In Collinsville, Illinois, Hamilton County in Indiana, and Austin, Texas....officials are not amused. Several electronic road signs have been hacked into and re-worded with phrases such as "Daily Lane Closures Due to Zombies", "Raptors Ahead---Caution", and "Nazi Zombies!! Run!!". While some may find these phrases funny, the fact is that the phrases have replaced important warnings such as "Slow Down, Construction Workers Ahead" and "Caution, Guardrails Being Replaced Ahead". Officials are concerned about accidents being caused due to "funny" signs that catch drivers off guard. They suspect that the hackers are actually cutting the padlocks on the back of the electronic signs and re-programming the message at night. If the hackers are caught, they face misdemeanor charges and fines that range from $250 to $5000. (See the article for yourself here.)
I agree with the officials on this one. Construction workers lead most of the dangerous jobs in our society and for tech-savvy kids to use their knowledge of computers and basic technology to manipulate technology that has been created for safety is astounding. Yes, it may be funny...but what's that saying your mom always said? "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt." This applies in this situation.
I felt this story was significant because every city has construction workers and while they are often seen as "blue collar" the men and women of construction work are the toughest i know. It's not an easy job, it requires endurance of the weather elements, and dangerous work out on highways, railways, and pipelines. They work with large, dangerous machinery and on top of all of this, they must deal with the traffic skills of the general public. The signs are essential to the safety of a construction worker. I used to work at Lowes and in my 3 years of work there, i met many hardworking men and women who had spent their lives doing this hard work. It is unacceptable to think that some rich, disobeying teen feels like it'd be funny to mess with the signs that provide safety to people just like those i got to know in my time at Lowes.
This story of hacking also relates to me because my brother in law is in construction and because of family ties to him, i hate to think of the devastation his injury or death would cause on my family...especially if it was due to this "funny" reason.
Overall, this article was striking. It's so easy to think of all the wonderful things technology has done for the human race such as keeping friends/family who live hundreds of miles away in touch with ease, providing information about literally anything, and providing convenience in the form of online banking, college courses, and job searching (to name only a few)...yet sometimes we fail to see the bad that technology has brought as well, such as identity theft, online predators, and knowledge about anything (bomb building, personal info, etc.) What is also striking is the fact that children younger and younger are becoming totally fluent in technology. I remember in 6Th grade starting typing classes and thinking how stupid they were...now i watch my 9 year old niece show me things on youtube. Along with that fluency in technology comes the immaturity in the age of those who are learning the technology. I assume these problems with "pesky kids/hackers" will continue to grow as time goes on.
1 comment:
Very interesting post. We often think of technology as being flashy things, like new cell phones and new game consoles. But electric signs like these are also technology. Before we had electric signs like these, it would have been much harder to quickly alert drivers of new construction updates. At first glance it does seem like just a funny gag, but it could have very serious repercussions. You bring up a good point that just because younger kids are often very good at picking up new technologies, it doesn't mean they always have the maturity to make good decisions about how they use those technologies.
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