourself?
- stoops 7y agoThey gave it to him. They put it on his car.
- brokensegue 7y agoIf your car gets booted and you pick the lock to remove it can you now legally sell the boot?
- michaelmrose 7y agoThey abandoned it.
- brokensegue 7y agothe same way the dockless scooter companies abandoned their scooters?
- 14 7y agoThis reminds me of when I was in Hawaii visiting my brother who lived in a high rise building. This was years ago so all I had ever know was the lock and key but his building had key cards and the doors would just unlock with the swipe of a card and you could go to your unit. He explained they are just magnetically locked. I asked well couldn't you just pry them open? We decided to try and sure enough with 2 of use we were able to pull past the strong electromagnet. It didn't really seem overly hard I am sure a strong person could do it alone.
- ISL 7y agoA little mu-metal might be a skeleton key.
- pxx 7y agoThat doesn't seem like they used an electromagnet that was strong enough (an implementation problem rather than a problem with the design). Well-provisioned magnetic door locks should be stronger than the door or a comparable physical lock.
- aninteger 7y agoWhatever happened to parking permits, parking officers, and parking tickets?
- ISL 7y agoBoots are used to ensure compliance from those who would skip parking fines.
- _jal 7y ago"Parking here [inconveniences|isn't fair to|creates danger for] others, so if you leave your car here, we will make the situation worse by ensuring the alleged harm will continue longer than it otherwise would." Yes, something something deterrence. Again, in reality, the article explains how that played out. Proper law enforcement isn't cheap, and if it is a profit center, you don't have peace officers, you have highwaymen.
- Sharlin 7y agoThe article says that this was used on cars that already had three unpaid parking fines on record.
- jabl 7y agoYeah, I'm wondering the same thing. Over here,I've never seen boots, barnacles or any such devices. Refusing to pay your ticket is just like not paying your bills. They'll send a reminder bill to your home address a few times,just in case you have forgotten or misplaced the bill/ticket, then it's over to some company that specializes in getting people to pay unpaid bills, and eventually if you still refuse you end up in court and the government makes you pay one way or another.
- awillen 7y ago"a user who found out his campus only had 12 wheel boots to go around and bought and illegally parked 12 scrapyard cars that could be “sacrificed” so everyone else could park however they wanted." Not all heroes wear capes.
- dilippkumar 7y agoYou beat me to it by a minute. +1
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- faitswulff 7y agoMaybe this one does.
- chrisseaton 7y agoWhy is everyone in this thread celebrating people who park selfishly?! Taking up spaces with abandoned cars is a particularly miserable thing to do that makes the original underlying problem worse!
- teej 7y agoBecause using scrap cars to exhaust the barnacle supply is a hilarious way to hack the system for the benefit of other students.
- ISL 7y agoLike adversaries who attempt to outrun a radio, "outsmarting" law enforcement who have your license-plate number is a generally poor strategy. Likewise, putting the police-department's SIM in your phone has some pretty clear downsides.
- lacker 7y agoIt isn’t actually law enforcement, though. It’s some division of the university which is enforcing parking rules.
- Scoundreller 7y agoRight, but student codes of conduct may have a word about that. My guess was that the university couldn’t really enforce its paper tickets because they weren’t real police, so they resorted to boots and barnacles.
- Symbiote 7y agoI think my university made it a condition of graduation that any outstanding fines were paid. Of course, since it was in London, the only student I ever met with a car had a serious physical disability.
- novok 7y agoI would think most businesses have a civil court case as part of an agreement you sign as you become a student of the school? Or businesses in general with trespass law?
- eptcyka 7y agoI don't believe campus police actually has any legal power. It also isn't the police department's SIM card, Barnacle owns it - of course it's still considered theft.
- imglorp 7y agoIt's worse than legal trouble. They hold your graduation until you return all library books, pay all debts, fines, and interest, etc etc.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bluntfang 7y agoIs scofflaw parking really that big of an issue at OSU? This seems antagonistic towards the students.
