Turns Out Cheyenne’s New Police Parking Lock Is Easy To Remove

Recently the mayor of Cheyenne Wyoming announced a type of amnesty day for people in the city to pay off their overdue parking tickets.  After that, they were going to start "booting" cars. 

But not with THE BOOT. But something new.

Unfortunately, the city of Cheyenne picked the most laughable, easy to defeat the car "booting" system ever invented. One that is so bad that other cities around America are giving up on it.

It's called The Barnacle. Here is how it is supposed to work --- BUT!

Unlike the old-fashioned boot that goes on a car tire, the book has two big suction cups. The device fits on the car windshield.

When the device was introduced it was advertised as undefeatable.

Yet as soon as it was placed on the windshield of an MIT student in Massachusetts it was shown to be so easy to defeat it was laughable.

Remember, this is MIT. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Those are some of the smartest students in America. More than that, they are all studying to be engineers and inventors. 

Not only did the MIT student beat The Barnacle easily, HE GOT FREE INTERNET  FROM IT!

I'm going to tell you how the MIT student defeated The Barnacle. But so the mayor and the police chief know, I'm only doing this because it's common knowledge. This hack can be found all over the internet.

Here is how hackers are defeating The Barnacle, easily. 

Seeing the Barnacle on his windshield the clever student looked at the big suction cups, visible from inside the car, and realized quickly how he could take it off.

He started the engine and turned the heat on the windshield and waited for a few minutes. Then he slid a credit card under the first suction cup, and it popped off. Then walked to the other side of the car and did the same.

Word of how to defeat The Barnacle spread quickly. Cities across America quickly gave up on the system and went back to the old-fashioned wheel boot system.

Some cities got rid of The Barnacle because the heat of summer was causing the system to pop off all on its own.

Get a load of this headline from Driving Magazine:

Students defeat new 'Barnacle' parking clamp, skips fines and gets free internet.

As it turns out, to take off the Barnacle, all you need to do is run your vehicle’s windshield defroster for 15 minutes, and then use a credit card or similar thin piece of plastic to release the suction cup around the edge. Presto! You’re free from fees.

Other students shared other solutions – blocking its signal and deactivating it by covering it in aluminum, or fitting your windshield with a mock Barnacle of your own – but our fave low-tech workaround was shared by a user who found out his campus only had 12 wheel boots to go around and bought and illegally parked 12 scrapyard cars that could be “sacrificed” so everyone else could park however they wanted. (Driver).

Now for the really funny part.

Because it has a GPS tracker meant to set off a loud alarm whenever it, or the car it’s attached to, moves, the Barnacle also has a built-in SIM card. One Reddit user figured out the SIM card had unlimited data, and hacked it so they could tether their own personal cell phone to its network, giving them unlimited free phone data for several months. (DRIVER).

The company that makes the product says that they have improved the system, making it harder to remove. That brought laughter from the people who have removed them.

So to the city of Cheyenne, the Mayor and Police Chief respectively. YOU BOUGHT A LEMON.