'Barnacle' car windscreen clamp sparks student fury | Hacker News Reader

'Barnacle' car windscreen clamp sparks student fury

bbc.com

23 pointshhs19 comments

I'm surprised this stuff is still legal, especially since even chalking tires was ruled to be trespassing and a illegal search, and looks like this is a public school too so government ran. Some of the law school students should get together and file a section 1983 civil rights lawsuit, use it to pay off some of that student debt!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/chalking-tires-enforce-... or https://www.npr.org/2019/04/23/716248823/court-says-using-ch...

So now cities have to use licence plate recognition cameras and location GPS data to see if a car moved or not since chalking is illegal, but I'm sure cities are unaware of this and still are illegally chalking cars - until someone sues and get a huge payout. Then some cities will arrest people because their children drew on the sidewalk using chalk, considering it vandalizing even though it washes off in the rain.

OU is in a shambles right now, from an administrative standpoint, due to a double-transition of its leadership.

I'm willing to bet that the parking enforcement people never questioned the legality of the device, asked few questions about its legality, and assume its existence is proof of its legality.

"One poster on social news site Reddit claimed he had been able to extract a mobile network Sim card from one of the devices, and used it to access the internet for free."

When life gives you lemons, dig the sim cards out of them and get free internet.

A car has a VIN. It likely has a plate, registration, and title. The owner should be easy to determine. With that, go to court.

The devices risk damaging cars and they risk creating emergency situations by disabling cars.

Yep, I seen people in a RV group talk about these. Some Walmart stores are using them on truck drivers and RVers who stay over the night. I believe it's a contractor Walmart hires though, not actual Walmart employees. I think it's insane a private company is even allowed to do this stuff, and some people said they'd yank it off and if their windshield cracked put a claim in with the companies insurance company.

However I don't think private booting or these devices is legal in every state or even varies by city in some states. Someone was sleeping inside, woken up after they put on the device and they wanted 500 dollars to remove the device. I'm surprised some truck driver in the South like Texas that's more gun friendly doesn't get woken up thinking he's being robbed and ends up shooting one of these contractors by mistake. There's stories where people have mistakenly woke up and even shot their own family who came home too late thinking someone was breaking in, so surprised this hasn't happened yet if someone is really tired and startled not realizing what's happening yet. Probably would be a big highly profiled national case if something like that happen though, and people who aren't a fan of all this parking stuff probably would side with the trucker, so doubt they'd be impartial enough. I don't think parking enforcement would be a job I'd enjoy, probably so many angry people daily, and not sure if I'd want to work alone at night in a dark parking lot waking up people, especially with the trucking shortage.

Found an article about this: https://www.truckingtruth.com/news/Article-94/barnacle-boot-...

I see Walmart security people beating on RVs and trucks in the morning to annoy the people in them, even though these poorly-trained rent-a-cops aren't the police. That might actually be considered a hate crime in some instances since you can't intentionally bother or harass homeless people on the street.

> I think it's insane a private company is even allowed to do this stuff

I wonder if this private enforcement of law goes both ways - can a car owner barricade Walmart's entrance to force Walmart to pay them what they've unilaterally decided they're owed?

What Walmart is doing may be legal though if they own the parking lot. Deciding to block an entrance could be illegal, though I’m not aware of any case law around it.

Here's how to get it off , and get free internet (Why this is trending)-

https://twitter.com/saallyjohnsonn/status/121719070339206758...

Wouldn't it be trivial for the company to track where the SIM is being used to find out who's done this?

Another way to destroy a program like this would be to vandalize barnacles wherever you see them. Nobody is going to report you (because everyone hates them). The car owner will be assumed responsible, and held hostage for the damage done to the barnacle.

Then sit back and watch the extortion lawsuits fly. The program won't last long.

If someone takes out the SIM to use it for internet that they didn't have a right/permission to use, that sounds a lot like theft of services. It's usually a criminal offense, and that could follow someone around for years to come. Plus, $2000+ in legal defense costs. I wouldn't risk it.

I'm failing to understand what exactly sparked the fury. To me this sounds much nicer than the alternative.

The article is not entirely clear, but I suspect that the threshold to deploy the Barnacle is lower than for towing. For example, would they really call the tow truck for a car with three unpaid tickets? And if a vehicle is parked blocking a fire lane or an entrance, they'll still have to have it towed, so there's not a one-to-one correspondence between the use cases.

Students pay 30$ extra for usage of the “barnacle” in addition to the fine.

I imagine that's cheaper than paying for the towing fee that's the alternative?

> Mr Dougherty said improvements had since been made to the design of the barnacle, and said 40,000 had been deployed and returned without incident.

Sounds like they make it up in volume. I doubt they'd get a tow truck out there 40000 times.

I would scrape this thing off and park in different lots from then on. All you need is a half of a windshield wiper blade track stuck in to break the seal, and then throw this vulture capitalism cash-grab in the trash bin.

Yep. Looking at the device materials in the photos, it doesn't seem made of super sturdy materials.

With a small chisel + some practice someone could likely clear a cark park - or several streets - full of these within a few hours (overnight), and render the devices unusable until repaired.

Doesn't seem like a well thought out invention. :/

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