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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."
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.