- philshem 7y agothe article states that > After “receiving feedback from the community” – that is, having its new parking enforcement method thwarted – OU has decided to pause the trial use of the five devices it’d borrowed from the Barnacle’s manufacturer. so I would guess it has to do more with aggressive sales tactics
- philshem 7y agogood content, but here is all of the content in one tweet https://twitter.com/saallyjohnsonn/status/1217190703392067584 https://twitter.com/saallyjohnsonn/status/121719070339206758...
- Scoundreller 7y agoThis is just a bunch of unverified reddit/Twitter reposts. I’m sure the defrost trick works in winter, but it won’t work as well in summer.
- barnaclebuster 7y agoI suspect in warm climates, the sun will save you the trouble of the defroster, especially if they fit it in the morning when it is cooler and you come back in the late afternoon when the car is at its hottest to reduce the vacuum pressure and the seal rubber at its most pliable due to the heat.
- Scoundreller 7y agoIf parked outdoors. One of the OU pictures in the article shows indoor parking. I’m the wacko that leaves the windows open a crack if it’s sunny enough and not going to rain.
- jjeaff 7y agoI doubt the defroster trick is as much about expanding what little air is left under the suction cup and more about making the rubber plyable enough to lift an edge enough to break the seal. So summer should be quite a bit easier.
- boomersooner 7y agoThe animosity towards OU parking is real. When I was there 15 years ago, the big deal was that fines were cheaper than a pass, so why bother? Parking costs are crazy for a suburban school, and parking enforcement is used as a money maker. Last I checked, they were building buildings in parking lots without replacing those spaces. <insert rant on the issues of higher ed financing>
- WarOnPrivacy 7y agoLearning to solve IRL problems - that absolutely need solving - is why we send them to college. I couldn't be more proud.
- xyst 7y agomeh - one can argue with the advent of the internet the entire college system is a farce. College at this point is just for building your network and securing that “dream job” because employers like to check off those boxes instead of actually finding qualified applicants. Although there is one thing that you can’t teach or learn which is having common sense or the ability to apply theories in practice.
- the8472 7y agoPeople still need motivation to learn. Just because the knowledge is available doesn't mean they'll ingest it on their own. College may provide a structured environment helping with that. Or in this case a different kind of motivation to learn.
- yellow_lead 7y agoI do think paying for something is a great motivator. When you pay for college, the risk of failing is you wasting your money. When you pay for therapy, the risk of not doing as the therapist suggests is you wasting your money as well. Of course, I dont think college needs to be on the "life-crippling debt" scale of payment for this to work.
- JCharante 7y agoAlthough online tutors/teachers are pretty effective since you usually don't make physical contact with your teachers but they still provide the motivation and structure. Oh, I suppose that's what an online degree is. You'd just have to work on making exams cheat resistant.
- chrismcb 7y agoWell you pointed out one reason a in person school is better than the internet. I think having a face to face teacher is a big help, plus students you can easily interact with helps as well. And shoot isn't that the whole point of college, to have a discourse? I think to many people attend college, and it is to expensive. But I don't think the internet has obviated the classroom.
- cortesoft 7y ago> Obviously, some students thought that fee was ridiculous – just like paying for parking at a university where you’re already paying a hefty tuition fee I hate parking fees as much as the next person, and totally appreciate the creativity of the people who defeated this device. However, how should we handle distributing a limited number of parking spaces when there are more people who want to park than available spaces? If we just say "free to park anywhere!", then there is a good chance you come to school and can't park anywhere (especially if you are not there super early) You could do a lottery, I guess, but then people who don't need parking might enter the lottery and then sell their spot... making parking even more expensive. Parking fees seem like a fair way to distribute the limited resource.
- appleiigs 7y agoIsn’t “first come first serve” fair?
- klodolph 7y agoIt doesn’t seem fair to me, it seems like it favors people who have early classes or live on early schedules.
- appleiigs 7y agoIf the parking fees are too low, it’ll just turn into first-come-first-serve. If you have high fees, you’d be just transferring the scare resource to the rich. And the people who can’t afford it are forced to figure something less convenient out.
- g82918 7y agoImagine a doctor working at two hospitals who has to move his car from one location to the other mid-day between surgeries. Is it more fair for him to have a worse parking spot and take longer to get to the operating room because he didn't park there earlier? Or should spots be given based on need?
