CCC Mods Rent-a-Bike To Allow Free Rides

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."

Comments

I'm impressed.

[kngthdn]

Their website explains...To return your bike, take it to the nearest major crossing within the core area and lock it to a fixed object, e.g., a traffic sign or a bicycle stand but not, please, on a traffic light.

This would not work in America.

All very fun and all...

[Alwin Henseler]

But isn't mucking around with other people's property, without their permission, called "vandalism" ?

"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully..." -Wherry

Price

[HFShadow]

6c a minute sounds pricey, until you realize it's $3.60 an hour, which doesn't sound so bad.

What's the upside?

[Anonymous Coward]

If the system stops making money the bikes will be removed and the service will stop. Then who benefits? The price maybe high for the service but the option is to simply not use it. Just because the apples are over priced does that give you the right to steal them. Free market means you also have the right not to buy not to steal.

What a waste

[Anonymous Coward]

Why hack something that is for the common good, such as public, non-polluting transportation?

Re:What a waste

[1u3hr]

It's a "mod" if you do it to YOUR OWN PROPERTY, not if you steal and break into other people's.

First they stole a bike (one that wasn't locked properly), dismantled it to reverse engineer the mechanism, (in the process depriving the owners of several months' rent the bike might have earned) then went around and opened up over 100 other bikes to reprogram them with their backdoor, and justified this by saying that they thought the work they'd done was worth the cost of several bikes.

Would this get the same "cool hack", "fun" kind of rating if they'd done it to a similar scheme with cars? Somehow stealing bikes isn't really stealing; I've noticed this in movies where the hero appropriates a parked bike when in a hurry, dumping it on the street when he arrives without a second thought. Cyclists' blood boils when this kind of thing is done to their property; again if you tried it with cars you could easily be killed, and the owner would get a slap on the wrist.

News for thief, stuff that angers ?

[aepervius]

Hey, sorry but it sounds to me that they are using a hole in a digital system to allow free usage of the PHYSICAL property of somebody else. I will leave to IP philosophe whether to copy IP is stealing or not, but to use somebody else property because the lock is not strong enough is obvious STEALING and VANDALISM. How about going into somebody else flat, eating their food, sleeping in their bed, because their digital alarm system with door code can be easily hacked with the maintenance password ? What on slashdot next ? How to steal a car by bypassing ignition key system ???

German engineering

[Meetch]

I found it refreshing that although it was possible, quite a bit of work had to go into hacking the bikes in the first place. The only way to circumvent the system was to physically get inside it and reprogram the firmware. This is solid engineering IMHO.

Now, if they're really recalled over winter for a once-over, I wonder how much harder they will be to get into when the snow melts and they reappear? Will the Call-A-Bikes become more impenetrable, as Darwinian geek theory dictates they'll need for survival?

On the flip side, I must also applaud the hackers for not simply vandalising the bikes, but modifying them to return to service once the "free ride" was over. (Perhaps misguided) - theft all the same, but at least free of physical destruction.

bad dog, no biscuit

[fuck_this_shit]

The problem I have with that is that with how often bikes are stolen, vandalised and the initial cost of purchasing them the 6cent per minute might seem costly but appears to be closer to just covering the costs of the service. This is no Robin Hood Hackjob to have those bikes available for free, it's just a way of inching the concept closer to being abandoned by the company. And with by now 10% hacked and this ongoing without publicity for a while they can't honestly claim that it's just for pointing out a security flaw in the system.

Re:bad dog, no biscuit

[Cederic]

Thing is, if you leave aside the moral implications of their hack, it's still a very fine piece of hacking.

Add in that almost nobody will know the entry code for a free ride, that 9 out of 10 bikes are untouched, the main cost to the 'victim' is the cost of reflashing the hacked bikes. And that wont take too long.

I'm not saying I support this precise piece of hacking, but I do love that people are still getting up to this sort of thing. It's a healthy thing for society.

~Cederic

Call it what it is - Thievery

[schmaltz]

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%.

Ah, so without having to think about whether you're stealing from a fellow citizen, you blame it on an unspecified, undefined "philosophy". Ridiculous.

You can't compare the taking you're doing with the Dutch bicycles, because those were intended to be free - here, you're just committing robbery from your neighbor. Everybody leaves bikes locked to public property, everywhere. You just aren't willing to admit that you like being a thief, and only because your victim doesn't get to see or catch you. Because if you did, you'd start stealing from little old ladies, and you'd probably like it too. You have no shame.

Saying that bikes locked to public property are abandoned is absurd - when you park a car on a public street, and lock the doors, you must be abondoning that fine set of wheels, I guess, right? Let me know where you live, and I will come rid the street of your trash!

For the record, Witte Fietsen didn't work because nobody wanted to take responsibility for fixing or replacing broken parts, plus people like you stole the bicycles and painted them other colors.

why?

[Quixote]

Here's why they did it:

There are of course other people, which have, for sportive reasons, tried to test the robustness of the hardware or the electronic principle of the built-in microchips and processors. They tried their luck with screwdrivers and usual ordinary allen-wrenches. they even tried to use a crowbar, a sledge hammer or a motor angle grinder. or totally smart: with a laptop and some decrypting-tools, as well as some trick questions to the maintainance staff. but without luck!". again reth is smiling, who once took the first trip on a green puky-bike and looks at himself no more as a postmodern urbanite than as bicycle freak. he smiles and says: "this technology makes us to the premier station-independant city-bike-sytem. the code is unbreakable and we are really proud of"

The designer of the lock says, "it can't be broken". This is like waving a red flag (or two) before a bull. Of course, now someone has to actually break it to prove a point.

Call it vandalism, call it theft, call it whatever you want. Basically, the "hackers" were responding to the challenge.

Please, lets not split hairs here. It'll leave us all bald.

Re:Free to use bikes in Helsinki

[Scratch-O-Matic]

I hate to sound the old familiar gripe, but I don't think that your free bike program would work here in the U.S. It would take about 38 minutes for someone to fall and hurt themselves on a free bike, then sue the city.