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Hacking a parking ticket system

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Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#41

Post by dsfyu404ed »

rconti wrote: post #38
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #37

Over a summer I lived in "intern housing" at a university in the DC area. They wanted $150 for parking for 2mo, yeah, nope. A little bit of research told me that the parking services were a separate entity from the school and that the school would put a hold on my student account and transcripts if there were unpaid charges. I also found that they supposedly boot you after 3 tickets. Tickets are $100 minimum and go u…

That's risky because they may be able to look up your car by VIN. You'd probably need to randomize it by parking in different locations every day, hoping that you get different meter maids who wouldn't recognize your car. Your car would also have to be so generic in appearance (not just model/color but also condition) that it didn't stand out.

My truck was anything but generic. I got tailed by the campus pigs (I'll call them that because that was my experience with them) and stopped several times for no reason (and let off with a "warning" because whatever I had done wasn't something one normally gets cited for, they basically wanted to check my papers and see who I was) because my truck was a decade too old and and several tax brackets too low to be common in that area. They always seemed to see me like I was some tweaker who might steal and scrap their aluminum hand rails to get my next fix.

I figured out that parking way out back significantly reduced my chance of being ticketed. More than once I saw the parking services truck drive up and down the rows making sure everyone had something in each windshield, not actually scanning them. This was during the summer so there was always parking available and 90% of the enforcement I saw was during the first two weeks when everyone moved in.

The permits were a paper with a bar-code displayed in the center of your dash (students got ones that hang from mirrors). I thought of just putting a piece of paper there but I figured any attempt fake would piss them off. The policy was worded such that it made it sound like you only got booted after three UNPAID violations so I think what was happening was that when they put each new plate (all three I used were from the same state) into the system it didn't tell them to boot it because no plate had more than three citations on it. I got six tickets over the course of the summer. Two, two and one on junkyard plates and one on my real plate.

Parking in the same place with a ticket under your wiper would probably work for awhile too.

When I looked on their online parking pass system I don't recall a way to input a VIN so I assume they didn't record it, just a photo that includes the plate and a description.

Like I said, I wouldn't do this somewhere that the municipality does the parking enforcement.

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#42

Post by stcredzero »

One of the Dr. Dobbs editors made the following confession years ago in an editorial, when Dr. Dobbs was still published on glossy magazine paper. (According to the text, the statute of limitations had already run out.)

When faced with the situation of working on a mainframe at city hall, but not being issued a city parking permit due to bureaucratic oversight, he came up with a solution in code. It just so happened that the system he was working on issued the parking tickets, so he just added conditional logic to detect his name, then deleted the ticket! Problem solved, and no bureaucratic runaround to solve it!

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#43

Post by mattdotc »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #37

Over a summer I lived in "intern housing" at a university in the DC area. They wanted $150 for parking for 2mo, yeah, nope. A little bit of research told me that the parking services were a separate entity from the school and that the school would put a hold on my student account and transcripts if there were unpaid charges. I also found that they supposedly boot you after 3 tickets. Tickets are $100 minimum and go u…

They might eventually send your information to a debt collection service.

Hope saving a few hundred dollars is worth the potential hit to your credit score.

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#44

Post by soylentcola »

mabbo wrote: post #19

A friend of mine in college did this, but it was even simpler- there was no barcode, just a number that increased by one for each ticket sold. He went the entire year just making his own to avoid paying $3 per day. Just take the last three days tickets, increment by the average difference, print and display. When they caught him (he parked in the wrong lot or something) he admitted everything, paid $80, and offered t…

This brings back memories of similar collegiate petty scams. There was a year where I was working evenings and commuting to college during the day in my barely-running Cavalier. Money was not abundant. Thankfully, even though the distant parking lots charged us commuters quite a bit for day passes, they used a system with "hang tags" that you put on your mirror.

Each tag had a row of 12 "bubbles" and another grid of 31 "bubbles" covered with the silvered scratch-off stuff you find on lottery scratch tickets. To use one of these daily tags you would scratch off the bubble corresponding to the month and date you were parking.

I soon realized that the parking attendants weren't very observant and between that and the windshield, you could use one of those silver paint pens to "refill" in the bubbles after they had been scratched, use a fine-tipped Sharpie to draw the number back on the re-silvered bubble, and scratch off the next day.