- 7y ago
- millzlane 7y agoThey even ticket employee's cars that are breaking the parking rules on campus.
- nimbius 7y agoWhen I first saw these touted a few years ago I'd imagined they would be fairly trivial to bypass. - light oil or penetrating oil can be used to bypass the gasket. If it will remove decals or stickers, this thing doesnt stand a chance. - exploiting the coefficient of expansion for gasses (as these brilliant students did) is absolutely an option. - keeping your windshield wipers up would prevent use of the device. - running some 4lb test fishing line taped against your windshield would allow, once placed, the gasket to be defeated by just lifting up on it. and as always, remember, manufacturers are bound to use a specific set of locks and bolts. Torx security are inexpensive and a barrel lock impression tool is about ten dollars. disclosure: As an automotive mechanics apprentice, ive had to remove way more tenacious crap from windshields than this thing.
- StavrosK 7y ago> keeping your windshield wipers up would prevent use of the device. Until the person putting the thing on just raised them.
- petee 7y agoI think penetrating oil would be counterintuitive, as it would just provide a better airtight seal, your best bet in that case is that we would slide more easily and maybe up and over the window edge gasket to break the seal
- crystaldev 7y agoThere's an entire industry of selling snake-oil Batman shit like this to law enforcement/mall cops. It's a delightful fusion of ill will, they operate with minimal oversight and get to take advantage of government (procurement), law enforcement (mostly ignorant of tech), and the good 'ol citizenry (cast as cattle as usual). I love how, when one of these places recruits you, it takes forever to learn what they're about, because their website is nothing but euphemisms.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI tried to warn the auto-industry about this windshield vulnerability for decades. But they all laughed at my dystopian future of crooks running around demanding ransoms to remove their suction hardware.
- salawat 7y agoIt is downright amazing how much information asymmetry is seen as a prerequisite to maintain law and order. For instance, implementation details of devices being leaked are a surefire way of obviating any mitigatory measure employed to coerce cooperation out of an uninformed population. The irony of this happening at a University, an Institution centered around equipping people with the tools they need to overcome information asymmetry, is not lost on me.
- kevvok 7y agoReally demonstrates why “security through obscurity” is no security at all.
- unnouinceput 7y agoQuote: "The company’s CEO says improvements have been made to counter these hacks already, but we’re curious to see where this parking arms race heads next." Me too, lol. Can't wait to see as well, I mean you put your low solution vs students who eat this stuff as hobby and you think you'll best them? good luck there Mr. CEO
- ani-ani 7y agoWhat the article doesn't state is what advantage the Barnacle offers over a more traditional boot design. OK, there's the online payment thing, but that could be equally implemented with a boot. So why the convoluted design? Is it because you can drive around a bit (dangerously) while the barnacle is on?
- chomp 7y agoA couple of things, it’s quicker and requires less knowledge to apply, less damage to vehicles, and you don’t need a parking officer to come out to remove it; they just dial it in and it pops off, and the barnacled person drops it in a drop box. This removes the need for 24/7 parking officer shifts to need to come out and remove the device. This thing is also probably sold to organizations that don’t want to deal with the logistics of supporting boots, but are still interested in holding cars for ransom. So a traditional boot design may have always been a nonstarter for them, but this device isn’t.
- kazinator 7y agoThe cards are heavily stacked against anything that uses suction to clamp on. Basically any leak of atmospheric pressure into the suction voids, and it's game over. You can't easily prevent the the entry of sharp, thin blades between the device's case and the vehicle glass. You will never get a good enough fit on all shapes of windshield. The kinds of contraptions I can think of that could guard the gap between the device's case and the glass could be damaging to the glass (for instance, spring-loaded steel plates around the perimeter of the device, perpendicular to the glass). What would work would be putting a large sticker on the glass, which is cross-hatched by numerous cuts so that it has to be peeled off in half-centimeter-sized slivers. Instead of a fine, you get a notice with a phone number: for a $180 fee and an hour or two, a sticker specialist will painstakingly peel everything off. You are under no obligation to use that service, but if your car is not out of there by a certain time, it will be towed. I.e. nobody has any shortcut to get the thing off; it's as hard for them as for you.
