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April 8, 2004
$186
That's how much it cost me to rescue my car today. It was towed last Saturday, and I didn't even know about it until today when I went looking for my car...and it was gone. Basically, I was victimized by a classic case of parking spot reclassification. An explanation of the system might go something like this:
There are three types of parking passes: normal passes, admin passes, and root passes. Anyone with a pass has access to the parking system, but depending on the type of pass, the user only has certain privileges within the system. For example, any user with a pass can enter, occupy, or exit any parking spot in the Ditmer lot. However, for the Cook Field lot, all users can enter and exit parking spots, but only user with admin or root passes can occupy a parking spot. Sometimes, the permissions for a given parking spot can be changed. For example, the parking system can take a certain spot that is occupied by someone with an admin pass, and change its permissions so that it requires a root pass. In this case, Wright's Towing will force quit any current occupation that lacks the necessary privileges, and that user's account will be locked until the user pays the reauthorization fee. At this time the user may occupy any spot for which he/she has the appropriate privileges, including the previous parking spot of occupation if that spot's permissions have been returned to their original state.
Posted by Raj Doshi at April 8, 2004 11:28 AM