Graffiti Briefcase For Stealth Tagging

We’re floored by painter and engineer [Bob Partington’s] graffiti briefcase, which proves how well art and tech can complement one another. Fear not, Arduino haters, [Bob]’s case is an analog dream: no microcontrollers here.

The guts consist of 2 components: a linear drive system and a trigger assembly. The former takes advantage of a small RC motor with a chain drive which slides the can’s mounting unit along two stainless steel rods. The latter includes a custom wound solenoid plugged into a 24V cordless drill battery, which slams down 5 pounds of force onto the can’s nozzle to fire the paint.

This all fits into an otherwise inconspicuous looking briefcase to provide some urban camouflage. The final component is a stencil, which slides into a rectangular hole on the bottom of the case. The paint can sprays downward through the stencil and tags the ground at the touch of a brass button located near the handle.  [Bob] has plenty of other cool inventions you should check out that are less illegal. Or, stick it to the man by automating your tagging with Time Writer.

Thanks [David]

251 thoughts on “Graffiti Briefcase For Stealth Tagging

        1. I, for one, hope that they are simply punished to the fullest extent of the law… and that the legislature will see fit to make the crime of “tagging” punishable by amputating the hand of the perpetrator via the democratic process.

        2. F – You seem to be “Pro-Tagging”. And yet, you have the nerve to talk about “ego”. That’s what tagging is all about – boosting the ego of the Tagger. Taggers are cowards. Calling it art is nothing but a Liberal/Democrat excuse to justify vandalism.

          1. I love how you people bring political views into everything… If it’s something you don’t agree with, it’s automatically lumped into whatever political view you don’t agree with, even when it makes absolutely no sense (such as this).

          2. Think what you will of Taggers, Liberals, Democrats, and Cowards- art doesn’t stop being art when it becomes offensive. It can be both art and wrong.

            Claiming something isn’t art does nothing to progress the discussion because it doesn’t make any value judgement of the thing or of art. In fact, the only thing I’ve learned from reading your comment is that there are many things you don’t like and tagging is one of them. Why should that affect my opinion of tags, tagging, or taggers?

          3. Tagging is the exclusive domain of Young Immature Liberals like you. Conservative Republicans simply do not Tag. Unlike you – decent people respect property boundaries. Based on your comments – it is easy to infer your political affiliation. So, tell me please – am I right? You are a Democrat or a Liberal or Both – is that correct? Based on your comments – have I pegged you correctly?

          4. @Patrick from Bethesda Are you asking me if I’m Dem/Lib? My Voter’s Registration card says Independent and I have a history of voting Republican. But I fail to see why my choice of politician should have any bearing over my comment.

            Art is Art whether or not you like it. That doesn’t make it okay, but it doesn’t make it not art.

            Also,

            > Conservative Republicans simply do not Tag.

            Fuck you. You think your shit doesn’t stink? Do you think any Dem/Lib President in America’s long history tagged? You political affiliation has nothing to do with the caliber of your character.

      1. Most taggers will mock this. Though I don’t always see it, people take pride in their hand drawn tags and think of them as art. This is ‘just a stencil’ to them that anybody can print out and start spraying around.

          1. A well drawn original piece cut into a stencil is still a stencil. You only get one shot at a hand thrown tag. You don’t have to show anyone your screw ups if everything’s from one stencil. I don’t get the tagging aspect of graffiti, pieces I can respect.
            I do like the deployment options this stealth stencil-er opens up however.

          1. Replying to Chris Knowles,

            I’ve seen that, and in fact, it was solidified my negative opinions of him. Apart from the fact that the layout of that is hideous, it just reeks of some kid who watched Fight Club and thinks he’s got society “figure out” or whatever. So what, the horror of seeing an advertisement is “assault” now? Oh give me a god damn break. I don’t like to often bring this point up, because it can be used to just dismiss any complaint, but I guess I don’t understand as to how someone can be so oblivious to how lucky they are. Yeah, it must be REALLY tough living in a developed nation because like you have to see pictures and stuff. We’re not talking about obscenity here. Christ. The self-importance and indulgence is nauseating.

          2. Fun fact: Criminal mischief (intentionally damaging someone else’s property without permission) at nighttime in Texas is an offense for which the use of deadly force is authorized. Not saying I agree with it, but it is interesting.

        1. This relatively simple technology is still light years beyond the comprehension of the basic street tagger. Most are marking the territory (much like a dog or cat). They may consider it art as most artists are dropouts who consider basic scribbles to be “creative” and trendy. But most are just gang-bangers, pimps or low-level drug dealers. The only legit purpose for this sort of device is to frustrate the gang-based taggers (they would never figure this out!) with the idea that a new gang of ninjas are moving in on their turf.