Can't remember how long I did this and I seem to remember eventually getting a ticket but it was right around when my car finally died and the year was almost over. Either way, I could usually get a week or so out of those daily passes before a stray mark or penmanship error would ruin a tag and I'd have to start a new one. I'm pretty sure I got at least $50-100 worth of parking out of my little scam though.

Not proud but hey...I managed to graduate and not starve so, bonus!

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#45

Post by legohead »

mabbo wrote: post #19

A friend of mine in college did this, but it was even simpler- there was no barcode, just a number that increased by one for each ticket sold. He went the entire year just making his own to avoid paying $3 per day. Just take the last three days tickets, increment by the average difference, print and display. When they caught him (he parked in the wrong lot or something) he admitted everything, paid $80, and offered t…

I refused to buy a college parking sticker. I pay tuition to go to the school, why do I have to pay to park there? Luckily, I was a night student, so I would park in the visitors parking and set up my classes so I would get out at about the same time the night crew got off (something like 9pm).

I even spent a couple semesters waiting in the parking lot an hour after class. I would read a book, program, or study for that hour.

Once I was late, and visitors was full, so I parked in the regular parking, which promptly got me a ticket. I didn't pay, and they eventually sent the ticket to my address. I called the school and told them I wasn't responsible as I had sold the car to another student, and it was their ticket, not mine. They bought the story and removed the ticket.

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#46

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mattdotc wrote: post #43
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #37

Over a summer I lived in "intern housing" at a university in the DC area. They wanted $150 for parking for 2mo, yeah, nope. A little bit of research told me that the parking services were a separate entity from the school and that the school would put a hold on my student account and transcripts if there were unpaid charges. I also found that they supposedly boot you after 3 tickets. Tickets are $100 minimum and go u…

They might eventually send your information to a debt collection service. Hope saving a few hundred dollars is worth the potential hit to your credit score.

I'm skeptical that would happen since I never entered into any sort of contract to pay them money related to parking

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#47

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #37

Over a summer I lived in "intern housing" at a university in the DC area. They wanted $150 for parking for 2mo, yeah, nope. A little bit of research told me that the parking services were a separate entity from the school and that the school would put a hold on my student account and transcripts if there were unpaid charges. I also found that they supposedly boot you after 3 tickets. Tickets are $100 minimum and go u…

So instead the previous owners of those plates get a bunch of tickets and or credit collections sent after them..? For $3/day. But I guess it isn't your problem...

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#48

Post by shkkmo »

maqr wrote: post #35
superuser2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much simpler "hack" occurred to me recently. Suppose you wanted to store your car for a long time in a gated garage that also holds ZipCars. Drive your car in and take a ticket as normal. When it's time to leave, book a ZipCar for one hour. Grab its parking pass and use it to exit the garage with your car. Park on the street nearby, walk the pass back to the ZipCar. Are there typically countermeasures in place for…

Eventually, somebody would notice the car there and remove it by tow truck. Most garages need parking passes or have assigned numbers or something. When someone complains is usually when someone gets towed.

Your car does have a parking pass displayed, you just use a different one to exit.

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#49

Post by semi-extrinsic »

jschulenklopper wrote: post #8
samwillis wrote: post #6

A really simple "hack" of a car park with an entry barrier that issues you a ticket is that you can usually exit the car park with an unpaid ticket if it's under 10 min old. So just get a new ticket from the entrance when you want to leave. They do this so you can get out if there are no spaces. I haven't done this myself and don't condone it. You will probably get in trouble and it's not nice.

> So just get a new ticket from the entrance Getting a new ticket from the printer before the barrier will be hard if your car is inside the car park. Often the ticket printer will only work if it notices a large metal object (such as a car) in front of the barrier.

I've wondered about how hard it would be to fool those. Presumably it's a simple induction loop, so a suitably calibrated electromagnet should do it.

Re: Hacking a parking ticket system

#50

Post by [deleted] »

jschulenklopper wrote: post #8
samwillis wrote: post #6

A really simple "hack" of a car park with an entry barrier that issues you a ticket is that you can usually exit the car park with an unpaid ticket if it's under 10 min old. So just get a new ticket from the entrance when you want to leave. They do this so you can get out if there are no spaces. I haven't done this myself and don't condone it. You will probably get in trouble and it's not nice.

> So just get a new ticket from the entrance Getting a new ticket from the printer before the barrier will be hard if your car is inside the car park. Often the ticket printer will only work if it notices a large metal object (such as a car) in front of the barrier.

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