Unlocking L.A.'s Traffic Grid: Phreaked Out (Episode 1)

In the debut episode of our three-part series titled "Phreaked Out," we took a retrospective look at one day in August of 2006, when two Los Angeles traffic engineers, Kartik Patel and Gabriel Murillo, remotely accessed the city's traffic control system and tampered with the light sequences at four main intersections of the city, as part of a labor union protest. 

Although there was little evidence of the attack, their alleged disruptions were reported to have triggered a state of gridlock that lasted days. In 2009, Patel and Murillo copped to the crime, which stood as a reminder that the city of Los Angeles, like countless other metropolises, relies on a certain degree of computerized and internet-connected control systems that are vulnerable to exploitation.