Breaking video: 5 American students attacked after mistakenly entering Hebron
This is going on now:
Their car was totally burnt.
If you're an American student (or tourist) in Israel, please (a) do not drive anywhere over the green line unless you absolutely know where you're going, and (b) if you think you know where you're going because you're using Waze, please go into the settings and check the box to "avoid roads under Palestinian Authority control." That won't help you in Jerusalem (the 'Palestinian Authority' doesn't officially control, for example,
the road leading to the Mount of Olives), but it will help you avoid situations like what has happened this evening.
The kids have all been rescued.
UPDATE 1:07 PM BOSTON TIME
Labels: Hebron, Jerusalem, Mount of Olives, Palestinian terrorism, Waze
A better way for Chris Christie to cause traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge
Just yesterday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was
cleared of wrongdoing in the creation of some purposeful traffic jams on the George Washington Bridge. Now, it turns out that his aides could have created traffic jams without lane closures, and their method of doing so would likely have been much harder to detect.
Two students and two faculty advisers at the Technion managed to hack into the popular traffic navigation Waze, which was
purchased by Google a few months ago, and which seems to be ubiquitous among drivers using iOS and Android phones. The four managed to
create fake traffic jams on Waze as part of an academic project in the university's computer science department.
Essentially, the system automatically creates multiple new
fictitious users on Waze that report fake GPS locations to “trick” the
navigation system into believing there is a traffic jam.
The
students were able to simulate a traffic jam that lasted for hours on
end causing motorists on Waze to deviate from their planned routes.
Doctoral
student Nimrod Partush initially came up with the idea for the project
while stuck in a traffic jam with his adviser, Prof. Eran Yahav, last summer.
“I
told Eran that if we would cause Waze, before we started driving, to
report that there was a huge traffic jam on the coastal road [Route 2],
the application would divert all drivers to Route 4 and we could drive
to Tel Aviv on the coastal road without any traffic,” Partush said in a
statement released by the Technion.
Yahav later recommended that
Partush present the idea to [Computer Science students Shir] Yadid and [Meital] Ben Sinai, two students he
believed would be interested in developing the idea further.
“We
didn’t know what we were getting into,” said Yadid and Ben Sinai.
“Success in the project was not guaranteed, and though the idea did not
sound innovative, its implementation was complex and therefore it
required a lot of time and effort.”
Following Yadid and Ben
Sinai’s success in implementing the system, the advisers notified Waze
of the “cyber-attack” and explained to the company the manner in which
the students were able to hack the application.
“We believe that following our report, Waze will find a way to prevent such attacks,” said Partush.
I would bet that Yadid and Ben Sinai - and probably Partush too - end up with consulting contracts with Waze, if not employment contracts. And Google is probably breathing a sigh of relief.
Labels: Google, Israeli high tech, Technion, Waze