    1. Nothing about this incredible design makes it easier for “assholes to paint their stupid fucking tags on other peoples property”. But it seems like you could use some more creativity and art in your life to help with that attitude problem

        1. The criminal justice system has many mechanisms at its disposal including fines, probation, etc.

          I think you are the one who NEEDS for them to “serve jail time”.

          Of course you also make the brash assumption that the property owner is going to press charges! Or perhaps they should just be thrown directly in jail without pressing charges or prosecution?

          1. The problem is that taggers are fundamentally vandals and hippocrits. I have no doubt that most taggers have property that they would not want other people to alter or decorate without their permission, but they are not willing to extend that same courtesy to others. Our society has laws to protect people’s property. They should be enforced. It’s the carrot or the stick. If they can’t be taught to respect the property of others, then they need to be taught to fear them.

          2. “Our society has laws to protect people’s property. They should be enforced. ”

            How about those laws concerning vigilante justice? You have said repeatedly that you want to take the law into your own hands.

          3. Offering my opinion about what the law should be or about enforcing existing law is fundamentally different than administering my own punishment outside of the law. Even you ought to be able to understand that.

          4. F, what hojo wrote and how you interpreted it are so completely different that I’ve actually considered the possibility that I’m dreaming and this conversation isn’t happening. Any reasonable person could take it as a suggestion that taggers be dealt with in the framework of our criminal justice system pursuant to the laws at the time that they allegedly commit the act. You brought vigilantism into this on your own, completely out of left field. Wow, just wow.

          5. “deserves a sharp slap in the throat” is NOT justice, it is good old-fashioned Calvinist Christian “punishment” mentality. It has nothing to do with “justice”.

          6. someone failed Trolling 101. might want to repeat that course. and plus also, wth does ‘calvinist christian “punishment” mentality’ have to do with this discussion? it’s something with which I have no small familiarity (understatement of the decade), but I fail to see any connection here.

    2. If corporations and rich people can pay to have their messages shoved in my face, then I have every right to do the same to them.

      Fuck advertisements. Combat them with art, or your own message.

      1. Fine, just pay the rent to put your message up, just like all those corporations do. I hate advertising as much as anyone, but vandalizing someone else’s property makes you a piece of shit. Advertising on someone else’s property after compensating them may be annoying, but it’s an entirely different and less vile scenario.

        1. Nobody paid me for my bandwidth, ram, and proc cycles that are used by advertisements, including this site. I consider that a form of stealing and vandalism as much as anything else. People may chose to advertise on my property only on my terms, yet it is both a social and legal norm to expect businesses to skirt around such terms of use while mandating lawful enforcement of those terms on everyone else.

          My point is, very little advertising is actually paid for in full by the advertiser. If someone chooses to socialize the cost of their messages by putting messages on things they do not own, they are merely following the example of corporations.

          1. Well, all those sites you visit could become paywalls and you could then pay for the ability to browse them. Advertising is the transparent paywall many sites live off of so if you visit it, don’t like it, don’t go back. I block ads mostly and a lot of other content, but I don’t complain about the fact that it exists to help make the net a more free place overall.

        2. @hojo – hear hear. I totally agree with you.

          Tagging a badly written version of your ‘nickname’ isn’t art it’s vandalism, plain and simple.

          That said, those large graffiti pieces – well some of them are quite skillful and can be considered artistic (although mostly not to my taste).

          I also don’t think that banksy is clever. His concepts are nicely artistic, but I do feel he should have done them on large canvas, instead of curbs and low walls.

          On-topic. Briefcase is cool – I can think of legitimate road painting requirements that could (and probably already do) use something like this.

        3. Gatorade doesn’t pay rent for the bottles littered across the sidewalk. Pepsi doesn’t pay to be on the menu of of every restaurant that doesn’t have coke. Apple *gets* paid for putting glowing apples all over a college campus.

          The more important issue is not that American Apparel paid rent on a webpage, but that they didn’t pay rent to get into my eyes. This is isn’t a Legal complaint with the premise of advertising, it’s a Moral one. Legal loopholes and lopsidedness are everywhere- we know it isn’t okay for Apple to patent rounded rectangles in our hearts; we don’t need proof that they did or didn’t do it legally.

          It’s the same with ads and tags. They are visual stimulus that made their way into your head. Which is more important- whether they paid for the space or whether or not you find it offensive?

          Some ads and tags are genuinely offensive. They impinge on my experience for that day, coloring my life. Sometimes they give me headaches, like “HEAD ON, APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD”. Sometimes they show me something grotesque that I don’t want to think about later but I can’t shake from my mind, like some misogynistic portrayal of a nude woman. Sometimes, it devalues the experience in the context it’s in, like acid sprayed on windows or shutters, or a billboard in a park.
          These are truly offensive, but money had *nothing* to do with it.

