obike counter intuitive (selfish?) hack

[antigee]

just curious about how it works rather than looking for advice on how to fiddle a few dollars out of a bike rental co:

seen the same obike a few times when take M'dog for evening walk - within a few metres of where it was previous day but not quite the same place and not in any real nuisance placement but possibly been used and replaced as not seen during day - thing that is odd to me is that the lock is gaffer taped so it doesn't work as lock - held open - now i had read tales of people physically adding locks to the bikes so others couldn't take them and so always available for use to the person that locked it up but as I understand it keeping the lock that comes on the bike open should mean it still under hire and payment will be taken - or has the user found a way to abuse the system?

[find_bruce]

As I understand it obike uses an app to unlock & re-lock the bike - users pay for time according to the app & it is the app that tracks the location of the bike - news in relation to the current vandalism indicates that obike can't track the bike itself.

So by preventing the lock from closing, the user can continue to ride the bike without paying & without drawing obike's attention to the current location of the bike

[trailgumby]

I'd be inclined to remove the gaffa tape, myself. Poor form.

[kb]

It’s not as if they’re a pleasure to ride...

[Bunged Knee]

So do they think that they can get away with it.

When someone downloaded an app and not reading the "Term of Services", you can lose points when you activated the bike and not bother to de-activated it at the end of the ride for the cost of your duration of use. It will register on who the person is.

From O-Bike agreement rules,


O-Bike credit points,

[Warin]

I'd be inclined to remove the gaffa tape, myself. Poor form.

Report it to Obike .. and get +3 points? A photo and location to them might get some action.

[antigee]

As I understand it obike uses an app to unlock & re-lock the bike - users pay for time according to the app & it is the app that tracks the location of the bike - news in relation to the current vandalism indicates that obike can't track the bike itself.

So by preventing the lock from closing, the user can continue to ride the bike without paying & without drawing obike's attention to the current location of the bike

that's why i'm a bit puzzled - my understanding was when you download the ap' you give a $69 deposit to obike so I'd assume if you gaffer up the lock and delete the ap' you lose the deposit? Or maybe you gaffer up the lock and "return" the bike and the ap records returned but the user can ride again or I guess that's a bike (of sorts) for $69 but not if you leave it on the street corner unlocked
i hasten to add i thought the locks were a bit smarter than they are - i'd assumed they did transmit location as a way to find a bike to use but reading above the location is recorded wherever the user uses the ap to return the bike thanks

might take a pic next time pass it - not taking a knife to the park to cut off the tape

[Ivanerrol]

i hasten to add i thought the locks were a bit smarter than they are - i'd assumed they did transmit location as a way to find a bike to use but reading above the location is recorded wherever the user uses the ap to return the bike thanks

I understood that the bikes had onboard GPS as that is how their recovery guys find them when fishing the odd 20 or so out of the Yarra river every week.

[find_bruce]

i hasten to add i thought the locks were a bit smarter than they are - i'd assumed they did transmit location as a way to find a bike to use but reading above the location is recorded wherever the user uses the ap to return the bike thanks

I understood that the bikes had onboard GPS as that is how their recovery guys find them when fishing the odd 20 or so out of the Yarra river every week.

That's what I thought to, although it would be a good GPS that would work underwater, but later articles said otherwise - sorry I don't have links to hand. Fishing them out of the yarra was because they are common there