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pmcnamara
News Editor

Rubber chicken, maybe crow … not babies

Opinion
May 05, 20061 min
Data Center

The bad news is that the electronic advertising signs on Toronto’s GO Transit trains are child’s play for hackers to compromise.

The good news is that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper does not eat babies.

The seeming non sequitur makes sense only within the context of this news story about how a hacker managed to commandeer some number of the transit system’s 800 scrolling signs and replace the messages they carried with words of his or her own choosing, including: “Stephen Harper eats babies.”

One passenger who knows both the prime minister and his eating habits saw the bogus message and alerted the transit authorities. He also told a reporter: “I worked with Harper for five years and I know he has a craving for junk food, but I’ve never seen him eat a baby.”

Kind of restores your faith in politicians, no?

pmcnamara
News Editor

In addition to my editing duties, I have written Buzzblog since January, 2006 and wrote the 'Net Buzz column in Network World's dearly departed print edition for 13 years. Feel free to e-mail me at pmcnamara@nww.com.