          Most mean very little really. A name painted onto a bench, whether with dripping paint or a phone number advertising their loans, affects me very little. Both parties just want to be seen. They ask for little and they take just as much.

          But every once in a while you find Art. Good Art. Something that makes you reevaluate what you thought about something. Something that makes you appreciate what you have or ease your troubles. In this case it’s easiest to see that rent means nothing because you want the beautiful landscape on the side of the building, the soothing tones over the radio, the uplifting message plastered on the phone pole.
          Who would be perverted enough to demand money to let an artist make people feel good.

      2. Yeah! Fuck advertisments! Fuck advertisements that support the very website I am commenting on right now!!

        Seriously, just grow up. Your angst-ridden teenage edginess is obnoxious.

        1. while I may not agree with the original premise, I cannot agree with yours either. When I drive down the road I am traveling by my own will to a destination. The advertisements placed to distract drivers from their task at hand in hopes of gaining some small extra advantage within an industry are not in any way chosen nor desired by me as interruptions in my landscape. While the billboard owner may be thrilled Id rather see the trees. Not my option….not my choice.

          Now none of that goes to defend taggers……so please lets just keep that whine lubricated free from this….

          When I go to a website….that is my destination…..if the operators over monetize and the ads become excessive, annoying, and disruptive to my goals in viewing the site….Ill make the decision to move on…..as I have for that very reason from facebook. I will find other places for that purpose…..some sites realize this and even allow you to pay a premium to avoid such spammy corporate tagging.

          The real world advertisements are no more than tagging…..no more than graffiti, paying a fine in rent to a property owner for the privilege of not having it removed before it has infested the view of as many as the “artist” intended.

        2. “War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil…” – Jimmy Carter

          Supporting HaD doesn’t validate ads. They’re still the disgusting byproduct of a “money is everything” mentality we live. It’s fine to be a realist and fall in line, but never fall so far you start to think that ads weren’t so bad in the first place.

      3. Alan – Advertising pays for Air-Time. So, in essence – what you are saying is that Radio and Television should be FREE !!! According to your Liberal Logic – Society owes you Free Entertainment with no strings attached. You clearly have no understanding of the business world. Liberal Democrat Retards like you want everything for Free. This includes Obama Care. Liberal Democrats want free housing too. You Occutards want everything for Free. Then you turn around and spit on society with tagging. Alan – your Left-Wing Democrat Socialism is disgusting. You need to grow up.

      1. FartFace – Graffiti Vandals do not “Own” the streets or the sidewalks. You are grossly misinformed.

        If what you said was true – then vandals would NOT be prosecuted when caught.
        The fact that they ARE prosecuted totally disproves your juvenile theory.

        You think like a typical uninformed Wall Street Occutard.
        You need to mature a bit before making your next comment.

        1. You can only say things by attacking people. THAT is truly “jjuvenile. insulting people and catagorizing them with political views that have nothing to do with the subject, thats also extremely immature. Your the definition… of a fucking idiot.

          1. F is a tagger with a self-aggrandizing view of his criminal behavior.
            He has deluded himself into thinking that his juvenile scribble is actually art.
            In reality it is nothing but a public nuisance punishable by huge fines and/or prison time.

            This delusion is simply a cowardly method of justifying his poor behavior. As a coward – he naturally runs when cops approach. He won’t stand and face the consequences – no way, he’s a coward. He knows full well that he is breaking the law – so the coward within tells him to run.

            He now hides behind the internet and pounds his chest as if he is Andy Warhol or some other true artist.

            His comments are laughable because at the end of the day – F is nothing but a sissy with a can of paint.

            Hilarious !!!!

      1. Do my posts count as “graffiti”? Probably. Do they count as “tagging”? I am pretty confident they serve an (if however insignificantly) higher purpose than “I was here”.

        Look, I am not arguing that this is a crime, as others do here. I am not arguing that graffiti is street art, I actually happen to like it if it carries any artistic value whatsoever. I am arguing that this and similar “tags” are literally nothing more than people marking their territory. And I will stick to my analogy: like a dog lifting its leg.

    1. Animals leave marks, fact of life. Some do it by pissing on things, some by making comments online, some by making music, some by making paintings, some by making buildings or children or countries.

      Acknowledging this fact does nothing to suggest that graffiti is wrong, just that taggers exist somewhere on the spectrum between dog and founding father.

