Clear Channel Plans To Roll Out Digital Billboards 300
Tree131 writes "Just in case you don't have enough distractions driving on the highway, Clear Channel is planning to roll out digital billboards. The new billboards will feature ads that depend on the time of day as well as the general area demographics.
I wonder how long before someone with lots of time on their hands hacks into the system and starts tampering with the messages."
Nothing new? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Nothing new? (Score:5, Funny)
It runs Windows.. I know because I've seen it blue screened before.
Re:Nothing new? (Score:5, Funny)
everytime I drive by it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:everytime I drive by it.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Nothing new? (Score:2)
Re:Nothing new? (Score:3, Funny)
and I quote [twainquotes.com]: "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times."
cabs in Boston (Score:5, Interesting)
Boston's cabs have started sprouting Super(with a capital S) bright orange LED panels on top. They are displaying sports scores, or maybe very short news bits. Because of the brightness, they are virtually impossible to ignore, and exceptionally annoying. I'm almost positive I saw a Clear Channel logo at the bottom of the sign unit.
Screw Microsoft- there's plenty of competition these days. It's Clear Channel and the other super-huge media conglomerates that really frighten me.
At least the signs aren't animated. I give them about 6 months to figure that out. Personally, I hope someone takes Clear Channel to court over the existing signs violating some motor vehicle law.
Re:Nothing new? (Score:2)
We don't have billboards in Alaska. Hopefully we never will.
-cp-
Re:Nothing new? (Score:5, Funny)
We've had these in Britain by the motorways for ages, but they always seem to be advertising something called "Major delays on M6 at J15".
Your written correspondence is currently broadcasting a postal address. With this, someone can begin attacking your house!
How long until it's hacked? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:How long until it's hacked? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How long until it's hacked? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, I can't see this running over the net or WiFi unless they're _really_ stupid but, having said that, we've seen VB cash machines so who knows?
Re:How long until it's hacked? (Score:3, Interesting)
It doesn't have to be networked to get hacked. If it's a DVD player, for instance, it could be hacked by climbing up the ladder to where the DVD player is located and swapping out the advertising disc with "Real Butts 14".
More likely the displays have a small amount of solid-state storage in them, and a serial port so they can be updated by plugging a laptop into them.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck FCC, not Clear Channel if you want to (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Fuck FCC, not Clear Channel if you want to (Score:2)
Meanwhile,
Oh, I dunno... (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, how often are your kids far enough away that you can't hear what's going on?
Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:3, Insightful)
We demonize Clear Channel as this media goliath that can't be hurt or tamed by anything, but the way they are fellating the government lately, it seems like they are willing to do anything with the right incentive.
The question is how to persuade them to support Free Speech and good music.
Re:Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:5, Interesting)
To use Rush Limbaugh as an example, he would have been just as big had he been a militant liberal for the simple fact that he and his show were entertaining. During his peak period, I listened every morning...not because I agreed with all (any?) of his opinions, but because it was good listening. These days, when I get up early enough, I listen to Don Imus [in the Morning] and disagree with at least half of his rants (many of them leftist - he's on the Kerry bandwagon at the moment). But it's a good show, so I enjoy it.
It's not always (almost never?) content that makes people listen to radio shows. It's how the show is put together and the quality of the host(s). These media companies know that better than anybody.
Re:Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:3, Informative)
Nonsense. Most corporations give more money to one party then the other. Some corporations give money depending on who is in power but others (like clearchannel) always give more money to one party then the other.
It's patently nonsensical to claim that clear channel does not have a political leaning. They are clearly republicans. Not only does the corporation give way more money to republicans (around 200K for rep
Re:Well, just call some Congressional hearings (Score:3, Interesting)
BS. Total BS. Why was Stern pulled off the air where he was #1 in the ratings? You don't pull your number one s
Ads (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ads (Score:2)
Nope, Just taxi ads so you can catch a cab as the bars close. Why risk a DUI?
Waste of money. (Score:5, Funny)
Lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lawyers (Score:4, Interesting)
Living outside of Taipei and commuting into town, I'm already exposed to quite a few digital billboards. I think they're cool and seem perfectly normal in Taiwan, but it's worth noting that Taiwan's sign standards are a lot closer to Vegas than any other western city I've seen. And I recall that in San Diego and LA even flashing neon signs are prohibited except in certain "historical" districts.
Adding that with California's prohibition on front seet LCDs makes it seem this is going to be a difficult trick to pull off at least in California.
Re:Lawyers (Score:2, Interesting)
First, moving images and flashy graphics would definately be a no-no. As long as the image stayed somewhat static it wouldn't be a big distraction to drivers. Just as billboards today can have as many bright colors and some even have flashy glittering tin-foil-type-stuff to draw attention, they do not attempt to sustain the driver's constaint attention.
second, although the brightness wo
Re:Lawyers (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lawyers (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello, have you just gotten into an accident while looking at this billboard? If so, then call us, at..."
The other half of the adds will be for insurance companies.
