SILICON VALLEY CROSSWALKS HACKED TO PLAY HOAX MUSK AND ZUCKERBERG AUDIO

Unknown hackers tampered with audio-enabled crosswalk buttons across Silicon Valley, reprogramming them to play satirical recordings mimicking the voices of Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla’s Elon Musk, city officials in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Redwood City confirmed in public statements addressing the prank.

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The altered signals, discovered over a weekend, replaced standard pedestrian alerts with AI-generated messages poking fun at the tech moguls’ public personas. For residents, commuters, and tech analysts, this incident highlights the growing accessibility of AI voice cloning and the vulnerability of public infrastructure to digital mischief.

The hoax audio featured a faux Zuckerberg musing about AI’s unstoppable rise and a mock Musk joking about Tesla’s Cybertruck while feigning loneliness, with clips spreading rapidly across social media platforms like TikTok. Palo Alto disabled voice functions at 12 downtown intersections, while Redwood City reported four affected locations, all now silenced as investigations proceed. The tampering, likely exploiting default passwords on Polara’s Accessible Pedestrian Signals, underscores a gap in municipal cybersecurity, though no traffic disruptions occurred.

This prank emerges amid economic turbulence, with supply chain costs straining tech firms, yet its playful tone contrasts with Japan’s recent antitrust scrutiny of Google, reflecting diverse challenges in the tech hub. As Meta and Tesla navigate AI and automotive frontiers, the crosswalk hack serves as a cheeky reminder of Silicon Valley’s knack for blending innovation with irreverence, prompting cities to bolster digital defenses.

HOAX AUDIO TARGETS TECH MOGULS