  1. See what this needs is a way of holding the letters in a way that it doesn;t have a cross. Either like floss or something very thin that the paint can still adhere back to itself on whatever surface your spray

    1. I can’t remember where I learned this, but in automated spray booths the thing to do is set back the support structure as far as you can and make it’s cross section perpendicular to the working surface as narrow as possible. With cone shaped output, over-spray (if that is the correct term) will obliterate the shadow of the support structure.

    1. Why is there always some retarded right wing nut job, obsessed with this fictional islamification that feels like these pseudo-ironic outburst of pure stupidity are the right thing to post?
      Well, there are area’s of dictatorial regimes that, just as well, would be appropriate preventively locking up mentally unstable red-neck reprobates like this bloody socially inept reactionary slob.
      Please, don’t vote and don’t procreate. Do as little as you possibly can… no less.

        1. “Please do the same.”
          Or what? You’ll start hoping that my car/house/property will get vandalized and assume I have no right to form opinions of take actions?

          Look, I know you are able of enormous shallowness and such empty comments to a degree that would make FOX news blush, but without a bit of effort in originality on your pathetic part, I can’t even start contemplating, thinking about responding to you, explaining why you are, wrong, a horrible person and a bit thick.

          This would be a shame, because you need and deserve to hear that as often as you can.

          1. I hear that your angry, but none of what you say is rational. Sometimes it’s ok to just say “I’m angry” without trying to use a lot of words you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter. What I’ve said is reasonable and logically consistent. What you’ve said consist of poor rationalizations and angry outburst. None of that makes you less wrong, or serves to defend your tremendous cognitive dissonance.

          2. Keep at it, I’m sure you can totally get in the last word… I mean it probably won’t make any sense, if your preceding comments are any indication, but really as long as you can convince yourself that you’ve “won”, that’s really what’s important.

      1. Voxnulla – Your Left-Wing NutJob views make us all laugh. Your delusion of Islam does not match reality. Your Islamic pals cut off hands on a regular basis. That’s a Fact. They also cut off heads. And they cut the throats of anyone who disagrees with them. So, why are you giving me grief? I spoke the truth. Islam would not allow graffiti. Their punishment would be extreme and harsh. Your Left-Wing/Communist/Socialist views are laughable. As usual, Democrats are detached from reality.

      1. Damn, Didn’t think about that one. One must at least be open minded about the possibility that people who blow up other people due to faith based differences could potentially have a appropriate response to urban youth vandalism.

          1. Would it be more or less terrible on your car door? Your house? Would you be ok with that? Of course not, so stop being a hippocrit and only spray paint where you have permission of the owner.

          2. “no idiot, because you would feel differently if it was your property being vandalized.”
            I really hate it when my privately owned viaducts are vandalized with paints that probably adds to it’s surface protection. I mean, the functionality of the viaducts are greatly diminished by this nano-meter thick coating of material!! Really!
            As far as viaducts and all my other concrete structures go, they are the pinnacle of beauty when it comes to modern architecture and any random splash of paint renders them useless instantly!
            What are you whining about? Really.

        1. That’s a very specific (and bad) example. How you feel about the way graffiti looks is completely subjective. Why should a tagger be the one to get to decide how publicly owned property should be decorated? I prefer plain undecorated concrete to trashy spray paint any day, but I don’t get to decide either. If it’s publically owned, that means everyone’s opinions need to be considered, not just the tagger, and not just some guy who has to look at it.

  2. Could be loaded with washable chalk marking paint, just for a ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ type of mark. Could be fun.

    Sure, taggers are irritating but humans have been making graffiti as long as we’ve been able to write and probably before. It isn’t going to go away if you shout at it.

          1. Let me get this straight. Because “F” defends this hack for what it is, which somehow is a unreconcilable difference of opinion between you two, you subsequently HOPE that his car is vandalized because of this difference? On top of that, you also see fit to be the arbiter on his right to form an opinion on that event, were it to happen?
            I don’t really think you are that property minded at all. Just a bit dim.

          2. You say I’m dim, but you’ve completely failed to comprehend the chain of reasoning here. I’ll break it down for you. I said nothing about the hack itself. I think it’s pretty cool. “F” didn’t say anything about the hack either, he made a sarcastic statement about Graffiti on abandoned buildings. I simply extended his statement to his own property. Put very clearly for the simple minded, “If you condone altering other people’s property without their permission then you should not have a problem when someone does it to your property.” It’s sometimes referred to as “The Golden Rule”. Once you understand it’s implications, you’ll be closer to understanding the irony of you calling me “dim.”

          3. I know that the emphatically… challenged have problems with this concept, but that was just a style figure. I do not really care about you being a small minded, self-centred nobody. I would if I knew that people like you could actually act upon your flaccid world views, but this mostly isn’t a problem. The few fruits that do fly a tad bit higher are easily spotted and marked.
            Do enjoy all the property friendly hacks you can find!

