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Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
- spindritf 12y agoI'm gonna be honest, that's an impressive prank. And the faded flag is not just run-of-the-mill vandalism.
- CapitalistCartr 12y agoI'm guessing ride bikes to the bridge and leave cell phones at home? That's the only thing I can figure. They had to carry quite a bit of gear.
- jakevoytko 12y agoThe Brooklyn Bridge has a few features that make it comparatively easy to pull off. Here's a street view link that should give you an idea: https://www.google.com/maps/@40.705226,-73.995817,3a,90y,130.57h,83.25t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sfM0UuW-XaebvDIV2vx8Kkw!2e0 https://www.google.com/maps/@40.705226,-73.995817,3a,90y,130... - The bike+pedestrian path is suspended over the roadway. - There are some suspension cables leading from the suspended pedestrian path, and trusses leading to the other cables. - The cables are pretty thick and have railing-like cables, likely for maintenance. - There is only a small metal door preventing people from running all the way up the cables. The railing-like cables look useful for climbing over the door. It's possible that with the right skills, nothing is necessary but the new flag and tins, a plan, and a little luck.
- katbyte 12y agoAnd if the cables are anything like the suspension bridge ones I've been on they are extremely non-slip. From what i can see looks like a very easy climb.
- pessimizer 12y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=MtPXVr4ki7s#t=304 https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Mt... Video of the walkway and cables, if I'm not mistaken.
- waterlesscloud 12y agoBehind the scenes video of a movie shooting a walk up the cables. Even with permits and DOT assistance, the SWAT team came out after them and halted traffic on the bridge. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b4gVfJpUKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8b4gVfJpUKU
- wyager 12y agoReally? Analyzing cell tower data over a harmless prank? They're probably mad that some pranksters conclusively demonstrated that, for all the security theater in NYC, the police can't even stop people from planting stuff on a major bridge.
- beamatronic 12y agoThat is exactly it
- pessimizer 12y agoNot probably, definitely. It was a tiny thing, but makes the entire country look foolish by calling into question the effectiveness of billions of dollars spent and a large part of world privacy stripped away. In that way, the white flags are an existential threat to a certain element, and something our grandchildren may be reading about in history class.
- freshhawk 12y agoIf that's the motivation then this is the worst possible response. A ridiculous overreaction with a significant risk that after all this DNA/surveillance/facial recognition/manpower hubbub they don't catch them.
- harshreality 12y agoSo imagine the police response is this: "Silly prank, we could certainly identify them if we tried, but it's not worth taxpayer money." All it takes is one person to then point out that if security had been good enough to catch actual terrorists, the suspects would have been caught before or during the act. Then not only is a chunk of the post-9/11 security apparatus exposed for the security theater it is, but the cops look lazy and stupid too.
- Dylan16807 12y agoBut that's true no matter what they say. Overreaction can't negate the original foolishness.
- Terr_ 12y agoWouldn't it be funny if they are the same flags, and instead the perpetrators bleached them "remotely"? Like with a quad-copter hauling loads of liquid bleach, or a laser with the right wavelength to destroy the dyes. Edit: Ah, never mind, the spotlights are also up on top, not down below as I had thought. It'd take quite a lot of robo-dexterity to cover them up so quickly, so if a person is already up there they might as well just swap the flag too.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- rotten 12y agoOr some nearby industrial plant belched a cloud of toxic bleaching gas that drifted by and as a side effect reacted with the cheap chinese dyes in the flags. Corporate terrorism? It would never happen...
- sylvinus 12y agoThat sounds straight up from the TV show "The Leftovers" in which there's a nihilist cult that paints things in white!
- Someone1234 12y ago> while sparking terror fears in the process That's just pathetic. You have to have a pretty addled mind in order to find an obvious prank such as this "terrifying." But that's what our society is now, everything is measured by the lowest-common-denominator, and fear is a commodity sold to you every evening on the news.
- yoodenvranx 12y agoThat's what I tought as well. Terror terror terror. Fear fear fear. It's getting ridiculous.
- oh_sigh 12y agoI think the implication was that people were afraid of a terrorist attack during the act, not in retrospect when they saw it was just a white flag
- pyre 12y agoThat was my read as well. That 'people' were afraid it was a terrorist attack because the lights on a landmark went dark. On the other hand, why didn't people just assume it was a black-out, or technical issues?
- Crito 12y agoYeah, my first thought would have been "Dumbasses should change the lights during the day, not the night". "Terrorists must be terrorizing us by breaking our lightbulbs" would have never occurred to me; it is far more plausible that somebody was working on them.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago"Terrorists must be terrorizing us by breaking our lightbulbs" would have never occurred to me Report to Oblast 37N. We have made you an appointment with the Education Corps.