- bredren 7y agoMy SUS company, EasyALPR focuses on commercial parking enforcement / vehicle control. First, the people who get "in trouble" are often absolutely brazen in their unfair use of common parking. They're warned multiple times and even when given a "last chance" notice they'll just keep breaking rules. At that point you have to TOW them. And let me tell you, a TOW is something you can't lampoon or get free internet off of. Towing SUCKS and drivers bend the knee after this happens. I have data to prove it! Anyhow, another thing about these folks is that they will go so far as to dispute that the vehicle was in fact in violation of whatever parking rule. They'll say the warnings were not real and the tow reason was definitely not real. They'll tell the business IT needs to pay for the tow. Well, their faces change when confronted with photos and maps and times showing each violation! It isn't really that funny, but it is a big deal to any facility because some low-level administrator has to face some really pissed off people who will break rules and lie because it has always worked. So it is really important to give them great evidence so there isn't really a discussion needed. If you want to check out my product, here's the landing page: https://easyalpr.com/products/parking-enforcer https://easyalpr.com/products/parking-enforcer
- angry_octet 7y agoYou're still working to oppress poor people man. Literally surveillance capitalism. You can separate the bad effects your work is having on people from the marginal good of confronting scofflaws.
- Kalium 7y agoHow would they go about doing what you suggest, and separating the good of confronting scofflaws from the bad effects of oppressing poor people?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bredren 7y agoThis is higher level than this question, but I actually think the entire individual ownership of vehicles and having them the only viable method for getting to work for many as fundamentally broken. So while I operate this tool that enforces a thing, I don't own a car myself and I honestly can't wait for some autonomous fleet-based future where parking lots are torn up and streets are wider and safer for bicycles and alternative transportation vehicles.
- tamaharbor 7y agoFor some reason it is ok to break the law in this case.
- notjtrig 7y agoOriginal reddit post: https://www.removeddit.com/r/specializedtools/comments/e541r4/comment/f9ivr37 https://www.removeddit.com/r/specializedtools/comments/e541r...
- lxchase 7y agoAt another university, if you were a TA, you would have a “faculty” account flag, which would give you another option to pay any parking fines—deduction from your paycheck. Except TAs don’t have paycheck. The system would deduct from 0, and would not go negative but still count the fine as paid.
- selfishgene 7y agoMaybe online degree programs should start advertising: "No Parking Fees EVER!" Know someone that got a master's degree from the comfort of his own living room for under $10K and is now earning a decent six-digit salary.
- jeanlou 7y agoNow ain't that engenious. Well done to the students
- emptybits 7y agoI spent a decade in the parking technology space. (Co-founder PayByPhone -- don't hate me, I genuinely tried to make things more civilized and convenient, I swear!). Anyways, I miss hearing about hilarious and genius hacks and escalations like this. The brilliance deployed to work around parking regulations is amazing. Not condoning, but here's a (naive?) though experiment if the Barnacle shows up in use again... Park your car and cover it. Many car covers have cable locks to prevent removal and openings to expose plates for legal/bylaw reasons, so this should be permissible. This may provide protection from sun, frost, birdshit, and now Barnacles(tm)! My assumption is that parking enforcers don't have permission to modify, remove, or damage property on a parked car like this. Of course, there's always a tow-truck. Or you could pay for the parking you use, but I respect the hacker spirit!
- quaquaqua1 7y agoThe problem is not paying for the parking I use. That is an easy problem to solve, as long as the price is "reasonable". The problem I have with parking authorities is fraud. When the meter employee gives me a ticket for a different meter, or when the parking ticket fine is $200 instead of say $30, or when the restrictions are absurd/vague ("You can park here for 2 hours m-f except holidays except 9-11 except in green spots except you have to display the ticket in your window except you need to be 6 inches but not 12 inches from the curb except except except except")... ... then this is the part where I start to suspect I'm not paying for the parking I'm using, but instead I am paying for someone else's large and undeserved profit.