          4. My brain is starting to hurt trying to understand this idiocy. First of all, what on earth does this have to so with right-wing? Secondly, is it maybe, just maybe, possible that he didn’t literally mean that their hands should be cut off? Are you that dense? It’s called hyperbole.

          1. yeah there is no distinction between property owners who care and those who don’t

            it’s a crime even if the owner doesn’t care and will never press charges

            now I get it

          1. and yet you are willing to lecture us endlessly about something that is plainly not your concern. Do the property owners of the world require your assistance in handling this apocalyptic issue or do you think they are capable of dialing the police themselves?

          2. Reply to F:

            Your use of “and yet”, implies that the statement that hojo has a grasp of the concept of asking permission and is stating this concept to you for your benefit, is somehow clashing with your statement of his endlessly lecturing about his problems with tagging.

            This implication does not hold.

            Having scanned through more of your comments. A lot of them contain some form of either avoiding the point under discussion, or using sarcasm with extreme versions of other people’s statements to try and validate the negative of their actual statements.

            It seems that you are quite emotional about this issue, which might explain the lack of constructive commentary.

            One thing I hope you take from this, is that in general people disagree with your stance on the respectability of tagging. Which also explains the laws that have been set up to combat the activity.

          1. “I’ll share my opinion as often as I like, and if you don’t like it you can go fuck yourself.”
            I suggest you share this opinion at an event where it would actually be on-topic then. The hack remains valid despite your opinion on it’s uses or your thoughts on property.

          2. “F” – I assume that “F” stands for “Fag”.

            Anyway, so which one are you – A property Owner or a Tagger who is going to have the shit beat of him when he gets caught?

            I suspect you are they asshole who’s destiny is to have the shit beat out of him.

            If you vandalized my property I would shoot you right on the spot.

            You are not an artist – you are a coward.

        1. As I’ve said before, I like the hack from a technical perspective. My opinions regard the human refuse that finds it appropriate to alter other people’s property without permission. Since you’ve made plenty of post seemingly defending tagging, I can only assume you agree.

          1. I’m afraid that a lot of others peoples property is seriously hampering some innate urges in some people, feeling the unnatural pressures of urban live, to express themselves like our rural and nomadic forefathers.
            In fact, denying these primal urges to “tag” in ones habitat by introducing a relative modern concept like “property” should be considered an infringement of basic human rights.
            Restricting the rights of self expression by proxy of this so called ownership within a living community is unnatural and should be a criminal act.
            Either you have property and participate in this naturally formed ritual act that has formed man-kind for aeons, or you fuck off!

          2. So you’d be totally ok with having your own property (house, car, etc) tagged in order to satisfy this primative urge? Or maybe you don’t have any property so you have no appreciation for the problem.

          3. I’m afraid (no, I’m not) that you fail to grasp the message yet again.
            When you called me “angry”, I assume you were just projecting. Have you talked to somebody about that behaviour? It’s not generally healthy.
            Apart from not being the sharpest tool in the shed, I think you have problems.

        2. I fail to see why anyone would let a stupid kid paint a ridiculous handle into their mailbox, wall, sidewalk or even door. Graffiti can be pretty cool when painted in proper places but tagging? It is just vandalism made by kids who do not have anything better to do.

      1. I think you have a need to discredit me, because I’ve uncovered your broken rationalization of bad behavior, so now you need to convince others, and perhaps more importantly yourself, that I’m the one with the problem so that you don’t have to examine the defects in your own character.

          1. “I don’t think you now what random means.”
            The word was chosen very explicitly. A short run down of you argumentative errors will show that “random” is the correct term for your assumptions. They follow no logical/rational pattern.

    1. I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, I just would strongly recommend removing this video, though it may be a bit late. Also, in case anyone was curious I too don’t condone “tagging”, I find it to be a public nuisance.

      1. well at least he posted it under a fake name….”Bob Partington” yeah right like that’s real

        Really tho…cool build…I might be against what it is for…but I like how it does it

        1. No, but just because there is no resulting punishment, does not mean there was no illegal, or undesirable behavior. I also had not said that he is in any extreme risk of punishment occurring, there may be no one to see this who actually could pursue any legal action, but in that slight chance that such a thing occurs, it is best not to flaunt the evidence that would prove you guilty.

          1. -Perhaps all DRM avoidance hacks ass well?
            -Spudguns and gun hack in general, I’m sure the same red-necks who loath a bit of paint on an ugly sidewalk would hate for 3d printed gun hacks to be removed, although truly dangerous.
            -Chainmale.. Protection whilst attacking people! BAN
            – The automatic dog feeder could be utilized by people who would socially abandon their pets.
            -Potassium chloride?

