[HN Gopher] Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked t...
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Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons apparently hacked to imitate Musk,
Zuck voices
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 218 points
Date : 2025-04-13 00:55 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.paloaltoonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.paloaltoonline.com)
| jimmydoe wrote:
| this is fun.
|
| it seems most of these crosswalks can be configured via app from
| https://polara.com/ . So either the authentication was leaked or
| got physically flashed/hacked?
| systemswizard wrote:
| Probably factory defaults exposed to the world
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Or a mischievous or disgruntled employee did it, or gave the
| password to someone.
| janalsncm wrote:
| > SIMPLE WIRELESS PROGRAMMING The iNX is easily programmed
| using our industry-leading Field Service App, available for
| iOS(r) & Android(r) - no expensive software or proprietary
| devices required! The app allows technicians to configure
| system settings and sounds, as well as access actionable data
| on button counts, flashing cycles, and more.
|
| Security not included!
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| The S in IoT stands for Security.
| mathattack wrote:
| I thought it stood for a shorter word.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/theinternetofshit/
| ryandrake wrote:
| Very nice. Totally harmless prank and it clowns on jerks who
| deserve a good clowning! Hope the pranksters continue and keep it
| lowkey so they don't get caught.
| vkou wrote:
| The targets of this deserve every bit of shade that can be
| thrown at them, but unfortunately, this fucks with crosswalk
| accessibility for the visually impaired.
| DennisP wrote:
| Not by much though, since "wait" and the tones still play. I
| suspect most visually impaired people will enjoy this as much
| as the rest of us.
| lupusreal wrote:
| If we could not fuck with accessibility devices which disabled
| people rely on, that'd be great. Thanks.
| lysace wrote:
| Were you severely inconvenienced by this hack? If so, how?
| scubbo wrote:
| One does not have to be harmed by an action to be able to
| call out that it would have harmful impact.
| lysace wrote:
| No harmful impact has been called out.
| scubbo wrote:
| Not explicitly, but
|
| > which disabled people rely on
|
| is pretty clear implication. But I'll spell it out for
| you - people with impairment to senses (primarily vision)
| rely on this infrastructure to know when it's safe to
| cross a road.
| toast0 wrote:
| These devices will also often indicate their location
| when you hold the button. That can help a visually
| impared person confirm that they're oriented correctly.
| That use case is likely why these are field programmable;
| factory programming would be sufficient for limited
| prompts (wait, begin crossing, count down, clicks and
| whistles, etc) but not for street names.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| As far as the messages I heard, they still announce
| whatever they should - just with zucks voice and
| sarcasticly and extra text. But I haven't listened to
| everything, maybe they did significantly impact someone's
| life.
|
| I'd prefer to hear an actual example over broad outrage tho
| delusional wrote:
| It sounds like they still make the normal/expected sounds. So
| kudos to the pranksters for keeping them safe and available for
| the people in need of accessibility.
| googlryas wrote:
| The expected sounds are mark Zuckerberg talking about AI for
| 20 seconds?
|
| No, no kudos to anyone who fucks with safety devices to make
| some point of theirs.
| yellowapple wrote:
| The expected sound is the "WAIT!" voice, which you can
| clearly still hear. Anything in addition to that is of zero
| detriment to the accessibility of the system.
| xoxxala wrote:
| Deviant Ollam has a video with clips from the crosswalks. He
| also mentions the accessibility is not impacted. Worth a
| watch if you haven't heard the AI impressions.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=woQEJ_fY8Mw
| badgersnake wrote:
| Don't be such a killjoy. It still makes sounds.
| magixx wrote:
| I wonder how soon it will be before some company starts renting
| these out from the city for ad space.
| elpocko wrote:
| This HN post is _seven days old_ but displayed and ranked as if
| it was posted 9 hours ago, with all timestamps falsified. The
| deja vu effect is disconcerting and an absolute mind fuck. Please
| stop doing this, ffs. The person who thought this would be a good
| idea is a madman.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?query=Silicon%20Valley%20crosswalk%2...
| zniturah wrote:
| How is it technically possible?
| greyface- wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11662380
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/pool (specifically, this post
| can be found on page 8:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/pool?next=43673425)
| denysvitali wrote:
| Can confirm. Once dang pinged me directly by email saying
| that my story was re-upped. The story went again to the
| frontpage and the date was adapted (IIRC), but the comments
| were kept:
|
| ---
|
| Hi denysvitali,
|
| The submission "PostmarketOS-Powered Kubernetes Cluster"
| that you posted to Hacker News
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42352075) looks good,
| but hasn't had much attention so far. We put it in the
| second-chance pool, so it will get a random placement on
| the front page some time in the next day or so.
|
| This is a way of giving good HN submissions multiple
| chances at the front page. If you're curious, you can read
| about it at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308
| and other links there. And if you don't want these emails,
| sorry! Let us know and we won't do it again.
|
| Thanks for posting good things to HN!
|
| Daniel (moderator)
| ryandrake wrote:
| Wild! I definitely remember commenting on this last week and
| sure enough my comment shows below as "8 hours ago" (while I
| was asleep). What kind of sorcery is going on?
| yellowapple wrote:
| HN has a "second chance queue" for posts that the powers-
| that-be believe could've/should've gotten more attention but
| didn't. Happened to one of my posts once, which was confusing
| as all hell at first but made sense once I learned about it.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Feature in search of a problem
| rtkwe wrote:
| Not really. Interesting posts can get buried easily just
| because they were posted at a bad time and people don't
| delve that far into the second or further pages. It's
| been going for almost 9 years now. I think it's a good
| idea.
| KORraN wrote:
| But this should not change the time when the thing
| (comment, link) has been posted, should it?
| reubenswartz wrote:
| And is Seattle, "Jeff Bezos" says the crosswalk is sponsored by
| Amazon Prime and exhorts you not to tax the rich.
| divbzero wrote:
| [delayed]
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