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'Hacking' Times Square digital signage
- Christopher Hall
Yesterday, someone forwarded me a link to a curious video on YouTube, one that purports to show someone hacking the feeds to the digital signage displays in New York City's Times Square.
If the video were real, it could set display, media player and media companies scrambling to better protect their displays and the content streams playing on them.
Of course, it pretty clearly has to be faked, but it is drawing some outside media attention to the signs and how they work — or perhaps more accurately, not how they actually work. (The video even appears on SportsIllustrated.com.)
So take a look. What do you think?
And then, of course, there's already an "expert" going on YouTube to explain exactly why the video's fake, but not fake. Or not fake the way everybody thinks. Eh, I'm not so sure this guy knows what he's talking about, as far as altering the video footage, but he does point out some interesting facets of the original video, like what seems to be the supposedly "hacked-in" video feed apparently showing up on another screen before it's supposed to.
So, while this is likely all much ado about nothing, it'll be curious to see what, if anything, is really behind all this tomfoolery.
Let us know what you think about either or both of these videos in the comments section below.
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