            I think people who are scared into thinking the law is always right should not be here.

  3. Mmmm, let’s see, electric motor, flammable vapor, confined space, what could possibly go wrong?

    Bits of metal shrapnel embedded in your legs from the knee down, not too good for running away after the explosion.

    Bonus, when it explodes, it’s now a terrorist destructive device, I’d bet that’s good for some prison time.

    I like the chalk idea posted earlier by andarb, as it’s not permanent and not explicitly vandalism.

    1. ahh another brillant post from the HAD troubleshooting team.
      Guess what? spray paint vapor in a briefcase even in an ideal condition for detonation, which would require a great deal of air transfer, would produce insufficient force to even pop the latches on the briefcase.

      So for your tragically BS situation…you would almost have to ground the can, and have a hot line short to the can…..and even then….air fuel mix…the can rupturing would more likely drown the spark then be ignited by it.

      if by some amazing chance all the stars lined up…..and somehow the can actually did explode….the case wouldnt pass the metal….NO CHANCE…..a paper bag….possibly…a briefcase nope.

      Next….lets cover this terrorist destructive device crap your spewing,
      while perhaps, if you foolishly were tagging at a high value target, airport, government building, sporting event, etc, youd likely spend a day or two answering questions with HS….but as hard as it may be for you to comprehend….even the lowest level of technicians, with the most basic of experience, when given your “device” for analysis….will piss himself laughing. Even a momentary glance inside the paint filled briefcase will make it abundantly clear that any damage beyond the tag was the result of stupidity, naivety, and a kid playing around….not a terror cell,

      Get a grip

    1. did you know that applying marks to the built landscape is a crime worse than murder?

      It’s too heinous for our justice system, witnesses MUST take the law into their own hands to save the poor concrete from humiliation.

      1. If you travel through the city and see more tagging in one neighborhood than another, do you think “wow, this is a nice neighborhood; everyone is an artist”?

        All I think about are the delinquents who have no respect for other people’s property. I assume the area is riddled with thieves, vandals, and drug addicts. In my experience growing up in such areas, I’m not very far from the truth in those assumptions.

        Nefarious uses aside, this is an okay hack; but since I don’t do a lot of electronics work, I’m easily impressed.

    1. lol, the guy who made this obviously has a small penis lololol

      Except not. Just because YOU don’t want to tag things, doesn’t mean it’s stupid/pointless/wrong/”compensation”.

      1. no, basic logic says its stupid/pointless/wrong/”compensation”
        putting your fucking name on things thats not yours just to have some poor man clean it up at the expense of everyone’s tax dollars
        you’re clearly trying to compensate for something when your this desperate for attention

          1. You are just rooting for clean-up men to have less work in these economical stressed times…. The fact that you see no problem in calling hard working cleaning personal “poor” is sickening. Not only do you think them paupers, but you are hoping for them to have less employment. What sort of monster are you?

  4. It is good to see that generally this community thinks this hack and those who think graffiti is somehow acceptable are just what they are – an ugly part of society, misfits and the human manifestation of trash. I am grateful that I am fortunate enough to not knowingly come in contact with this part of society.

    1. You know you are siding with that part of “the community” that, in part, thought sharia law to be a proper way of dealing with a form of expression. Perhaps you are right seeing as the numbers suggest that the majority of people are egomaniacal idiots.
      Anyway, I believe that even people less outspoken but convinced that the average city is only eacstatically pleasing without graffiti should be locked up or shot…. Ow wait!

    2. Umm- hackers are considered part of that group you are dehumanizing.

      “misfits and the human manifestation of trash”

      I recall 20 million innocent souls were systematically tortured and killed not too long ago using that same justification.

    1. I remember a hack that sprayed tweets. Perhaps that project can be modified to spray HaD comments made by people who are suddenly full of hypocritical righteous indignation about tagging. That would be quite amusing.

        1. I’m sure that could be converted to super glossy hardened paint/spray on dog shit/flesh easting acid dispenser mechanisms.
          I also remember the tight sphincters having the same hissy-fit on that hack as well.

  5. New Project Idea- Catch them in the act, prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Hidden camera with night vision and stuff. Several cameras able to capture them their act and the car they drive away in. Crime stoppers and property owners will pay us not the ones that have to remove it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS NOT ART! I get so pissed off when someone says the words ” GRAFFITI ARTIST” ……IT IS NOT ART IT SUCKS AND LOOKS LIKE SH!T.

      1. Yes, were it a device to decoratively paint your terrace with Mediterranean motives, It would be fine, but due to the resemblance of this video to, what people assume to be, illegal activity, this material should not even be up on a site that bolsters the name “hack”.

        If you really think this is a mature and rational way to think and behave, then I suggest you frequent knitting.com or flowerpressing.net instead. Also subscribe to the nearest Sunday cult you can find.

      2. JIM please take a deep breath.
        as a long term HAD reader, whos had several projects here. I often find myself less than thrilled with the way things are written, edited, presented. This account wouldnt exist otherwise.

        Your project idea……perfectly valid. Build it submit it. Make a statement through action. Because in truth, this isnt “build something janky with limited skills and knowledge.com” Its hackaday, notice the early pubescent feel of the webdesign?
        This site isnt an engineering convention….its a place where the halfbaked and nearly accomplished can win praise for having the masculine gonadality to either create something beyond your paygrade, or at least take something and bend it so hard into a new modality that you no longer have what you began with.

        If you want all safe sane and socially responsible projects……let your first post be your last. Thats not what this place is about.
        If you want anyone to take any notice of your feelings, beliefs, or opinions here or elsewhere I would highly recommend you make attempt to show your own worth before assaulting others’….at the end of the day, your ranting post holds no more weight here then a preachers ad on backpage.

  6. Ok so if you have never , and I mean NEVER craved in a tree /table/wall , or wrote on a desktop bathroom stall, locker door, etc etc I think you see were I am going with it right. Well if you have Never Ever done anything that could be considered graffiti or tagging then feel free to say they should be punished . But if you have done something STFU :)

    1. Carving your sweetheart’s name in a tree to announce your love for her/him at least requires some effort and creativity. Applying paint using the same stencil over and over again out of sheer boredom is just lame.

  7. One with these kinds of stories (other than that they get posted at all) is the entirely uncritical original post … sure there is the sarcastic stick it to the man comment, but that just pains the perpetrator as infantile not a vandal. Post the hack, point out that this shit costs money to clean up … which all the people here currently holding down a job have to shell out for.

    Personally I could do without stuff like this and the red light camera hack … what’s next, Qassam missile hacks?

      1. Drug use has the potential to hurt others, but it’s in the hands of the user whether he’s responsible in it’s use or not. You can’t responsibly tag shit or run red lights.

          1. Nobody said it was. Grow up already. I’ve read you make the same asinine statements a dozen times in this thread. Painting something that doesn’t belong to you, especially with something as trite as a “tag” is disrespectful and has no purpose or artistic merit. Do you know what artists use “tags” for? To sign their art. I can call it wrong, I can label everyone that does it a moron. I can hope it is prosecuted. All without giving it a moral equivalence with anything else. Tagging isn’t art, it isn’t expression. It’s clueless adolescents thinking it gives them street cred.

          2. I’m still trying to figure out why this whole thing is of any concern to anyone besides the affected property owner. Why do you feel the need to get involved? What does your opinion add to the situation?

          3. Maybe I am the property owner? What does your opinion add to the situation? Do you understand what happens when people discus things? They offer opinions and reasoning. Most of us don’t want to see “mista big” scribbled across everything we see and for the same reasons we don’t want to see litter all of the ground. It’s trashy.

            I don’t understand why you are so defensive about “tagging”. You keep trying to repeat why it’s no one’s business to offer their opinion but you continuously repeat yours.

    1. @F uck off
      You don’t even have the guts to display your name.
      Grow up !
      Build something yourself, have it published on HaD and then we’ll talk !
      In the US of A (‘o thy land of the free’) getting drunk in public might be illegal, I don’t know, but where I live it certainly isn’t.
      Drunk driving, however, is as are certain other actions that one might undertake while under the influence of alcohol.
      Suffocating on your own vomit also isn’t illegal unless you live in a country in which suicide is illegal.

    2. I’d be okay with that. The Pareto principle has been repeatedly proven right. Start with the biggest issues and work your way down. Alcohol is very, very high on the list of things that cause societal problems. More people die on an average day due to alcohol than terrorists murder in a decade, yet it is practically promoted by all.

  8. huh, i just can’t figure out why hackaday would post an article like this..

    3d printed prosthetics= 12 comments.
    spray paint tagging=100+ comments

    hackaday would like to thank its readership for paying the bills today.

  9. This legal opinion battle is ridiculous. Tagging, although I hate seeing it defacing other peoples’ property, is as much an art form as Andy Warhol printing 4 copies of a plagiarized picture from the newspaper onto a canvas in different colors (about 80% of what he did).

    This hack is not specifically for the purpose of vandalism. Firstly, those upright paint cans 9 times out of 10 contain line marking paint, which is just water and chalk and washes off in the rain. Secondly, if I had a unit complex, I might want a cheap and easy way to write “rooms for rent $800/mo” on the wall outside. Much like cars, knives, spray paint and nitrate fertilizer, it’s a useful tool which can be misused.

