Hackers Crack Into Texas Road Sign, Warn of Zombies Ahead

Fox News ^ | 1/28/2008 | Joshua Rhett Miller

[Domandred]

Transportation officials in Texas are scrambling to prevent hackers from changing messages on digital road signs after one sign in Austin was altered to read, "Zombies Ahead."

Chris Lippincott, director of media relations for the Texas Department of Transportation, confirmed that a portable traffic sign at Lamar Boulevard and West 15th Street, near the University of Texas at Austin, was hacked into during the early hours of Jan. 19.

"It was clever, kind of cute, but not what it was intended for," said Lippincott, who saw the sign during his morning commute. "Those signs are deployed for a reason — to improve traffic conditions, let folks know there's a road closure."

"It's sort of amusing, but not at all helpful," he told FOXNews.com.

[Tax-chick]

Bill has made a creeping colloidal blob with cornstarch and something. I think I’ll suggest he add color!

[sionnsar]

Morning all. Almost back on regular daily schedule, but to what end? Tomorrow it’s off to Germany (but woo-hoo 11:15 departure, no 4 AM alarm necessary), and a week from right now we should be pushing back from the gate to start my trip to Virginia.

[ThomasThomas]

Haben Sie eine große Reise.

[Tax-chick]

Yowzah! Make sure you don’t pack any colloidal-cornstarch in your luggage!

[sionnsar]

Vielen Dank.

[sionnsar]

Would I have to declare it if I did?

[Monkey Face]

Congratulations to both of you! I love happy Events!
please hug both the ladies for me!

[Tax-chick]

Maybe the TSA would force you to eat it.

[sionnsar]

Aaaaack!

[Tax-chick]

Bill’s going to take it to Boy Scouts tonight as an ... uh, experiment. Yeah, an experiment! It’ll be educational!

[sionnsar]

What color will it be?

[sionnsar]

Whew! All credit card transactions from previous trip are finally in — I can complete the last trip’s expense report before beginning the next trip. *\:^)

[A CA Guy]

Professionals from the LV area suggested prices were going to drop another 20% there in a couple of months.
Don't know if it would be from layoffs or from people out of state who own homes there who are also losing their assets.

It was dead slow when I visited in January.
Lord knows the machines are set to pay the least ever out to people.

I saw very few Asians and middle eastern people compared to other times.

New Years looked like mostly locals and people from Cali.

We had gotten 4 nights free, so we came down.
We stayed out of the car after 4PM New Years eve through mid day January 2nd.

So 4 weeks ago I thought LV looked hit pretty hard.
I've been reading the local papers lately and they don't sound all that optimistic, but if there has been a turn around in the last 4 weeks that is great!

[Tax-chick]

He hasn’t mentioned that. Currently it’s still white.

[Tax-chick]

Yippee! I just totally up my receipts from the Girl Scouts event last week to pay myself back. The troop will still have $175 in the bank, but that’s more reasonable than $450!

Now I just need to get DP to endorse all the checks that are stuck on the refrigerator with magnets. “How hard is it to write your name?” one might ask ...

[sionnsar]

“How hard is it to write your name?” one might ask ....

I have two (base) signatures.

[Tax-chick]

I presume you endorse checks with at least one?

[sionnsar]

Yes, one is the “official” signature, the other uses my nickname.

[Tax-chick]

I see. DP usually signs with his first and middle initials, but since his writing is utterly illegible, it doesn’t matter much. I could probably sign his name on the checks ;-).

[abigailsmybaby]

Getting too close to April 15. Waaaaaaa