Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
arstechnica.com
Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
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Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#2I'm gonna be honest, that's an impressive prank. And the faded flag is not just run-of-the-mill vandalism.
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#3I'm guessing ride bikes to the bridge and leave cell phones at home? That's the only thing I can figure. They had to carry quite a bit of gear.
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#4Really? Analyzing cell tower data over a harmless prank? They're probably mad that some pranksters conclusively demonstrated that, for all the security theater in NYC, the police can't even stop people from planting stuff on a major bridge.
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#5Wouldn't it be funny if they are the same flags, and instead the perpetrators bleached them "remotely"?
Like with a quad-copter hauling loads of liquid bleach, or a laser with the right wavelength to destroy the dyes.
Edit: Ah, never mind, the spotlights are also up on top, not down below as I had thought. It'd take quite a lot of robo-dexterity to cover them up so quickly, so if a person is already up there they might as well just swap the flag too.
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#6Wouldn't it be funny if they are the same flags, and instead the perpetrators bleached them "remotely"? Like with a quad-copter hauling loads of liquid bleach, or a laser with the right wavelength to destroy the dyes. Edit: Ah, never mind, the spotlights are also up on top, not down below as I had thought. It'd take quite a lot of robo-dexterity to cover them up so quickly, so if a person is already up there they mig…
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Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#7Really? Analyzing cell tower data over a harmless prank? They're probably mad that some pranksters conclusively demonstrated that, for all the security theater in NYC, the police can't even stop people from planting stuff on a major bridge.
That is exactly it
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#8That sounds straight up from the TV show "The Leftovers" in which there's a nihilist cult that paints things in white!
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#9Really? Analyzing cell tower data over a harmless prank? They're probably mad that some pranksters conclusively demonstrated that, for all the security theater in NYC, the police can't even stop people from planting stuff on a major bridge.
Not probably, definitely. It was a tiny thing, but makes the entire country look foolish by calling into question the effectiveness of billions of dollars spent and a large part of world privacy stripped away. In that way, the white flags are an existential threat to a certain element, and something our grandchildren may be reading about in history class.
Re: Digital-age detective work can’t crack Brooklyn Bridge caper
#10I'm guessing ride bikes to the bridge and leave cell phones at home? That's the only thing I can figure. They had to carry quite a bit of gear.
The Brooklyn Bridge has a few features that make it comparatively easy to pull off.
Here's a street view link that should give you an idea:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.705226,-73.995817,3a,90y,130...
- The bike+pedestrian path is suspended over the roadway.
- There are some suspension cables leading from the suspended pedestrian path, and trusses leading to the other cables.
- The cables are pretty thick and have railing-like cables, likely for maintenance.
- There is only a small metal door preventing people from running all the way up the cables. The railing-like cables look useful for climbing over the door.
It's possible that with the right skills, nothing is necessary but the new flag and tins, a plan, and a little luck.