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Comment by Mo3 | Hacker News Reader

The three exclamation marks in "Do not unplug!!!" made me suspicious immediately. I know this is kinda funny coming from a German but seriously, the department of homeland security can't type properly? I would've called 911 on that box immediately.

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OFFICIAL BUSINESS!!! NOT A BOMB!!!

now i have to try that on my water bottle next time i fly.

I'm guessing that, if unplugged, they continue to run off battery power and send an alert to the nearest homeland office.

Sure and I would very much hope so considering how much your government spent on these things but I was replying to that guy who said that they could be fakes set out by malicious people. And, judging by the very unprofessional sign and the fact that it is sitting completely by itself in a public street connected to a street light, that's not a very far-fetched thought..

I thought you were joking with the three exclamation marks so I then bothered to read the article.

You weren't joking.

I think this must be prank. Surely.

You would have called 911... on a box?

What the fuck?

A box sitting completely by itself in a public street connected to a street light, with an unprofessional sign on it? Hell yeah! Every 12 year old could build that box, print the sign and connect it to the street light. And thousands of people walk right by it, see the fancy Homeland Security badge that you can find within seconds on the internet and assume that the person who used a standard tool to open a street light had every right to do so. This might sound a bit paranoid I assume but remember we're talking about a hot zone for potential attack plans right now.. And where I'm from, official things are marked very clearly and undeniably, not with random phone numbers on it that no one bothers to cross-check anyway.. But with 911 (our equivalent at least) on it to be called in case of an emergency. And not with three god damn exclamation marks in the header. 13 year old Call of Duty players and our 14 year old intern do that..

That's exactly the type of stuff that slows down response times for legitimate calls. 911 is for emergencies, not for bad sign design.

>official things are marked very clearly and undeniably

Yes I am sure they all have timestamped PGP signed messages signed with the official german government keys.

I assure you that if you found that box sitting there and called 911 and they sent someone out to check it out, no one would ever question the legitimacy of your call. You seem to be forgetting where this box was located. The bad sign design by itself is not absolutely convincing of course but considering all circumstances, the location of the box, the maybe somewhat real danger of terrorism in exactly this area, the easy build and also the psychological aspects.. Yeah, this would be a legitimate call to at least the local PD.

Also I am talking about logical undeniability.. And I think you know already..

> I assure you that if you found that box sitting there and called 911 and they sent someone out to check it out, no one would ever question the legitimacy of your call.

Do you know what the operator says when you call 911?

> You seem to be forgetting where this box was located

In a relatively low traffic area?

> Yeah, this would be a legitimate call to at least the local PD.

Yes, the non-emergency number. Not 911 FFS

> Also I am talking about logical undeniability.

Logical undeniability? Logically terrorists would spend far more time making their sign look legitimate, since DHS doesn't really need to be worried about someone thinking their not-a-bomb is a bomb.

They have non-emergency numbers too.

It's useful to note that there is a billboard off of 101 NB, as I recall just south of the 280 interchange, that literally tells you to call 911 if you see anything suspicious. In San Francisco, calling 911 on this is just following instructions.

Heh, this got me thinking of the feasibility of cryptographically signed, err.. signs.

A QR code can hold 2953 bytes of binary information, so more than enough for a 2048 bit public key.

Same code can also hold 4296 bytes alphanumeric, which would be sufficient for even a decently long message and its associated signature.

A government could post the fingerprint of their key on a site, and post a QR codes containing a signed message about the sign on the sign itself.

Like so: https://imgur.com/a/fWZpt

Sign sign sign. Got some semantic saturation happening now.

Sounds somewhat absurd, but definitely feasible for homeland-security-type things like this random box.

If you used Ed25519 you could get that significantly smaller.

I always assume a random metal box left unattended on the street in SF will be broken apart and turned in for scrap metal within about an hour. Technically the half life of such things varies but downtown it's about 5-10 minutes.

We got pretty interesting results leaving a random beaten up metal box crying for assistance on the streets of Oakland: Most people walked past and ignored it, some tried to steal it, but a few people were actually quite kind and helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXrbqXPnHvE

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