“Almost anything can be hackable.”
If you’re already paranoid about being watched on the Internet and hacked into, you should probably watch this short clip so you can get Phreaked Out some more (and by that we mean, throw your compulsion into overdrive).
Coincidentally, that’s the name of this three-part series where VICE looks into the art of hacking. In their first episode, they go out West to Los Angeles and look back at the incident in 2006, where Kartik Patel and Gabriel Murillo were accused of hacking into the L.A. Traffic Control System and shut down four intersections throughout the city as a form of protest for their union.
Imagine if their intentions were worse and actually cause more damage? The city was already in a frenzy and gridlocked with the little they did.
Security experts have been warning for years that cities are vulnerable to these types of attacks and government officials need to get with the program. Of course the dinosaurs in office hardly know what’s really happening out in these e-streets, so they don’t take it as priority, until people like Patel and Murillo come along.
Since the incident, the city of Los Angeles has worked hard to make sure these type of violations never happen again, because they can potentially cripple one of the largest metropolises in the U.S. and bring them to their knees.
The best part of the clip (besides opening our eyes to how serious a cyber attack can be) was probably Kartik Patel’s accounts of what happened that August day:
– I did not cause any signal malfunction
– I believe LADOT management made false statements
– I believe the police created a story when they didn’t even understand something
– I believe the DA’s office put their foot in their mouth and couldn’t take it out
Ha. Applaud this guy.
