Traffic sign hacking in Florida

This week's story of a public electronic board being hacked comes to us from West Palm Beach, where local mayor Lois Frankel's plan to deliver a sympathetic message ("I Am Mad Too! - Lois") to drivers stuck in traffic via a roadside sign sort of backfired when someone, uh, adjusted to sign to read something a little more obscene (the Pam Beach Post is a little too couth to say what it was). The best part is that whoever changed the sign also locked the metal box that houses the keyboard so that no one could change the sign, they had to unplug it altogether. Not quite as mischievous as whoever changed electronic sign at an NYC subway station to read "Pretty Girls Don't Ride the Subway" but we'll take what we can get.

[Fabian @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

Why does this remind me of this old Steve Martin film? Ah yes - L.A. Story it was called... You know, that one with the road sign giving advice to Steve's character "Harris K. Telemacher"...

[Peter Andersson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

Hi!

In Gothenburg, Sweden back in the 80�s the technical university of Chalmers helped the community to develop road-signs telling people that they where driving to fast. A system with a radar and a displaysign.

The funny part was a trojan programmed into the system.....so at a given date this very simple sign told everybody who was drivin to slow....."Hey old man your driving to slow....." everybody who was driving in the morning traffic...with slow speeds....got a suprise for the morning-coffee-in-the-car.

It took the community almost a day to turn the sign off......

/Onewheel

[Jon @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

And of course, who could forget hacking the sign at CMU: http://sparkyb.net/thoughts/entry/60.html

[Brian Hampson @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

The good folks at nbc6.net have the story with pics.

Story: http://www.nbc6.net/news/3946937/detail.html

Image: http://images.ibsys.com/2004/1124/3946929.jpg

[zed @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

This is perfect!!!!!! We need more smart people creating these acts of civil disobedience. Graffiti just doesn't do it any more.

[Morgan @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

zed wrote:

This is perfect!!!!!! We need more smart people creating these acts of civil disobedience. Graffiti just doesn't do it any more.

---

Indeed, this is cool. As long as no property is damaged to gain access to the control system, this is perfectly legal graffiti.

[Downtown Hollywood @ Dec 19th 2005 12:07AM]

Pretty Funny. I also thought the CMU hacked sign story was funny as well. BTW the above links to the story are dead.

John