Eleanor
01-29-2009, 10:28 AM
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2009/01/road_sign_hack4.jpg
What do you get when you combine a public broadcasting medium, simple data entry and a student from MIT? You get things like the road safety sign above, which was probably a caution for altered driving conditions, but now warns of the living dead.
We suppose that state Department of Transportation never figured there would be enough bored engineering students to get around to tampering with the signs. That might be why the signs aren't protected by any substantial security measures – changing a sign only requires the ability to type. But before any state decides to spend a few million investigating this fissure in homeland security, a portable, proprietary keyboard would be a good, cheap place to start. And not that we should really have to say this, but we will anyway: please, don't play with the road signs. Hat tip to reader Michaelhttp://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/28/danger-zombies-ahead-programmable-road-signs-get-hacked/
:rofl:
What do you get when you combine a public broadcasting medium, simple data entry and a student from MIT? You get things like the road safety sign above, which was probably a caution for altered driving conditions, but now warns of the living dead.
We suppose that state Department of Transportation never figured there would be enough bored engineering students to get around to tampering with the signs. That might be why the signs aren't protected by any substantial security measures – changing a sign only requires the ability to type. But before any state decides to spend a few million investigating this fissure in homeland security, a portable, proprietary keyboard would be a good, cheap place to start. And not that we should really have to say this, but we will anyway: please, don't play with the road signs. Hat tip to reader Michaelhttp://www.autoblog.com/2009/01/28/danger-zombies-ahead-programmable-road-signs-get-hacked/
:rofl: