Report: Watch Dogs Game May Have Influenced Highway Sign Hacking 154
An anonymous reader writes 'Earlier this month, at least three U.S. states reported that a hacker had broken into electronic road signs above major highways, with the hacker leaving messages for people to follow him on Twitter. The Multi-State Information Sharing an Analysis Center (MS-ISAC) produced an intelligence report blaming a Saudi Arabian hacker that the organization says likely got the idea from Watch Dogs, a new video in which game play revolves around "hacking," with a focus on hacking critical infrastructure-based electronic devices in particular. "Watch Dogs allows players to hack electronic road signs, closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs), street lights, cell phones and other systems. On May 27, 2014, the malicious actor posted an image of the game on his Twitter feed, demonstrating his interest in the game, and the compromise of road signs occurs during game play. CIS believes it is likely that a small percentage of Watch Dogs players will experiment with compromising computers and electronic systems outside of game play, and that this activity will likely affect SSLT [state, local, tribal and territorial] government systems and Department of Transportation (DOT) systems in particular." The signs allowed telnet and were secured with weak or default passwords. The report came out on the same day that The Homeland Security Department cautioned transportation operators about a security hole in some electronic freeway billboards that could let hackers display bogus warnings to drivers.'
Well then the SOLUTION is obvious (Score:1)
Sell more of these type games!
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No... the real solution is, quit fucking putting such high-tech god damn road signs on the highways. Since when the fuck did the traditional pure metal signs go out of style? The roadsides don't need such expensive hackable junk. In fact, if they're electronic, programmable and have giant screens of some sort, I'd have a hard time even calling them "signs" in the first place. Just go back to the basics. How hard is it to figure out?
Re: Well then the SOLUTION is obvious (Score:2, Informative)
Sometimes the message they need to display changes
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90% of those are called on the father by the vengeful bitch that is trying to punish the father.
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He only said redneck not a Chevy Tahoe owner. That is unforgivable.
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90% + 10% = 100% of all amber alerts are bullshit. Almost true.
Re:Well then the SOLUTION is obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when the fuck did the traditional pure metal signs go out of style?
Since we figured out that electronically changing the message on a sign was MUCH more cost effective than printing a new one each time the message changed.
"Road closed from June 1st to June 14th" Oh, shit, now we need one that says "No left turn from 8a-5p until August 1st", I guess will order a new sign...
Also, don't discount the usefulness of re-routing traffic when there is a large planned or unplanned event, like a sports event or an Interstate closing because of a massive wreck.
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You'd be surprised. Most work programs are run by corporations nowadays (I used to work in the IT dept for one). It isn't like the old days where inmates were making products that sold for pennies on the dollar, prices at the company I worked for were good but typically were not that far below the industry averages. And as far as prison control, the inmates who made it into our programs were the low-risk ones that didn't need that much control to begin with. Typically they were "light" criminals with 2 year
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"Road closed from June 1st to June 14th" Oh, shit, now we need one that says "No left turn from 8a-5p until August 1st", I guess will order a new sign...
"Road Closed" and "No Left Turn" work just as well, and those signs have existed for longer than most of us here have. You don't have to worry about hacking, they're sturdy against most impact damage, and you don't need electricity keep them going..
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Sounds like you're proposing that we don't bother trying to develop more flexible and capable signs because what's existed for years is good enough (despite advances in technology). Sure, we can sit back and let things stagnate because it's "how we've always done it", but you're hardly going to find new and interesting ways to put a modern spin on old tech just by keeping things as they were.
Just because electronic signs have disadvantages does not mean that static signs don't have their own disadvantages.
Or as happened on I-90 here in Washington... (Score:4, Interesting)
.. only a few days ago, when a major accident blocks access to every lane, including the exit to another large highway (I-405), except the carpool lane. Having all the road signs telling people to merge to the carpool lane, and the carpool lane was now open to all, is useful.
That said, with respect to the article, I don't understand. You mean to say zombies aren't ahead?
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No... the real solution is, quit fucking putting such high-tech god damn road signs on the highways. Since when the fuck did the traditional pure metal signs go out of style? The roadsides don't need such expensive hackable junk. In fact, if they're electronic, programmable and have giant screens of some sort, I'd have a hard time even calling them "signs" in the first place. Just go back to the basics. How hard is it to figure out?
Ironically this is the same person who carries around a smartphone and talks shit about road signs being "expensive hackable junk".
Yeah, speaking of going back to basics, how hard is a goddamn land line to use these days? Oh, you NEED social media in the palm of your hand? Ah, OK, yeah got it...rant on Kettle, rant on...