- javiramos 7y agoThe other day I went to a concert and parked my car at a parking lot. When the concert ended, of course there were masses of people trying to exit the parking lot. There were only 2 cashiers to pay the parking ticket — no automated machines. So we waited over an hour to pay our ticket. Time that we ended up paying with our ticket (per hour parking). The cashier didn’t want to refund us for the waiting time. If the law doesn’t require any standards requiring waiting times — why would a parking operator ever be incentivized to have an efficient checkout system? Especially if they are the only parking in town. Anyways lots of sketchy consumer violations in this space.
- rkhacker 7y agoThanks so much to the university for coming up with the barnacle or I would have missed these really brilliant hacks that seemed to keep improving one after the other. Parking 12 scrappy car was so low-tech and yet so effective but juicing the sim card for months has to be appreciated for going the extra mile.
- birdyrooster 7y agoI bet you could get some sort of coating for your windshield which would resist the suction of the barnacle.
- jlarocco 7y agoAm I the only one who thinks this is wrong? An alternative headline could be something like, "Entitled College Kids Learn How To Keep Parking Like Assholes Without Paying Fines." And it's a pyrhic victory anyway, because chances are now the cars will get one of the metal tire boots put on, or get towed. Both of which are more expensive and a bigger hassle for everybody.
- Lammy 7y ago> Both of which are more expensive and a bigger hassle for everybody. That's the point. The university was crowing about how they deployed 40000 of these things already. They wouldn't be able to tow 40000 people as easily.
- michaelmrose 7y agoYou hit the nail on the head. It's not about enforcement it's ease of collecting money. Me and my wife had to fight a ticket at one point for a spot we had paid for. No ryme or reason the lot was just grabbing revenue by literally stealing from customers with small tickets that they thought would not be challenged because - you can have your license revoked for non payment of tickets - you aren't entitled to a court hearing for a parking ticket so fighting it means figuring out how to handle it yourself or hiring an attorney to fight $30 tickets. The best model for interactions in capitalism is predator prey wherein virtually no one is actually thinking of the system as a whole and sane conditions are only apparent as an emergent property of adversarial interactions.
- closeparen 7y agoA system optimizing collective well-being will absolutely not make it more pleasant to park a car. It will tell you to ride the bus.
- pix64 7y agoI don't know the situation, but I could easily imagine parking violations being common where parking is inadequate. Instead of improving the situation, the school simply rakes in money.
- SubiculumCode 7y agoMy favorite part of the article: Guerilla'd. "but our fave low-tech workaround was shared by a user who found out his campus only had 12 wheel boots to go around and bought and illegally parked 12 scrapyard cars that could be “sacrificed” so everyone else could park however they wanted."
- tomohawk 7y ago> just like paying for parking at a university where you’re already paying a hefty tuition fee Kinda like having to pay for parking when you already are paying hefty taxes. Neat hack, tho
- zzo38computer 7y agoLet it be known that putting that kind of stuff on the student's car is NOT OK. A locked car cover may be helpful (would it help with the stuff in the wheel too? even if not, put your own locked cover on the wheel) (it would also prevent people from putting papers in the wind shield, I think). But nevertheless the students should pay the fine for parking if they wish to park their car in the parking space that requires payment. If the fee is too much then they should file a public complaint with the owner of the parking lot.
- yread 7y agoSomething like this would also work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LisjVE1djt8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LisjVE1djt8 Modifying the car to drive backwards
- monksy 7y agoWhat I find annoying about this: They're acting as an enforcement agency without any oversight. They're modifying property and holding it hostage. It's amazing how a company tries to apply ownership towards something they modify on someone else's property. I don't have an issue with reporting an unpaid debt over fines. However you can't exactly fence off someone's house and hold them hostage because of a disagreement.
- exabrial 7y agoIs OU's campus a drive-up college or more walkable/bikeable? Never been there.
- artsyca 7y agoI want to wretch when I hear the prideful vocal fry of technology workers preaching with authority while talking out their asses
- jtms 7y agoNormally I would think “break the rules, pay the fines” but I am sympathetic in this case. When I was in college I had to put my bicycle in the back of my truck and park about two miles away from campus because there was literally never valid parking on campus and the school was doing next to nothing to fix the problem.