More Than Living

Hacked road signs — end of the world in 400 yards

I’m not sure that there’s yet been an inva­sion of Nazi zom­bies, but should one ever happen there’s a fair chance the author­it­ies wouldn’t want to shout about it. Or warn approach­ing motorists.

All the same, it’s hard not to laugh at a recent craze that has seen tem­por­ary road warn­ing signs in the US hacked to read some­thing other than con­sidered safety mes­sages about roadworks.

The mes­sages, repor­ted by the blog Jalopnik, range from the matter of fact (THIS SIGN HAS BEEN HACKED), through the cau­tion­ary (ZOMBIES AHEAD! and RAPTORS AHEAD, CAUTION!) to the rather heart­break­ing (NOBODY HAS EVER /​ LOVED YOU).

Instruc­tions for alter­ing the signs’ mes­sages were pub­lished in Janu­ary on a web­site ded­ic­ated to hack­ing vari­ous hard­ware and soft­ware. In most cases, the site claims, the sign con­trols aren’t pro­tec­ted by a lock or any­thing other than the default pass­word.

But while their altered mes­sages are clearly a little irre­spons­ible, the signs them­selves are yet another example of tech­no­logy making people’s lives easier. In the past, warn­ing motor­ists of impend­ing doom took a can of paint and some dedication:

IMAGES by Flickr users under­bit­e­man and shinythings

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Ori­gin­ally posted 2009-​​02-​​05 18:20:00. Repub­lished by Blog Post Promoter

Tags: Death, Flickr, Image Galleries, Jalopnik, Outdoors, Recreation, Urban Exploration, Website
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