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Why do you own a smartphone that doesn't have an internet connection? You might as well just get a landline.
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the real solution is, quit fucking putting such high-tech god damn road signs on the highways. Since when the fuck did the traditional pure metal signs go out of style?
The Low-tech metal signs are hackable too. Ever heard of this stuff called spray-paint?
Re:Well then the SOLUTION is obvious (Score:5, Funny)
It's pretty hard for a kid in Saudi Arabia to spray paint signs all over North America.
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just needs a higher pressure can.
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You needn't go Luddite whenever something technical got abused. But we have to KNOW what we're doing when employing technology so it cannot be turned against us.
Technology is neither good or evil. It's most blatant with guns, but any kind of gadget or technology cannot be good or evil by itself. It's the application that makes it so. And when we want to use technology for good, for the betterment of ourselves or our society, we also have to safeguard it against abuse by those that want to hurt or destroy.
Th
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the problem isnt with the signs, its with the techs who dont lock the access panels when they are done setting them up
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The northern half of I-285 in Atlanta is getting those soon.
The signs aren't "setup and forget," they're controlled in real-time from a central office. They have to be remotely accessible.
The real issue is that DOTs are not like ecommerce or tech startups; they just don't have the
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Re:Well then the SOLUTION is obvious (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need to be high tech to engage in social engineering and changing signs.
That said, if you're going to make it convenient to change your signs, be sure to make them secure. If you can't ensure your level of security, don't blame a game for your ineptitude.
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Pffft. Kids have been "hacking" signs for years. I remember when I was a kid, there was a place called Fairy Falls Creek. A couple of my university friends went and made a professional quality sign, in the same colour, and font as the existing sign, and renamed the area to Hairy Balls Creek. The fact that there were round rocks covered in hairy moss made the sign very plausible. So plausible, that after a few years, even the local tourism guides quoted Hairy Balls Creek.
Epic! I salute the miscreants who pulled that off.
Weed valley (Score:3, Interesting)
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Surely cross the top of the u - less tape needed and arguably funnier ;-)
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When I was a kid, my mom was driving me to school one day, and someone had spraypainted the word "breast" onto the bottom of a "Squeeze Left" sign. She pointed it out to me and we had a good chuckle.
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Uplink: Hacker Elite was kewl.
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It just had nothing to do with hacking. But it sure was entertaining.
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Yeah but Watch Dogs has nothing to do with real life hacking either.
Sign hacking has been done for ages (Score:1)
Idiocracy in effect...
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A true guru would have created a webpage where people can alter the sign content on the fly, with a webcam pointing at it so you can see your creation.
Pfft. Amateur.
SMH (Score:2)
Classic example of an idiot confusing causation with correlation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
Re:SMH (Score:4)
It's not like the game taught him to hack.
You don't need to know to hack (Score:1)
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Considering how "well" the whole thing was secured, I'm actually amazed that there isn't.
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But I bet the game didn't even bother changing the default passwords on the real world signs. Clearly this was all the games fault ;P
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And here I thought the reason they included that into the game was because lots of people were doing this already and the game was inspired by real life.
And in other news (Score:5, Insightful)
people getting fed up with the gov are going on killing sprees. Gov at fault, let ban it.
more quality moderation/editing: (Score:2, Interesting)
more quality moderation/editing:
SSLT [state, local, tribal and territorial]
So does the T stand for tribal or territorial, and WTF does the second S stand for? Soulskill?
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I am the Commander of The CLIT.
Don't think the game matters (Score:3)
Personally, I've always thought it would be amusing to hack one of those signs and I've never heard of the game "Watch Dogs."
"Help! I'm trapped in a highway sign factory!" is the most obvious message, but I'm sure I could come up with a bunch of random messages to put in...
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"Long cat is long" is in the game, I have seen that on the MTO [gov.on.ca] highway signs here in Ontario. Which are used for traffic warnings.
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"Incoming nuclear attack est. 20min."
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That would be as illegal as shouting FIRE! in a crowded theatre.
Very very BAD idea, and not funny!
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Fine, then. "Incoming rabid flying kitten swarm est. 20min".
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Way ahead of you [mit.edu].
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Clearly your job is to warn everyone of the impending zombie apocalypse [nbc15.com]
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Road Ends, Convert to Hover Mode
Much older than that game (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Much older than that game (Score:4, Informative)
Yup, back in the 90's all you had to do was wardial and find the sign's dial in. most of the time the password was retarded simple like 12345.
