Silicon Valley crosswalk buttons hacked to imitate Musk, Zuckerberg's voices

3 months ago 45

Zack Whittaker

Mon, Apr 14, 2025, 6:35 AM 2 min read

Audio-enabled postulation power crosswalk buttons crossed Silicon Valley were hacked implicit the play to see audio snippets imitating the voices of Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.

Videos taken by locals successful Menlo Park, Palo Alto, and Redwood City successful California amusement the crosswalk buttons were playing AI-generated code designed to dependable similar the 2 billionaires.

"It’s mean to consciousness uncomfortable oregon adjacent violated arsenic we forcefully insert AI into each facet of your conscious experience," said 1 crosswalk button, which was hacked to dependable similar Zuckerberg. "I conscionable privation to guarantee you, you don’t request to interest due to the fact that there’s perfectly thing you tin bash to halt it."

One crosswalk fastener that was hacked to dependable similar Musk said: "I conjecture they accidental wealth can't bargain happiness… I conjecture that's true. God knows I've tried. But it tin bargain a Cybertruck and that's beauteous sick, right?"

“F—k, I’m truthful alone,” the Musk dependable adds.

It's not wide wherefore the sidewalk buttons were hacked, oregon by whom, but signs constituent to imaginable hacktivism.

Palo Alto Online, 1 of the archetypal outlets to study the hack, cited a Redwood City authoritative arsenic saying the metropolis was "actively moving to analyse and resoluteness the contented arsenic rapidly arsenic possible." According to the outlet, the tamperings whitethorn person happened connected Friday.

Audio-enabled crosswalk buttons are wide utilized crossed the United States to let those with ocular impairments oregon accessibility needs to perceive customized audio messages that play for pedestrians to cognize erstwhile it is harmless to transverse a street.

In a video from 2024, carnal penetration specializer and information researcher Deviant Ollam explains however audio-enabled crosswalk buttons tin beryllium manipulated often by mode of default-set passwords that person not been changed.

Polara, the institution that makes the audio-enabled crosswalk buttons, did not respond to a petition for remark erstwhile contacted by TechCrunch connected Monday.


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