Students Rewarded With iPads for 'Space Invaders' Billboard Hack

A hack by two Serbian computer science students, though arguably harmless and fun, could have easily ended in severe punishment. Surprisingly, it didn't.

To underscore a lack of security, the students took over a billboard in downtown Belgrade and installed Space Invaders on it. They then played the classic video game on the giant screen using their iPhones for more than 20 minutes. Instead of punishing them, however, the billboard's owner rewarded the two young hackers with iPads for exposing the system's vulnerability.

"We thought this was funny and can help people understand that IT systems are not so well protected," Ivan Petrović, one of the two students, told Ars Technica. "We thought we would like to demonstrate a game. The first idea started because we look at the screen [everyday, from our university across the street]. We were just thinking of it a year ago: it would be cool to play a game on that screen."