Re:Lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)
That
Re:Lawyers (Score:2)
--RJ
Too many temptations (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Too many temptations (Score:5, Informative)
For more information on subchannels, Google SCA subchannel.
Re:Too many temptations (Score:2)
With 10+ stations in every market, I highly doubt they get info on your radio by any broadcast signal. They probably get it by listening to stray signals coming from the superheterodyne circuit in the recievers. It's very weak in modern equipment (heavy RF sheilding and FM on chip technology), but it can be detected. All you would need to screw it up is an old "transistor" radio (one with seperate tran
Re:Too many temptations (Score:3, Interesting)
This has nothing to do with sniffing the radio in my car. This has everything to do with sniffing the signal from a Clear Channel FM station to the billboard. Picking up the 50 KW signal and looking at it's SCA subcarriers for data to the billboards is the sniffing mentioned. Replacing the signal from a 50 KW Clear Channel station in the area of the billboard to put in a hacked signal to the billboard is the competing with the 50 KW sta
Re:Too many temptations (Score:2)
Not necessarily. If you could get within, say, a quarter-mile or so of the thing with about 50 or so watts, you'd probably do just fine. Remember that FM receivers exhibit a little something called the 'capture effect.' This is nothing more than the tendency for the receiver to capture and demodulate the strongest signal it hears.
Now, I know that 50kW sounds like a lot for a broadcast station, and i
Re:Too many temptations (Score:2)
I don't carry a 30 foot ladder in my car. I do have a kilowatt of AC.
Advertising/Subvertising (Score:2)
The OS (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The OS (Score:2, Funny)
I can't wait to hack one (Score:5, Funny)
It's about time the common man can let Clear Channel know how they feel.
Re:I can't wait to hack one (Score:3, Funny)
If you plan on 'reprograming' CC eq, I'd suggest a
I know the
I don't encourage such (Score:5, Funny)
But if you're going to do it anyway, take a video camera.
Ben
Re:I don't encourage such (Score:2)
Allow me to recommend one of my favorite guilty pleasures along the same lines, requires quicktime :-( ? Phone Bashing [phonebashing.com]
Too Bright - Traffic Hazard (Score:2)
I don't mind that it's Clear Channel, though that's certainly worth a couple of extra Brownie(tm) points, but it's just way too
Windows Error messages (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Windows Error messages (Score:2)
Re:Windows Error messages (Score:2)
This is Funny (Score:5, Interesting)
Turns out it was a billboard company in Salt Lake who after I contacted them really didnt care that they're systems were out there broadcasting their SSID's and assigning people's laptops a friggin IP!!
I'm curious if someone's managed to redesign a few billboards out there.
Re:This is Funny (Score:2, Interesting)
A far more interesting hack would be to 'Own' the billboard and be able to grab ahold and do things to the machines of people driving by. If the billboard is assigning an IP it should try to do something with all those nice machines, afterall.
Re: This is Funny (Score:5, Funny)
> > I'm curious if someone's managed to redesign a few billboards out there.
> A far more interesting hack would be to 'Own' the billboard and
...use them to DDoS ClearChannel.
Re:This is Funny -- +5 Interesting (Score:2, Funny)
:)
Re:This is Funny (Score:2)
I'd think those spots would be worth much more money...
Yeah (Score:2, Funny)
Synergy with radio (Score:5, Interesting)
Their killer app will be to link together packages that promise to reach a certain number of impressions to a given demographic.. based on who's expected to drive by at the hours that the given ad is up. That's what ad buyers really want, is to only count the people who are likely to consider buying the product being pitched... everyone else doesn't count. Doing it this way, they'll be able to get more milage out of their existing boards.
Re:Synergy with radio (Score:2)
Clear Channel can get a pretty good idea who's driving at any hour a day based on adding up the radio listening data... they can do supplemental surveys to subtract out at-work listeners so that they only count in-car listeners to figure out what the demographic that's going to pass their billboards at each hour of the day will be.
Dear God! They can't be allowed to control that kind of information! It's almost like those godawful bastards at Google who want to give us all a free gigabyte of e-mail storing
Re:Synergy with radio (Score:4, Insightful)
They wouldn't even need to necessarily know your name or anything, but your license plate would make for a nice unique identifier, like a browser cookie holding a UUID.
When you're driving down the highway these dynamic billboards can then adjust the advertisment to fit whatever "average" ad best fits the group of cars who have the billboard in view.
With enough cameras installed around a city, and a little fancy tag recognition + OCR technology, I don't see what's to stop them from being able to do this now.
Re:Synergy with radio (Score:2)
Re:Synergy with radio (Score:2)
Re:Synergy with radio (Score:2)
For example: You are driving a Ford; display GM ads.
Maybe not possible yet but as long as it's possible to make money on it it soon will be.
three words (Score:2)
I have three words for you...
big porn billboard
Ooh! (Score:3, Funny)
Hack it? Not likely.. (Score:2)
I think its all hardwired, need to social engineer your way into that one.
Tampering eh? (Score:2)
Makes one wonder how tight the security will be after that!