    1. Whoops, unit complex point refers to the wall writer robot. This could be quite a useful device for painting street numbers on the kerb though.

      I also forgot my other point. If this had an Arduino with wifi or bluetooth, it could make the user’s cell phone play a ringtone to cover up the spraying sound.

      1. If you have to cover up the spraying sound it means you want to do something you don’t want others to notice. If it’s supposed to be a tool to be used with good intent then why would you want to do that ?
        If you want a cheap and easy way to write “rooms for rent $800/mo” on your own wall this is not it.
        And if you want to legally paint street numbers on kerbs all you need is a stencil and a spray can or any other source of paint.

    2. thank you soooooooo much. I for one love andy worhol but….agree with the fact that the bulk of his work is little more than early advance photoshop. But it is art. Most things are….when viewed as the artist intended.

      Someone tell Banksy grafitti isnt art, better yet tell the millionaire collectors, and his agent.

  10. Nice hack! All devices can be used for good or bad. If the stencil is nice or someone wants it, this is a great tool to have. For instance parking lot numbers on the floor, this case comes in pretty handy with the right stencils.
    It’s like saying 3d printers are bad because you can print a gun with it. It’s all about what the owner of the device decides to do with the tool. So for me. Nice build, ignore the haters and don’t stop being creative Bob!

    Also yes it bothers me that the media mentions nothing about a prosthetic hand that was made on a simple reprap 3d printer. While the whole world had to know some A-hole made a gun with it…

  11. The hack is cool! Tagging in the other hand is not. I love graffiti, I really do, there’s a lot of insanely talented artists out there. Tagging was originally used, correct me if I’m wrong, as a form of signature for the art piece. Nowadays tags are plastered everywhere without purpose. I don’t mind graffiti, but tagging is like drawing a dick on your friends notebook – no one thinks it’s funny besides you :)

    1. “there’s a lot of insanely talented artists out there”

      None of which go around destroying OTHER PEOPLES PROPERTY.

      If you have to spray crap on something you don’t own, it’s not art, it’s vandalism. There’s no talent, just a huge lack of common sense or respect for your fellow man. Is it really that hard of a concept to understand? Would you like me to spray paint this message on your house or car to make it clearer?

      Even little kids know it’s wrong to draw directly on the kitchen wall.

  12. also can we stop using the videos to share or show off music.

    i hate videos that are nothing but music.

    a couple second clip of a song in the beginning or intermissions is ok but an entire video

    if you are trying to exploit a loophole to post copyrighted stuff then try one of the many torrent sites out there and keep our beloved youtube free of piracy.

  13. Wow. I’m glad I never went ahead with an idea I thought of – or you guys would crucify me. Let me chuck it out there anyway…

    8 or so spray cans mounted under your car, spraying (water soluble paint of course) as you drive along. It could leave text on the road just like a dot matrix printer or POV display.

  14. WOW! One helluva flamewar on this one!

    My opinion about graffiti artists/taggers is not important here. That’s not what hacking is about!

    Back to the subject: cool ninja hack, and not an arduino!

  15. DIY douchebaggery.

    I have some respect for graffiti artists, that is, people who make public art. But I have ZERO respect for douchebags who feel the need to mark their fucking territory, which is all this guy is doing. “oh look, the same exact mark, wherever I set down my briefcase full of ugly yellow spraypaint”.

  16. I’m back with one question for anyone who thinks this is ok (especially VOXNULLA). If I tagged your property……your house, your business, in/on your street so you can see it every day, with my tag, my art, or what ever you call it. Would you leave it in place? You preach to us, but just like every other church attendee, its only on Sunday and you practice what you teach when your in Church only. You are no different! Paint your tag on your own house and then be proud of your work….invite others to tag your house, your business, property, street. Be proud of what you do then, not in the shadows. Buy your paint , don’t steal it.

    So will you do this to your own property and be proud? If not, I say Fck you one last time……Cowards, Criminals, Vandals…..come clean my sh!t up.

    over and out! Later…..Much Later!

    1. > If I tagged your property……your house, your business, in/on your street so you can see it every day, with my tag, my art, or what ever you call it. Would you leave it in place?

      Yes. Why would you assume otherwise? Why would we be saying this if we didn’t believe it? This is a trump card, it’s evidence of how far apart we are. We can’t even wait for a response or imagine that someone else would think differently than you about graffiti. No wonder you sound like an ass- you think you’re talking to a bunch of hypocrites.

      But you’re not. Surprise! There are people that think, feel, and act differently than you do. And unfortunately your response to them, without ever waiting a moment to see if they’re real, is

      > Fck you one last time……Cowards, Criminals, Vandals…..come clean my sh!t up.

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