PORTLAND, Maine — City commuters may have gotten a chuckle out of a Zombie warning message board on a road sign Wednesday morning, but Portland officials weren’t laughing.
City spokeswoman Nicole Clegg said a prankster or pranksters changed the message on an electronic construction message board on Auburn Street to read: “Warning zombies ahead!”
“These are not toys,” Clegg said. “They are used for safety reasons.”
The construction messageboard on Auburn Street had been advising motorists of repaving work that is being done on nearby Allen Avenue, Clegg said.
Clegg said it is unclear what the motives were, but she warned residents that tampering with such equipment can result in charges of criminal mischief or criminal invasion, both Class D misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail.
Clegg said Peter’s Construction, which is handling the project on Allen Avenue, quickly reverted the message on the board.
Since this has been happening all over the country for years, one would think that the owners of these signs would at least change the default password or lock the access door.
http://jalopnik.com/5141430/how-to-hack-an-electronic-road-sign
I would never have thought of using one of these signs as a prank tool because I (silly me) thought they WERE locked to prevent just such an event! :D So now the question arises in my mind. If something is left to public access, where is the crime is the public uses it? It’s not like graffiti which defaces public property. Oh, well, the simple solution is for the companies who are charged with maintaining the signs to LOCK THEM, FOOL! :D
BTW, personally, I think changing it to “Zombies Ahead” in October is funny as all h**l.
Come on BDN, no one outside of Portland cares about this.
Oh, I dunno; I’m nowhere near Portland and I think it’s pretty good.
My favorite message I’ve personally seen on one of those boards was some years ago on I-90 down in Massachusetts. It said CAUTION: MORE SIGNS AHEAD.
and they wonder why we call them……….well, you know.
The sign on the Mass Pike was changed as a prank, similar to Portland. At least it was more original than the Zombie one that spread nationwide at least 5 years ago.
Now, since I don’t know what you “call them”, could you please enlighten us?
I cannot enlighten you because of the censorship of the BDN. Let’s just say you take the shorter form of Massachusetts and then add the word meaning what you get when you remove dirt from the earth and there you have it.
It was obvious what you meant! I just thought you could come up with a plausible reason to make the completely irrelevant remark in the first place? At least the Massh**es came up with something original instead of something old and recycled thinking it was still funny.
At least it gets people to look at the signs. It probably gets their attention more than workers ahead.
People spray-painting on traffic signs and fooling around with message boards? Is this really news? And did the newspaper really send someone from Bangor all of the way to Portland to write this story? Highly doubtful.
I bet the BDN has people permanently stationed in the Portland area. Their coverage of our news is often better than the local Portland Press Herald.
“Clegg said it is unclear what the motives were.”
Is that because it wasn’t confirmed that in fact there are no zombies ahead?
haha
OMG, what have we become..A joke, but a mountain will be made out of it…..Oh my…
So Portland has humorless tight-butted city officials who believe it is their god given duty to keep the pranksters (who give us a giggle on our way to work) in line?
Back in the Eighties I was driving down to New Jersey to visit family. When passing the New Jersey/New York line, the Sign read “Governor Jim Florio Welcomes you to New Jersey” / Under that was printed neatly …”But the rest of us wish you’d stay home.” That little piece of humor brightened what was otherwise a fairly dreary day.
When I was growing up, the teachers in my school said one of the difference between the Soviets and us were that we had the ability to laugh at ourselves, they did not.
Tell me again, who won the cold war?
We need a sign like that in Kittery
next someone will complain that it is offensive to the Zombies! You know zombis have rights too!
I dont care – it IS freakin funny. HAHAHA and as someone said earlier, it probably actually caught the eye of motorists and got them to pay attention to OTHER road signs. Absolutely! Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here and it would be that a little bit of intentional humor gets people to pay attention.
I only dislike the idea of people pulling a prank like this because I didn’t think of it first! Great one for sure!
The real joke on those higway signs is the usual “Road Work Ahead”……..and you see five guys looking at a shovel….unless they are on thier coffee break.
It’s just a cover-up, there really were zombies and someone was just warning us all. The government just wants to keep it quiet so no one panics.
“Zombie warning on road sign prank not funny, Portland officials say”……………………………… Oh come on, where is your sense of humor Portland Officials ……………………… or are you too full of yourselves to have a sense of humor!
Its all fun and games till someone gets hurt.
Could of put an eye out.
“Zombie warning on road sign prank not funny, Portland officials say..”
Um.. actually, yes, it is.
I saw that message and thought it refered to the state workers leaning on shovels? They moved as slow as zombies.
Sounds like they were referring to the Zombies at City Hall. Nothing is funny to them!
They should have done this to a sign in Augusta instead, now that would have been even funnier.
here is a more scary sign entering Portland:
WARNING
LIBERALS
AHEAD!
liberals, zombies same thing
Not to read too much into the impeding zombie invasion, but a subtext of the zombie apocalypse is that civilization is inherently fragile in the face of truly unprecedented threats and that most individuals cannot be relied upon to support the greater good if the personal cost becomes too high. Does every man for himself sound more liberal or conservative to you?
something more scary,republicans who think women can just shut off the pipes in case of rape or evolution is a lie,we rode the dinosaurs and all we need is biblical law
Need to have a sign that reads “Portland has no sense of humor”
Thank goodness I took my zombie killing extra potent bullets with me to Portland today…..
Shh, not so loud the zombie Homeland Security & ATF are going to come and get you for saying you took bullets to Portland. They will send you to be “re-educated” so you will be a better citizen. You will then be a Zombie droing and repeating “I do what you say government”.
Re-Education 101 taught by Cynthia Dill
Hornady green tip pretty cool!
Apparently the Portland officials had their senses of humor surgically removed. This was one of the funniest things I have seen in the paper in some time. Lighten up people. Life is too short to be that serious all the time.
they have the right to be an attorney
With all of the meth and bath salt users, it’s probably an accurate warning. :)
Funny, get your underware out of the knot they are in! If someone is stupid enough to believe the sign they deserve to be erased from Socie by the fictional Zombies! It is freaking funny. Maybe the next one will read “uptight City Official ahead”.
this happened in portland,lots of moonbats.could have started a panic and a run on milk,bread and batteries.lol