Driver has seizure....... (Score:2, Interesting)
I think that there, perhaps, should be a strict limit on how many different types of distractions a driver can be legally exposed to before it is no longer their fault when they crash. This could be a sort of self solving problem, whereby advertisers will not advertise in high accident locations due to legislation saying that they are in fact responsible for the accidents in said locations.
I also happen to agree very strongly with the school of thought
Re:Driver has seizure....... (Score:2)
No - the only thing that'll sideline something like this will be vandalism.
Also, the last time I went down 880 near Hayward, I recall seeing one of these things. Wasn't distracting to me at all - perhaps because I was paying attention to what I was supposed to be doing: driving.
Point is - people should be paying attention to the road. Those that are distracted enough by
Re:Driver has seizure....... (Score:2)
Actually, isn't it illegal to watch TV or videos when you're driving your car already, in most states?
Why is this any different? Slashdot lawyers: Start your rants!
Hackers dream... (Score:2)
Re:Hackers dream... (Score:2)
Re:Hackers dream... (Score:2, Funny)
That is your hacker's dream? Christ, you might as well have said Atari's 'Tank' instead of Tetris. Me, I dream of a game of Pong on such devices. Everyone who has mastered intergalactic space travel, please raise your hand.
lots of time? (Score:2)
I hate clear channel. They have killed radio as a venue for listening for music. Maybe radio was going downhill before Clearchannel and before Clearchannel all the radio stations really did sound exactly the same; all top40 clones of each other, but Clearchannel lets me put a name on my hatred of radio as it stands today. Long live Clearchannel.
I wonder how long it takes for som
Re:lots of time? (Score:2)
Not all bad (Score:2)
If they Hack it..... (Score:2)
My new.. (Score:3, Funny)
Cheap digital picture frames! Whoot!
News... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't move (Score:2, Interesting)
reeduckulous titles (Score:3, Funny)
in other news, I name myself Lord of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India.
In France... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:In France... (Score:2)
Re:In France... (Score:2)
Re:In France... (Score:2)
Swings and roundabouts IMHO. A prettier countryside in compensation for towns (where I actually spend my time...) where I want blinkers.
Oh, OT, can someone go round and paint all the old villages? There's tons that look like they haven't had a
Re:In France... (Score:3, Interesting)
I always ask myself if so much advertising, if unrestricted advertising is really productive. If it does something good to the economy as a whole. If it would not be better to restrict advertisements to a certain level(?)
It seems to me that today's advertisements do not inform about new products but instead are just there because if a company does not advertise, all other companies will advertis
digital billboard light pollution (Score:5, Insightful)
If ClearChannel is going to insist pushing these digital billboards with "time of day" related messages, then I hope they will turn down the brightness of their billboards at night as well.
Oh, Yippee! (Score:2)
If it's just a display... (Score:2)
One could (if they didn't mind losing a little cash on it, but still worth the job) run a cheap eMachines or Wal-Mart PC up (or a P1 that you can't run as a NetBSD firewall), then run that with a slideshow program to produce whatever images and advertising you wanted.
Of course, that would promptly make the guards on these things probably electrify the poles, so if you do this (go for it, in my opinion; t
.....or how long... (Score:2)
Re:First.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First.... (Score:2)
Re:First.... (Score:2)
I wonder what they would spam me with while listening to Suicide Commando or Wumpscut.
Re:First.... (Score:2)
Bravo... glad to see i'm not alone in my enjoyment of german industrial. Das Ich isn't bad either.
Verflucht Bis Ihr Verhungert!
Re:First.... (Score:2)
Already happening [sacbee.com].
There was even a story here on
Re: How long until some-one hacks it (Score:2)
> I'll give it a week.
I'd prefer that craxors restrained themselves until the billboards are widely deployed.
Re:How long until some-one hacks it (Score:2)
These billboards have been around for a while, despite the /. blurb. Have they been hacked yet? Nope. They've crashed, they've blue-screened, and people have played solitaire on them with touch-screen ATMs, but not hacked. How, may I ask, do you hack a SCREEN?
Hacking requires physical access to the c
Re:How long until some-one hacks it (Score:2)
Depending on the positioning of the billboard, it could be a wired connection (cat5? Animated ads would probably be too large to transfer via slow serial connections) or a wireless (802.11x, or more likely something proprietary). All of the above are hackable.
Re:How long until some-one hacks it (Score:2)
Lunix is actually an OS for the Commodore 64. [sourceforge.net]
Re:Why do you think they call them BillBoards, any (Score:4, Interesting)
Was? It's about 50 feet north of the Pierce/King county line, visible from I-5 (large full-color northbound, smaller partial-color southbound), featuring full-otion video, and (northbound) bright enough at night to make me squint. When it went in, accident rate along that portion of the freeway jumped up something like 10%, and people fought to have it removed. Unfortunately, it's still there, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who dreams of taking a wide-spread shotgun to it every time I see it.
Re:Why do you think they call them BillBoards, any (Score:2, Informative)