A few days ago two computer science students hacked a billboard in the center of Belgrade, Serbia, and replaced its standard message with a meters-wide Pirate Bay logo. The 'hackers' said they wanted to show that security of IT-systems is often lacking and their message didn't fall on deaf ears. The manager of the billboard company thanked the pair for their efforts and rewarded them with a 4G iPad Mini each.

Last weekend a billboard located in the Republic Square in the center of Belgrade, Serbia, displayed a rather unusual ad.

Instead of advertising commercial goods it displayed an enormous Pirate Bay logo alongside Ghandi’s quote “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”

The hackers responsible, two computer science students, told TorrentFreak that they wanted to demonstrate how vulnerable IT systems can be. In doing so they decided to support their favorite torrent site which they see as a beacon of the uncensored Internet.

“We strongly believe in the right of free speech and are against any form of censorship. The Pirate Bay is the closest we have to a free, apolitical independent worldwide organization that supports these values and we simply felt the need to support it in some way,” we were told.

Hacked

The hack was reported widely in local and international media, far beyond the students’ expectations. Because they made no attempts to hide their identities they were slightly worried that their well-intentioned stunt could get them in trouble. However, their actions have resulted in the opposite effect.

The billboard advertising company, DPC, didn’t seek repercussions for the 22-minute billboard takeover. Instead it was happy that Ivan Petrovic (21) and Filip Stanisavljević (20) exposed the security flaw, and they were rewarded with a 4G iPad mini each.

“This has never happened before, but we appreciate the fact that these guys have, in a charming way, pointed us to this huge problem. Now it is clearer than ever that we need to protect ourselves better,” DPC’s manager Slobodan Petrovic commented.

The students were thankful for the company’s response and the pair were invited to discuss cyber crime and security issues at DPC, where they received their reward.

“It was really nice of them that they admitted that there was security hole, but in my opinion the company who sells the screens was responsible for that mostly,” Ivan told TorrentFreak.

“I think it is unusual and very cool to respond like that,” Ivan adds. “It probably wasn’t the best way to demonstrate the vulnerability, but perhaps we wouldn’t have gotten their attention otherwise.”

According to DPC’s manager the two students are lucky to be in Serbia, as things may have ended differently in other countries. “In more developed countries, these actions are unthinkable because of severe sanctions,” he said.

The manager added that the pair can use their iPad Mini’s to uncover more security flaws elsewhere. Or they can use them to access The Pirate Bay of course. Unfortunately for them, Apple doesn’t allow people to install any BitTorrent clients on the tablet.

But we assume that they can find a way around that.