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Re:Much older than that game (Score:5, Informative)
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http://slashdot.org/submission/935687/hackers-and-zombies-attack-austin-tx [slashdot.org]
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The balance between the risk of having a sign hacked with a funny text or not being used because it's too complicated has to be considered.
Most signs haven't been hacked, drivers are usually used to incorrect information anyway and just consider a hacked sign a change from the normal boring commute.
Can as well have a standard text "Laser wielding cop behind this sign, max 20mph".
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Yes, but this is: ON THE INTERNET!
If legislative is any indicator, that's something completely different now.
Oh god. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of rational articles with headlines something like:
Insecure government process allows trivial unauthorized access to road infrastructure
We get ones focusing on how a game may have encouraged people to hack into the stuff. I don't think it'll ever end.
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That's a symptom of why I never share Slashdot stories on social media: this place has about zero credibility.
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This. Flipping open a box and typing in "Password" isn't hacking anymore than pushing open a door is picking a lock.
Maybe Ubisoft made this press release (Score:1)
So they can sell more copies of the failing Watch Dogs game. The graphics turned out to be terrible compared to the videos, and the gameplay is below that of older GTA V. The DRM system (UPlay) is a nightmare on PC.
I'd bet they are welcoming any press they can get.
Re:Maybe Ubisoft made this press release (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't disagree with you on the quality of the game. Unfortunately, in this case, Ubisoft are laughing all the way to the bank, because it's the fastest selling game not based on an existing IP in history and has posted the best opening weekend sales of any Ubisoft game in history. And this is despite the terrible PC port, the uPlay problems affecting all platforms, the limp plot and character designs that feel straight out of the notebook doodles of a 13 year old who still thinks wearing a trench-coat makes you cool and the laughable implementation of the core "hacking" concept.
So sure, while it would be nice to think that Ubisoft is sitting there feeling sad and desperate, it's simply not true.
But if you're reading this and thinking you need something shiny and new to play on your PC or new PS4/Xbox One, then be advised that the new Wolfenstein is a far better game in every respect (an actual proper shooter, rather than a 2-gun corridor game).
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The same way PC ports sometimes go horribly wrong - terrible mouse and keyboard support and a lack of technical optimisation that is causing framerate issues on $6,000 test-PCs. Plus uPlay.
Ports like this are less common than they used to be, but the odd one still sneaks through. Especially from Ubisoft.
Yes, lets blame video games (Score:5, Funny)
Video games are the big evil. They are murderer trainers and hacking instructors. They fill our kids with all sort of evil ideas and shows them how to properly and easily do them in the real world.
Fucking twats. People been hacking non electric street signs since those have been coming out. And I'm pretty sure you'll find other peeps have been hacking electric sings way before this (I know I've seen them). What makes this big? Oh ya, a video game came out where you can hack signs. Easy to blame the game, since obviously video games are responsible for the shooting the other day also.
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People been hacking non electric street signs since those have been coming out
Yeah, seriously... someone is smart enough to hack a street sign, but not smart enough to think of it? I'd say there are probably 100 people who would think "hey it would be cool to hack that sign" for every one who is capable of doing it.
The kind of people who can be influenced by a silly hacker video game are not often those with the intelligence to do anything about it.
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It's computer games! Computer games, I tell you!
Before GTA, nobody hit hookers or used cars as getaway vehicles! And the older ones here might still remember what a place of love and joy this planet was before Battlefield introduced people to a way to kill each other.
Correlation == Causality Time! (Score:2)
Video games are the big evil. They are murderer trainers and hacking instructors. They fill our kids with all sort of evil ideas and shows them how to properly and easily do them in the real world.
Fucking twats. People been hacking non electric street signs since those have been coming out. And I'm pretty sure you'll find other peeps have been hacking electric sings way before this (I know I've seen them). What makes this big? Oh ya, a video game came out where you can hack signs. Easy to blame the game, since obviously video games are responsible for the shooting the other day also.
All this shit boils down to is somebody assuming Correlation = Causality. It's the exact same shit we hear when some kid goes nuts and shoots up a school. It's the exact same shit we hear when Political Party A wants to discredit Political Party B.
It's nothing new.
Some kid gets bored and for a few laughs does a readily available trick on some road signs. Rather than figure out ways to prevent it, it's much easier and cheaper to pin point some trivial bullshit and raise a fuss about it. So, naturally
maybe it's this, (Score:1)
Dwarf Fortress made me masturbate to midgets (Score:2, Funny)
with beards!
