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Cart Locking System Released as Open Source
An anonymous reader writes "You may have noticed that over the past few years it has become increasingly common to find supermarket and large retail store shopping carts equipped with 'boots' designed to lock up if you try to take the cart outside of the store. Now, someone has discovered through some clever analysis the signal used to both lock and unlock carts, and has designed a portable system that locks up all carts within 20 feet of the emitter! They have released the schematics, software, and detailed instructions for assembling the systems on Instructables, an online magazine dedicated to releasing howto's for everything from rat taxidermy to Shopping Cart EMPs under a Creative Commons License."
That gets people to take it back to a cart corral instead of just dropping it in the parking lot... I think this is more aimed at people who try to steal carts (they're surprisingly expensive).
Um, did you RTFA? Look at the signal, it's obviously an encoded byte. You would prefer to create a system where you have to rebuild the entire system if they change the code? She even explicitly mention that different stores have different codes, and that she included a simple switch to choose which signal to broadcast... seems like smart engineering to make your interface as easily modified as the system it's interfacing with.
Did you look at the hardware or read the descriptions of the design? It's pretty clear that she is not at all afraid of circuitry, and even included *many* disclaimers showing people places where if they didn't follow the electronics design properly they could be seriously injured.
Senseless vandalism. Swell. How laudable. Life is tough enough, but how about locking up some wage-earner's cart, after he has suffered under the hands of a sadistic boss, just wanting to get some grub and go home. Delightful.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
"If enough people do it, the supermarkets will realize shopping cart DRM is a bad idea."
What the crap are you talking about?
Having shopping carts lock when you try to take them outside the designated area is a perfectly FINE thing for a store to want to do... how many times have you seen shopping trolleys dumped in the most odd places? There's nothing wrong with them trying to stop people stealing their property, they cost a lot of money and should only be used in that area anyway.
My god some people just like to jump up and down whenever anyone is doing something to protect themselves, no matter how just it may be.
Bah to you sir, bah indeed.
Why didn't they just build the device to always lock when there's no signal? A transmitter in the store emits a continuous signal that keeps the wheels unlocked. When you take it out of the parking lot and go out of signal range, the wheels lock up.
Seems a bit more prank proof that way.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Yeah. That's utterly ridiculous.
This is not shopping cart DRM. This is the equivalent of putting a strap on your car stereo and bolting it to the frame. Not only that, but a shopping cart is REAL TANGIBLE PROPERTY.
Anyone who thinks that stores don't have a right to protect their own property has lost all touch with reality.
For linux tips: http://www.linuxtipsblog.com
True, but come to think of it, I'd probably use a microcontroller too. Low part count and cheap enough; I can get an attiny13 for about $1.7 where I live.