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How bicycle cops secure their bikes
By adamg on Tue, 08/30/2011 - 10:37am
Douglas McGregor watched a two-wheeled BPD officer secure his ride outside the Kenmore Square Dunkin' Donuts, notes:
The bike cops are smart to not carry the weight of a superfluous bike lock! It was the fastest bike lockin' I have ever seen... at perp-arresting speed.
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Comments
Less than subtle hint
... about what will happen if you mess with this bike.
Love it!
that was my read of it too
it makes up for the fact that the cuff locks are trivial to pick
not just trivial to pick...
Anyone with a handcuff key doesn't even have to bother picking the lock. Lots of people have them, too. Handcuff keys are the most-confiscated item at courthouse metal detectors (I had one of mine taken briefly at the Brooke Courthouse the ninth or tenth time I brought it with me; was on my keychain with my other keys and no one ever noticed until a new security officer who was still doing his job actually looked at what I put in the tray before going through the detector).
Raises another interesting thought
Handcuffs that release by RFID. You could have them all keyed to the same RFID that you hand the cops so the entire department could unlock each others' cuffs but now there's no lock to pick or common key the public can get their hands on.
Seriously?
Did you just say there would then be no common key the public can get their hands on? Because you'd be moving from hardware to software?
Ya, sure, that'd be impossible. Nobody ever traffics in stolen software, least of all criminals. And the current RFIDs we have are just totally unreadable to any criminals!
Awesome idea, Kaz! It's totally foolproof!
hancuffs
are really only temporary restraints, and anyone in handcuffs should be under the control of 1 or 2 officers. Hand cuffs can be double locked, and that makes it just a little more difficult for the untrained key holder to let someone loose that is in handcuffs. Someone in handcuffs would basically find it impossible to unlock themselves from a double locked cuff, even if they had a key.
What's more likely?
What's more likely? A criminal with a handcuff key always stashed on him that he got from his baby boo's porn handcuffs...or a criminal with a matching RFID for his local precinct/city that carries the right crypto for that month/day/period before scrambling again?
The guys investing in RFID hacking are doing it for credit cards, etc. They're not doing it because they want to hack a set of handcuffs on the fly. The hardware to read and hack RFID is not going to fit in your back pocket. Meanwhile, consumer grade handcuffs would still just use the common key...so it's not like tons of RFID cuffs are flooding the market for others to play with.
If RFID were so easy to crack that you'd have random criminals breaking out of handcuffs, then we'd already see them making their own RFID cards for breaking into buildings that use RFID for door keys. How many times have you ever heard of that happening?
Not in your back pocket?
What's most likely is that within a couple years my cell phone will have RFID rx/tx capabilities built in standard. Or that, sooner still, I could plug in a wee dongle to do this. That, a jailbreak, and a bit of software to spin the frequencies, and you're golden. Seriously, the hardware to read and hack RFID will be in your back pocket too in a couple years, you just might not know it. This is going to be something dummies can do.
RFID hacking isn't much of an investment, really, and it's getting cheaper steadily. If I really wanted to get into your office building, for as little as twenty bucks , I could clone your access pass just by walking past you. Pay more for a more powerful receiver, and I could do it driving by you in the street. It's a question of what then? If your company has anything worth protecting, they're not just relying on that badge reader for security.
RFIDs are inherently insecure, and getting less so. Don't put anything too important there. If the cuffs aren't too important, go ahead and use RFIDs. But some joker will be able to pop them for yuks just driving by.
This is much better to see than...
...the cop cars double parked outside the Dunkins. Plus, it's nice to see that the cop will be cycling to work off the calories from those Chocolate Frosteds.
Typical sackless wonder who
Typical sackless wonder who starts crying when a cop looks at him.
Only if..
he's as ugly as you. what the hell's your problem?
The best dunkin donuts - cop jokes I"ve ever heard were from my friends who are cops.
So indeed, what is your problem?
That's great, until they need
That's great, until they need to arrest someone...
welp Hilary, pretty sure they
welp Hilary, pretty sure they have keys to those handcuffs that will allow them to unlock the handcuffs from their bike.
sadtrombone.com
sadtrombone.com
I just had an interesting idea
So...if you don't care too much what your bike looks like, what if you painted it all black and put the word "POLICE" on it? I bet it gets stolen less often if you do.
I also tried to do a quick search of the MGLs and only found that you can't wear a uniform or a badge...but it didn't say anything about vehicles (public safety officers or security crews can't say "police" or "emergency", but nothing about general public that I can find).
One step up from..
...people putting blue and black horizontal striped stickers on their car.
Vintage band
Or, you're merely a fan of Sting and the boys.
Not sure about M.G.Ls
... but I do know that when my uncle bought a former police car at auction in another state, he was required to remove the rotobeams and paint over any police insignia.
I suspect MA may not be any different with car insignia, but doubt there are any such regulations for bikes.
Unc wasn't required to get rid of the search light. We loved to drive that thing up to varous teen parking zones and put that search light on. Even with the police insignia painted over and no emergency lights, it was fun times.
Old cop cars are pretty
Old cop cars are pretty common in Boston - a lot of them end up in service as cabs. They retain the searchlight and even still have the "Police Interceptor" trim badge on the trunk.
I would be wary of making a lookalike police bike, since you'd be riding it plainclothed, and to a real officer that's going to look a little suspicious.
Anyone one who buys an old
Anyone one who buys an old cop car gets what they deserve, they are driven very hard (rapid acceleration, very hard braking) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. They run constanly and the maintence amounts to a band aid basically, just keep them running.
So in other words, an old cop car is
the perfect vehicle to become a typical Boston cab.
"It's got a cop motor, a
"It's got a cop motor, a 440-cubic-inch plant. It's got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluesmobile
Need to get that lighter
Need to get that lighter fixed.
So being a kill-joy runs in
So being a kill-joy runs in the family, huh?
Under Massachusetts law, it is legal
for a civilian to have a spot light on their car (which is why unc wasn't required to remove his when he bought the ex-police cruiser). However, the law dictates how a person may legally use that light. From M.G.L. Chapter 90, section 16:
not true
Someone was just telling me about how they watched a SF PD cop leave his bike unattended for a minute at a street fair. Someone strolled by, hopped on, and pedaled off without missing a beat. Gone.
About 2 minutes later, there was one very, very angry SFPD officer.
Reno?
Are you sure this didn't happen in Reno?
+1
Love it!
Not a secure way to lock up a bike.
Both wheels can be stolen - which by themselves are decently expensive, especially if the bike has disc brakes.
Not to mention...
Handcuffs have pretty weak, easy to defeat locks as well. The symbolism probably works well enough as a deterrent though.
I took the pic
I have seen police bikes left unlocked before, which always awakens some long-dormant Stupid-Teenager-Double-Dog-Dare instinct... so it made me smile when he cuffed the bike. It was clearly just a deterrent to idiots as he got coffee, and not how he locks it in front of his house at night, so to speak ;)
I have the key
I have the key.
The key to the moped ban?
The key to the moped ban?