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The walk signs in Crystal City, VA are just repeating “Change Password”
- kn0where 5y agoI assume some grey-hat realized the crosswalk computer used a default password and decided the only way the city was likely to fix the problem was this.
- flatiron 5y agohttps://neil.fraser.name/news/2019/Polara%20Operations%20Manual.pdf https://neil.fraser.name/news/2019/Polara%20Operations%20Man... "The EPBS will compare the system security code with the code entered on the E-Configurator. If the code matches, you will have an opportunity to change the code. Press NO to continue on without any change. Press YES if you want to change to a new security code at this time. Entering a new code uses the same technique just described, using the Left/Right and Down keys. It is necessary to use a security code different from the default AAAA. Failure to change the code will cause a periodic message to play – “CHANGE PASSWORD”." they just didn't RTFM and that password is still set to AAAA
- lupire 5y agoSo when the device is deployed insecurely, it broadcasts itself to the public to invite a takeover? Why wouldn't it just decline to operate at all until the password is set?
- moltke 5y ago> just decline to operate at all until the password is set? This truly is the right way to handle PSK auth. The "UX" for it isn't as nice as some people would like though.
- bombcar 5y agoI took it as that was what it was doing. It refuses to do crosswalky things until you set the password (likely a power failure or something caused it to lose it’s config). The troll thing to do is set a password if you find one of them in the wild.
- JPKab 5y agoCompletely unacceptable. See my other post in this thread talking about the high concentration of blind/visually impaired pedestrians in Crystal City. This is far more dangerous than if done in other places. I doubt the knucklehead grey-hat realized that.
- bpodgursky 5y agoAmazing to think that this speaker, which has never and will never say literally anything other than "BEEP" and "WALK", in fact reaches out across the internet every day to fetch that message. What a world we have built.
- 0des 5y agoCross signals in the city often say the names of streets and other words
- jerf 5y agoUnless they are located in the stairwells at Hogwarts, it does not seem like those names would change often enough to necessitate adding a network connection as a point-of-failure for this sort of technology. (Which I consider the most important aspect. This is life-or-death tech for a subset of our population, and networks are fundamentally unreliable even if you get the security 100% correct.)
- SweetLlamaMyth 5y agoIs there an actual indication that these are connected to a network? Depending on how these devices work, some failure may have caused them to get reset to a factory default, requiring a password to be set before accepting settings like a message.
- pessimizer 5y agoWhy would they all fail at the same time unless they're networked? Exactly the same bug triggered by the system clock? They shouldn't even know the time. All they need to do is count to the same number over and over.
- thesh4d0w 5y agoCities do all sorts of syncing / timing of lights in order to optimize traffic patterns, to do that they need a network connection.
- 0des 5y agoI guess its better than "Meow Meow" but I feel bad for the blind.
- drawfloat 5y agoAnything is better than meow meow, but it was still fun in 2009.
- u2077 5y agoImagine a future where the city allows companies to book ad slots in these.
- colejohnson66 5y ago"While waiting for the walk sign, please enjoy this message from our sponsors!"
- u2077 5y agoCome to think of it, no different than some gas stations already.
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoI would pay an extra $0.05/gal if it forced the next person using the pump to listen to marketing from the political party of my preference. $0.10 if it couldn't be muted.
- GrinningFool 5y agoOkay, I'm stumped. /Why/?
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoProbably because I'm a tiny minority in my effectivly one party state and annoying people who vote the other way is about the best I can realistically accomplish.
- rendall 5y agoI feel the same way, only not about politics, but aesthetics. I would gladly pay extra at the pump to force people to listen to snatches of noise music, like the Boredoms or Merzbow; or mini documentaries extolling the virtues of Dadaism or Brutalism.
- mbg721 5y agoFor context, is Crystal City much more than an enormous mall/office building and a Metro stop? It's not great to have an accessibility failure, but that doesn't strike me as a place where it would make that much difference.
- bobthepanda 5y agoBlind people have jobs and shop. The point of accessibility is to enable citizens to have a normal life.
