Ever been frustrated by a locked shopping cart? A security researcher has revealed how to hack those remote-controlled cart wheels using just your smartphone. The discovery, presented at DEFCON 29, exposes the vulnerability in Gatekeeper Systems wheels commonly used by supermarkets and shopping centers to prevent cart theft.

These electronic wheels operate by detecting a 7.8 kHz signal from underground boundary wires, automatically locking when carts cross these invisible barriers. What makes this hack possible is that the control frequency falls within the normal audio range. By playing these recorded audio files through a phone's speaker, the electromagnetic field generated can mimic the official control signals that lock and unlock the wheels.

The researcher, who goes by the Xitter ha

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