University of Oklahoma students furious after finding out a new parking-fine device, nicknamed “The Barnacle,” would be implemented at their school have already got the administration to scrap it after figuring out a fix to remove the boot.

The Barnacle is a plastic cover that uses suction to stick to the windshield of a vehicle, and is deployed by a parking enforcement officer who’s caught a car with three outstanding parking fines on their record.

The high-tech device doesn’t immobilize the vehicle like old-school wheel “boot” clamps used to, but it does make it almost impossible to see out of the front windshield, and was seen by the university as a cheaper, more “convenient” fine collection method than towing the car away.

To properly remove the Barnacle, students are supposed to pay a $185 fee via an app and then return the device to a designated drop box. Obviously, some students thought that fee was ridiculous – just like paying for parking at a university where you’re already paying a hefty tuition fee – and devised a different way to remove the Barnacle.

OU Parking Services will implement a new tool called the Barnacle beginning Jan. 21, 2020. Check out this video to learn more about it: pic.twitter.com/AYfaAZmAVI — OU Daily (@OUDaily) January 14, 2020

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.

anyway here’s how to get the barnacle off of your car https://t.co/GUfCd3qXhd pic.twitter.com/HcunI3kwbc — sally (@cowboy_sally) January 14, 2020

The defroster hack was posted to reddit, where it received more than 46,000 upvotes.

Once the Barnacle is off your vehicle, you’re free to drive around as usual. At least one of these hackers took things a step further, though, exacting an ironic revenge on the device.

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.

After “receiving feedback from the community” – that is, having its new parking enforcement method thwarted – OU has decided to pause the trial use of the five devices it’d borrowed from the Barnacle’s manufacturer. The company’s CEO says improvements have been made to counter these hacks already, but we’re curious to see where this parking arms race heads next.