TV weather announcments hacked

[4dude]

http://www.securityfocus.com/news/8191

Interesting they didnt know what was going on ;D

Pics

http://forever.broked.net/~jason/mercury.rh.ncsu.edu/tww-closings

http://web.archive.org/web/20040402170239/http://www4.ncsu.edu/~smheath/news14.html

 

[jal41]

This incident occured five years ago.

Apparently, some college kids found a flaw in the News 14 Carolina (Raleigh) closing notification system. The system was set up to allow anyone (who had a school, business, or other organization) to sign up online for an account to post closings during severe weather outbreaks. The kids discovered there was no human verification of accounts nor postings, and they took advantage of it for a college prank. There was no hacking or illegal activity involved. The messages ranged from "Windows 32 Exception Error" to NC-17 rated ones.

They apparently bragged about what they did to WRAL-TV (the assignment editor laughed his head off apparently). Fortunantly for WRAL (and the other stations), you had to sign up for an account via fax, and notifications were checked (they would have been victimized if they had the same setup News 14 had).

 

[azumanga]

The kids discovered there was no human verification of accounts nor postings, and they took advantage of it for a college prank. There was no hacking or illegal activity involved. The messages ranged from "Windows 32 Exception Error" to NC-17 rated ones.

One of my favorites was: "Tutone, Inc. -- call Jenny at 867-5309."

Fortunantly for WRAL (and the other stations), you had to sign up for an account via fax, and notifications were checked (they would have been victimized if they had the same setup News 14 had).

No doubt if that stunt happened on an aerial station like WRAL, they would be fined by the FCC, and the station manager would have had a heart attack, for that reason.

 

[4dude]

Well luckily for the station NO FOUL LANGUAGE WAS USED ;D (Quite surprising)