A group of hackers have managed to gain access to a prominently placed advertising billboard located in the crowded Republic Square in the center of Belgrade, Serbia. For a while the billboard displayed the Pirate Bay logo alongside Ghandi’s quote “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” The people responsible for the stunt claim the hack was done to demonstrate how vulnerable the billboard’s security system is.
What caught our eye, however, is the massive Pirate Bay logo that was displayed. The iconic ship appeared alongside a quote The Pirate Bay has borrowed from Mahatma Gandhi on few occasions: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
“We are two computer science students who are doing this solely for scientific research purposes and to demonstrate how information systems generally are not well secured.”
The students explain that they merely wanted to demonstrate how vulnerable the security of the billboard is. Nothing was ‘broken’ and the company that operates the billboard has been informed about the holes in their system.
“No harm was done to the system. The billboard was not working for exactly 22 minutes and normal functionality was restored as soon as the demonstration ended,” they say.
Whether The Pirate Bay received a local visitor boost after this display is unknown. Not that it’s needed, as the BitTorrent site already is the 21st most visited website in Serbia. However, the Pirate Bay team did appreciate the hack from their Serbian friends.