- mbg721 5y agoWhile that's true, my memory of Crystal City is that it's meant for you to get inside the complex first, and then walk six city blocks or so.
- lallysingh 5y agoIt's right across from the Pentagon.
- mbg721 5y agoI thought Pentagon City was right across from the Pentagon, and Crystal City was in this no-man's-land after the immediate Pentagon services stopped but before you really got into walkable Arlington.
- exhilaration 5y agoAll true, but I'd like to add that - after having stayed at Crystal City Doubletree - that hotel is full of service members and what appears to be higher ranking Pentagon staff.
- jffry 5y agoWhat do you mean by "walkable Arlington"? If you mean a more house-and-sidewalk residential neighborhood, then neither Pentagon City nor Crystal City meet that mark. And Crystal city is fairly walkable even before you account for the underground part. They're both mixed-use urban developed areas with large towers, although Crystal City actually seems to have more of those. Both are in the same place, south of Interstate 395 and west of the airport (the Pentagon is just north of 395). edit: and for reference Wikipedia says: "Crystal City includes offices of numerous defense contractors, the United States Department of Labor, the United States Marshals Service, and many satellite offices for The Pentagon. It is also the location of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport."
- ramesh31 5y agoHow is no one calling this out as an obvious cyberattack smoke test? It's literally across from the Pentagon.
- mikestew 5y agoBecause the much more likely and believable explanation is that it is mis-configured. Someone upthread even posted a link to (I assume) the manual, and it calls out the conditions under which one will hear “change password”. One of these days I’m opening that website that sells nothing but varieties of double-edged razor blades, which I shall brand as “Occam”, because sometimes simpler is better.
- djtriptych 5y agoI wouldn't say obvious cyberattack, but I'll bet Pentagon security is aware of this.
- snowwrestler 5y agoDo you know how many things are across from the Pentagon? Why would anyone bother smoke-testing a crosswalk?
- 0xbadcafebee 5y agoTo strategically confuse visually impaired pedestrians causing them to walk out into the street thereby tying up traffic in the nations capital making it impossible to roll out tanks to fight the invasion of liberals putting chemical microchips in the water to turn the frogs gay, obviously
- netsharc 5y agoI like your action movie logic... "It's digital, it's noticably broken, it's close to the Pentagon, it must be a cyber attack!". If I were the enemy, and I would think the enemy would have people at least as competent as me, and somehow hacking the walk sign is relevant to the misson, I'd test the attack quietly and on a similar system but nowhere near the conspicuous final target, and maybe use an audio file you wouldn't notice is different if you weren't paying attention. Something like have the machine say "streetah" instead of "street"
- isx726552 5y agoThis[1] reply on Twitter explains and includes a link and quote from the manufacturer’s manual for these signs, indicating the message will play if they have not been set up properly (i.e., default out-of-the-box password still in place unchanged). This seems like the equivalent of the old blinking “12:00” on a VCR clock. [1] https://twitter.com/hyperplanes/status/1503275823360585735 https://twitter.com/hyperplanes/status/1503275823360585735
- mark-r 5y agoI was completely mystified by this post, watched the video multiple times to try to figure out what point they were making. Didn't realize I needed to turn on the sound.
- dredmorbius 5y agohttps://nitter.kavin.rocks/JosephPolitano/status/1503131005389099011 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/JosephPolitano/status/15031310053...
- JPKab 5y agoI lived in Crystal City for several years (in the high rise right above the Buffalo Wild Wings on 23rd and Crystal Drive). This is actually a pretty big deal, and far more so than in other urban areas. Why? Because Crystal City has a far higher percentage of blind/visually impaired workers than other urban areas. It's the home of numerous Federal contractors and also government agencies with offices dedicated to employing visually impaired professionals. The vast majority of my walks to my office included at the very least 1, if not 3 or 4, encounters with blind pedestrians. Several lived in my building, including my weed hookup back then, who was legally blind although he had SOME peripheral vision. (In 2014 Virginia, weed was most definitely NOT legal, lol)