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The Best Praaaaaaank Ever?
Take that, MIT and Cal Tech. You’ve just been outpranked:
Someone reprogrammed two city construction road signs near the University of Texas early Monday morning in an attempt to warn Austin of an imminent zombie attack.
Messages that typically alert Lamar Boulevard drivers to a detour for Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard splashed several warnings like “Caution! Zombies Ahead!” and “Nazi Zombies! Run!!!”
Jones, who has one of only two keys to the locked access panels on the portable signs, said that the hacker broke into the panels on each sign and bypassed the passwords before leaving five different zombie messages and even changing one of the passwords. Jones said he had to wait until 8 a.m. to call the manufacturing company to figure out how to override the hacker’s work. He speculated that the hacker could be a computer genius from UT.
No zombies have been seen in the area, and with any luck, Tuesday night’s cold front killed off any undead with ghoulish plans to invade the city.
“It’s a pretty childish prank,” he said.
Childish prank? Childish Prank? That’s just a fire drill, folks. Some industrious computer programmer was just looking out for Austin’s best interests. Now, when the actual zombies arrive, they’ll be that much more prepared for it.
(H/T to Aprile)
Comments
Yeah, either a "computer genius" OR anyone who reads Jalopnik... http://jalopnik.com/5141430/how-to-hack-an-electronic-road-sign?skyline=true&s=x
Posted by Kate | January 30, 2009 11:24 AM
good lord, i was using that sign as my avatar about 8 months ago!
annnnnd it's STILL funny!
Posted by bionic bunny | February 1, 2009 2:01 AM
I'm so proud that this happened in my city. Even the techies are doing their part to keep Austin weird :).
Posted by M | February 1, 2009 2:45 PM