Community Corner
Hackers Put Weird Messages on Route 25 Electronic Road Sign
'Pant Snakes Rise Again': A driver captures revised messages on electronic road-construction signs between May Lane and Pearson Road. The hack affects northbound and southbound message boards.
"THE PANT SNAKES" ...
... "RISE AGAIN"
That's what hackers were able to write—among other things—on an electronic road sign on soutbound Route 25 in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
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Electronic message boards were put up to signal construction for southbound and northbound drivers in the area that has closed a portion of Pearson Road off Route 25 in St. Charles.
It was unclear early Thursday morning whether that project was a Kane County Division of Transportation project or an Illinois Department of Transportation project, but Patch will follow up when more information is available from official sources.
Find out what's happening in Genevawith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Alert Patch reader Shawn Viland spotted the strange road-sign messages shortly before 3 a.m. as he was driving south, not far past May Lane. Instead of “ROAD CLOSED,” “ROADWORK AHEAD,” or some similar cautions to drivers, Viland encountered: “THE PANT SNAKES ... RISE AGAIN.”
“I wasn't sure what I was seeing!” Viland wrote.
Looking back, he saw on a northbound board, the B-word with an exclamation point.
Apparently, the practice of hacking into road signs is more common than you might think — there are even “how-to” websites devoted to the practice. Tampering is, of course, illegal.
While most hacks are intended to be humorous, some are crude — the hack on Route 25 certainly leaned that way. Still, some experts worry about unexpected consequences that could wind up with someone being hurt.
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