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Mod parent informative.
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Telnet is irrelevant (Score:1)
Why include it in the summary? Telnet or ssh, it's the same difference - a remote backdoor.
Did they even bother to change the passwords? (Score:2, Informative)
Back when I was a kid the passwords were all "DOT". Then they wised up and changed them all to "DOT1".
L.A. Story? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd hack a sign to say "KISS HER YOU FOOL" or "THAT FELT GOOD". That should make things interesting.
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Damn, I just posted or I'd have modded this one up :)
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Well, here's a quick summary of a few of the more interesting or funny sign hacks I've seen:
"The British R coming"
"Why join the Navy when you can be a pirate"
"Snowden is a hero"
"Report sign hackers"
"City closed. It's too damn hot"
"Caution! 7 hacked road signs ahead!"
"Extreme Fire hazard! Don't even fart in the forest"
(on a church announcement sign) "Staying in bed and shouting Oh God! Does not constitute going to church"
But aside of that, most hacked signs are some variant of "zombie attack incoming". It's
So security via Obfuscation was a good idea (Score:2, Insightful)
Why blame a game for an issue that has existed for years/decades. Security via obfuscation is not security. Obfuscation is the equivalent of hiding the key under the doormat, and hoping that nobody looks.
The flaw is the trust in existing security. Even if it is know quite well that it is flawed, and easily broken. So what is the easiest solution? As opposed to blaming the completely open and flawed security practices that have been know to be flawed for decades, it is easier to place the blame on what has
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This is also a case where too much security may be counter-productive. It shall be possible to assign any random person at a construction site to go change a text to be suitable for the moment. If not then the wrong text may be displayed leading to worse problems.
A possibility exists to only allow selection between pre-programmed texts without authentication, but even then it would cause headache in some cases.
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It's the logic of "if the burglar didn't come that key under the doormat would have been safe".
Try to get your insurance to follow your logic and accept your claim!
This happened 20 years ago (Score:4, Funny)
Some guy hacked freeway condition signs in LA with cryptic messages and weather reports, and even installed a set of remote-operable bagpipes in one.
The hacker went to jail later for a series of 419 scams.
lol (Score:2)
Thank you (Score:1)
Watch_Dogs. That shit should be hardened already.
OMG! Think of the children! (Score:2)
OMG! Think of the children!
Won't someone, please, please, regulate these games so that I can know that San Jose is 18 minutes away because they are monitoring the FastTrak in places they said they wouldn't be monitoring the FastTrak, rather than reading an amusing sign for a good 5-10 seconds?
Or, you know, come up with a video game that espouses my socioreligious value system, but doesn't actually suck to play (you know, like my socioreligious value system), so that kids imitate that instead?
It's an improvement, I guess (Score:3, Funny)
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The older ones amongst us might still remember that peaceful time of joy and love before computer games taught people how to shoot at each other.
Nothing to do with Watch_Dogs (Score:2)
People have been modifying the text on these signs for almost a decade. Most companies don't even bother to change the password from the default.
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Next time get Goat Simulator. It delivers what it promises.
Who is retarded enough (Score:3)
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The same kind of really intelligent people that connect power plants, traffic lights and emergency services to it.
In other words, traffic signs are by some stretch our least problem when it comes to that shit.
Oh yeah, because without the game, nobody would've (Score:2)
Amazing. The game hasn't been out for longer than a week but a Google image search for "hacked sign" produces like a billion pictures of various people immediately going out and doing what they learn from the game!
Gah (Score:2, Interesting)
When will these assholes in charge, stop blaming anything besides themselves and their own department, when explaining issues with theis own department/system?
How do you have CCTVs?!? (Score:2)
How can you hack Closed-Circuit Television cameras?
If you can access them from the outside, they are clearly not having a Closed Circuit (limited, controlled, separated distribution of signal)
Awesome and effective advertising (Score:2)
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So we get politicians who are even MORE scared of the big bad evilz trying to hack the country and who think that everyone is out to get them because they get their information about hacking and its possibilities from Hollywood and computer games?
Thanks, but no thanks. We have plenty of them already.
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Because it's easier to blame video games than to admit that people use technology they don't understand AND THEN complain about people who know how to use it playing pranks on them?
You've never gotten into trouble for making a teacher look bad because you showed him how he knows less about his subject than you?
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Yeah. Haven't you learned how to hack from a computer game?
I somehow really feel like writing a game that DOES actually teach people how to hack.
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Well, in this particular case, .hack//SIGN would be the more logical information source.