CCC Mods Rent-a-Bike To Allow Free Rides 384
Autoversicherung writes "Germany has an activated by phone bike rental system across all major cities. At 6 cent a minute quite pricey, germanys famous Chaos Computer Club thought a free ride every now and then couldnt hurt.
Optimizing the original system in the process, modifying the blink code to be easier found and changing the logo. About 10% of Berlins bikes are patched already. A detailed description of how they did it, and how the system works."
What Happens When... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What Happens When... (Score:2, Interesting)
[1] in case that the bike was hacked and left there by another person
Re:"like this effects us" -American Psycho (Score:1, Interesting)
What is it called when (Score:5, Interesting)
If I run a bike shop and pay rent and/or taxes on the property, so anyone can come look at the bikes but if they want to use one, they have to pay, that's a normal retail situation. I'm entitled to control what happens with my bikes within my private space.
What happens, though, if I just start locking the bikes up to lampposts and advertising that anyone can call a phone number to pay to unlock them? Am I not trying to convert the public lampposts into private retail space without paying any rent or tax? Who is taking what from whom? Perhaps some philosopher could conclude that I've really just abandoned the bikes, and rather than hacking 10% of them, CCC might have done better to hack 100%.
BTW, the public bicycle concept AFAIK started in Holland, with the Witte Fietsen ("white bicycles" in Dutch) project. Hippies scrounged up old bikes and parts during a transit strike, got them working and painted them white, and then just left them all over the place for people to use for free. Sort of a bicycle version of the GNU project. If you needed to get somewhere, you'd just find a white bike, ride it wherever you were going, and leave it for someone else to find and use.
This was several decades ago. Witte Fietsen actually worked as envisioned by the hippies, and was successful enough that local government decided to pick up the expenses. It is still active today in some parts of Holland, though in the big cities, sadly, the bikes get stolen too fast.
The dial-a-bike thing seems like a pale imitation. Witte Fietsen didn't need to be hacked.
I must be backwards (Score:4, Interesting)
I wish this would work in Los Angeles. It could really be useful. It wouldn't work though... too many "hackers" with wire cutters. (alot like the "hackers" above, but with less technical school clases).
No more bikes out there (Score:5, Interesting)
Btw: The CCC will meet from December 26th to 29th for their annual congress. Motto: "The ususal suspects".
P.S.: I submitted this story on Saturday.
I have seen alot of bikes missing parts in the US (Score:1, Interesting)
Hackers aint't crackers, eh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Free to use bikes in Helsinki (Score:5, Interesting)
What a cool hack!! Until.. (Score:2, Interesting)
I read the part that said:
"About 10% of Berlins bikes are patched already."
Hacking for fun, yeah sure. But doing what could ultimately cause the demise of this whole concept.. thats just Wrong.
Re:Free to use bikes in Helsinki (Score:3, Interesting)
If I remember corectly the bike repairing is taken care of by an unemployment project (training the unemplyed to have a job), so in the effect the bike are partly being paid for by social help :)
Re:witte fietsen (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I'm impressed. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the town I lived in (Wurzburg), the Germans usually didn't lock their bike. They had a quaint little idea that nobody would steal it.
That was generally true...except that drunk Americans had the quaint little idea that a bike not locked, was a free ride.
Eventually there would be a collection of about 20-30 bikes behind the barracks, that we would have to ride back into town, and drop at different locations, hoping the original owner would find it.
Soon, our unit got the idea to buy a couple bikes, paint them red white and blue, and have them available for free.
Of course OTHER Americans stole them.
Re:Call it what it is - Thievery (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, in my town, we have an ordinance that allows the town to tow your car if you park it on the street overnight. They don't usually enforce this until about a week has passed, but the point is still made. I'd imagine the company isn't taking the bikes back to their warehouse every night for storage.
The original poster's point is still valid. This company is using the city streets as their personal retail space. No taxes, nothing. This is like a company parking "cars" around the city with vending machines conveniently located on the passenger side. They're creating a retail space that isn't their property.
It's abusing a priviledge of convenience that has been given to all. When a single company abuses it, then it becomes detrimental to all.
purdue stupidity (Score:1, Interesting)
Free bikes, ad sponsored (Score:1, Interesting)
One issue not discussed here. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Repercussions? (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course if the customer just says "I'm at station Y, can you give me a bike (tell me the number) and what is the code for it?", the dispatch wouldn't give the customer bike 0001, because 0001 isn't at Y in the DB. OTOH, if they're at X, and dispatch says "take 0001" and customer says "but there's no 0001" here, that's also a hint of trouble there.
Then again, if a hacker just takes a bike from home (X) to go to work (Y) and back again (X) everyday, there's very little chance of him getting caught.
Also, I wonder if they can use the DB inconsistencies to triangulate where the hacker might be located, because I assume they'd just take bikes from stations near their place of operation. Although of course hacked bikes can show up all over the place after being used by many people, so, well, interesting mind-exercise there.