Warning: Zombies Ahead

Ha! This is hilarious, I definitely would have laughed if I saw this sign.

Another road sign warns of zombies
Thursday, February 5, 2009

The recent spate of pranks in which electronic road signs are tampered with to warn motorists about Nazi zombies and raptors has spread to at least three US states. And highway safety officials aren't amused.

The latest breach came on Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Illinois, where hackers changed a sign along southbound Interstate 255 to read, "DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES."

A day earlier in Indiana's Hamilton County, the electronic message on a board in Carmel's construction zone warned drivers of "RAPTORS AHEAD - CAUTION."

And signs in Austin, Texas, recently flashed: "NAZI ZOMBIES! RUN!!!" and "ZOMBIES IN AREA! RUN."

Officials in Illinois are concerned the rewritten signs distract motorists from heeding legitimate hazards down the road. The hacked sign on Tuesday originally warned drivers of crews replacing guardrails.

'We understood it was a hoax, but at the same time those boards are there for a reason,' said Joe Gasaway, an Illinois Department of Transportation supervisory field engineer. 'We don't want (drivers) being distracted by a funny sign.'

The pranks come after details of how easy it is to hack the signs were posted on numerous websites. Many of the websites urge their readers not to put the [sic]

'Hacking generally is about showing where there are holes in security systems, and I think this is a great example of that,' said Ray Wert, the editor-in-chief of Jalopnik, one of the sites that has written about the hack.

'I'm sure there are all sorts of ways to use that information in a way that's inappropriate, but we're trying to make clear this is an issue that needs to be confronted by traffic safety and transportation officials.'

Wert said he had no immediate plans to take down Jalopnik's how-to guide.

In Illinois, tampering with an official traffic control device is a misdemeanor punishable by up to a $250 fine - half what a culprit might have to pay in Texas if caught. If convicted in Indiana, a culprit faces up to a year in jail and $5,000 in fines.