- 12y ago
- sys32768 12y agoI wish there were more discussion about why they did this rather than how.
- igravious 12y agoThis is that discussion. Let's hear your thoughts. Mine is that the pranksters want to expose the fear-mindset in general for what it is, and relatedly show that the freedoms we've given up in the name of security was a bad idea, and finally that security is an illusion because you can't secure all places at all times unless you want to live in something that resembles a prison.
- kazinator 12y agoBingo. The white flags denote surrender: surrendering your rights to the state. I got that too! In short, they say: "America: you're pwned, like this bridge, and, like the cops here, you don't even know how it happened".
- frandroid 12y agoThere was no statement, so we can all speculate, but that's it.
- discardorama 12y agoReminds me of the MIT pranks http://hacks.mit.edu/ http://hacks.mit.edu/
- oh_sigh 12y agoThey should spend the money on fixing the security holes, not finding the perps. If it really was a terror act, the terrorists wouldn't care if you found out who they were after the fact, so this isn't any kind of deterrence.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago'Perps' in this context reminds me of the Dredd story "Un-American Graffiti". If this all ends with someone trying to paint a smiley face on the Statue of Liberty, then I would not be in the least bit surprised.
- lotsofmangos 12y agoThis is hilarious and the official reaction only makes it more so. If the NYPD want to discourage more pranks from occurring, this kind of overly dramatic sulking is not really the way to go about it.
- dzhiurgis 12y agoAaaaand it's gone from the frontpage. The very symbol of hacking is gone from the Hacker News in less than 5 hours. In regards the topic the flag turned into a symbol of surrendering of ones freedoms to the state. Now let's spend hundreds of thousands to catch them, put them to the jail and budget for consultants who will help closing such threats in future.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- dang 12y agoFive hours is plenty of time on the front page, and the second page has good stuff too. Neither the article nor the thread sheds much light on the story, so it doesn't seem surprising that this post didn't reach the top tier.
- DigitalSea 12y agoGiven just how bad the economy still is, it pains me to see the NYPD wasting potentially tens of thousands of dollars, if not more, trying to find a bunch of kids who replaced a couple of flags. They should be rewarding these kids for finding a glaring security hole (if they find them) in supposedly one of the states heavily guarded monuments before someone with ill-intentions found it and caused havoc... If they're calling this an act of terrorism, are they going to throw these kids into a jail cell for 20 years for a harmless prank? Whatever happened to being able to have a good old prank. Kind of reminds me of the MIT pranks: completely harmless. How about they spend the money securing the bridge instead of combing through cell-phone towers and involving innocent civilians in a draconian dragnet operation? This kind of behaviour from the NYPD is just going to encourage more pranks like this.
- suprgeek 12y agoRig up a couple of motion triggered IR camera's at critical points not commonly accessed, disguised and tamper proof. Check it once every so often just to make sure it works. Next time some jokester tries a stunt like this go check, find their pic, locate & throw his/her dumbass in jail (if so desired). And please stop with this "terrorist" scare mongering! We as a society (or the media portrayal) are becoming a bunch of paranoid jerks parroting this nonsense and wasting taxpayer funds when the NY cops have many more important issues to deal with.
- deciplex 12y ago>And please stop with this "terrorist" scare mongering! We as a society (or the media portrayal) are becoming a bunch of paranoid jerks parroting this nonsense and wasting taxpayer funds when the NY cops have many more important issues to deal with. Yeah, I heard we're nearly at the point now where we're going to go around putting hidden motion-triggered cameras literally everywhere.
- atbtoacb 12y agoSo I agree that it would be outrageous for to throw these folks in jail for this. But it does seem worth following up on. Not because they did bad, but because it's important to learn how they did what they did. And demonstrating to potential terrorists that you're capable of finding people who breach security at landmarks seems like a good thing to do. The Brooklyn Bridge would be a reasonable terrorist target. We collectively spend a lot of money to try to make it secure, just like we do with basically all large buildings. And that feels reasonable to me, and I imagine to a lot of other people. (e.g., I'm not sad some of my tax dollars go to protecting the Golden Gate Bridge[1]) And, so, I dunno, NYPD hasn't thrown 'em in jail yet, and they've only said "It is a matter of concern... I am not particularly happy about the event." So I guess I think it's a bit unfair or unhelpful to judge everyone's handling of it quite yet, everything seems sorta fine to me as of now. Also what an awesome prank, I love it. [1] http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Protecting-Our-National-Treasure-129481703.html http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Protecting-Our-National...