Ars Technica: Researchers find it’s terrifyingly easy to hack traffic lights

[JREwing78]

Once total access to a controller and its commands was gained, that was it–at that point, the team had full control over every intersection in the entire network. They could change lights at will and even control each intersection's cameras. The paper lays out several potential activities that an attacker could engage in, including connecting from a moving vehicle and making all lights along the attacker's path green, or purposefully snarling traffic to aid in the attacker's escape after a crime.

Researchers find it's terrifyingly easy to hack traffic lights
Open wireless and default passwords make controlling a city's intersections trivial
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/08/researchers-find-its-terrifyingly-easy-to-hack-traffic-lights/

[jakeroot]

We can invest in higher security measures after we fix our crumbling infrastructure. I really don't care if people hack our signals, though if suddenly every signal turned green, I could see a humongous lawsuit. So maybe, we could. I don't know. 

[Billy F 1988]

The problem with this is that if a hacker propagates the attack throughout the city's entire traffic signal network, it would lead to a serious disaster in the making. Whether this article confirms the fear or not is not something I can determine. Missoula for example has a pretty niche traffic signal network, but I don't know if they use the VxWorks software like other states do for the actual automated functions of each light. But if a hacker got in to the city's traffic signal network, propagated the attack throughout the system, Missoula would be in a disastrous situation where no one can advance to the next intersection. Also, we can't invest worth diddle squat with how our government is and that makes this even more dangerous. It's like you bring this to mind to them but it ends up ignored. So, let us pray no pathetic fool decides to play with the traffic signal network infrastructure as some kind of toy to cause chaos.

[realjd]

They're easy to hack, provided you have access to the proprietary radio that implements the custom waveforms and protocols like the researchers did.

[Brandon]

They can hack IDOT's all they like for all I care.  Shit, they might actually improve them by hacking them.

[Joe The Dragon]

sounds like a easy way to get out of a red light ticket make the state prove that the light was not hacked.

[vdeane]

Except camera tickets are civil penalties rather than criminal ones, meaning the municipality doesn't need to prove anything, they just need to convince the judge that the camera is most likely correct, which is trivial given that most judges aren't technologically literate.  Traffic court also seems to operate on a "guilty until proven innocent" system.

[PurdueBill]

A hacker making lights in all four directions turn green at the same time (in order to cause trouble for Dr. Amanda Bentley) was in a scene in an episode of Diagnosis Murder in 1998, centered around a series of murders on webcam.  Little has changed since 1998. 

[Brandon]

A hacker making lights in all four directions turn green at the same time (in order to cause trouble for Dr. Amanda Bentley) was in a scene in an episode of Diagnosis Murder in 1998, centered around a series of murders on webcam.  Little has changed since 1998. 

You don't need a hacker for that, just a Gremlin in the control cabinet (1984).