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Submitted via IRC for ErnestTBass
'Rude' scooters play offensive messages
Lime scooters in Brisbane have been making suggestive and offensive comments to riders after pranksters swapped audio files on some vehicles.
The scooters were hacked to make a variety of comments most of which were sexual in nature, local papers in the city reported.
At least eight scooters had files swapped in the cyber-attack.
Lime said the prank was "not funny" and that it was working to return the hacked scooters to their normal state.
[...] One message had the scooter saying: "Don't take me around, because I don't like to be ridden."
Another played when riders ended a journey on a scooter at which point the speaker on the gadget said: "No, where you go?"
Lime spokesman Nelson Savanh told the Brisbane Times that the prank was the work of "vandals" and that it was checking its entire fleet to see how many had been tampered with.
"It's not smart, it's not funny and is akin to changing a ringtone," he said.
"It's disappointing that someone has taken this opportunity to poke fun at members of the community in a hurtful way," added Mr Savanh.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Monday April 29 2019, @02:42PM
You sure about the brakes? I don't know about these, but it seems like quite a few scooters have some level of regenerative braking, which for most purposes is effectively the same thing, though mechanical manual override seems common (i.e. software detects and reacts to light "braking" before the brake pads ever come in contact), which means the brakes can't be cut completely.
You could still pull some life threatening tricks though - such as detecting when the user starts to brake and engaging maximum acceleration instead.