by Patrick ShannonOne of my favorite movies of all time has to be “The Italian Job” (both new and old), and there was one scene in particular from the new movie that I found intriguing. It was the scene where they were able to hack into the traffic system and basically change the lights at the intersections that they specified. This allowed them to maneuver the truck loaded with gold into position for the next part of the planned theft. I always thought to myself “is this really possible?”, it turns out that a similar event happened on August 21st, 2006 in Los Angeles, California. The crime occurred between 9:10am and 9:30am, during this period a computer command was entered to initialize the disconnection of several signal control boxes that control the lights at the intersections. The hackers knew what they were doing and they knew which intersections to alter to cause the most havoc. The intersections involved were Sky Way and World Way near LAX airport, a major junction in Studio City, a spot in Little Tokyo and near the LA Civic Center. Although no accidents were reported it took four days to bring systems back to normal. The hackers were found because of the fact that the attack occurred hours before a job action by members of the Engineers and Architects Association, the association that represents the engineers involved in maintaining the Los Angeles City traffic center. The suspects identified as Gabriel Murillo aged 37 and Kartik Patel aged 34, both Los Angeles traffic system engineers. Both were charged with one count of unauthorized access of a computer. Mutillo also faced an identity theft charge while Patel had been accused of four disruptions of service offences. Prosecutors alleged the pair used purloined supervisor credentials to send commands to reprogram signal control boxes at four critical intersections. In November, 2008 both plead guilty of illegally disrupted the computer system that controls traffic lights. Murillo allegedly accessed codes so that only he and Patel could make changes to the system, blocking other workers from sorting out the escalating chaos. The hack succeeded despite plans by managers to temporarily prevent any engineers making changes to the city's traffic control systems. There sentencing was either to serve 120 days in jail or complete 240 hours of community service such as Caltrans and they had both their home and work computers monitored. Both Murillo and Patel are considered outstanding citizens and have devoted their professional careers to transportation safety in Los Angeles therefore; the engineers were not fired from their jobs. Oftentimes you’ll read about computer hackers and your worry is that they’re stealing company secrets, customer records, social security numbers or other confidential information, but this story brings out another form of hacking. This type of hacking like a virus has the ability to affect thousands of individuals but in a much more real physical way. I now know that the stunt that was performed in the movie “The Italian Job” can and has been replicated and can have similar effects on the traffic like they showed in the movie.
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