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Music

A Hacker Broadcast "Fuck tha Police" Over a Police Scanner

Yeah, this is definitely illegal.
Lauren O'Neill
London, GB
Image via Wikipedia

Weird little internetty stories about dumb shit people have done for a laugh are probably the only good things about #online. So when they happen I love to bring them to you, like a midwife handing you your newborn child, lovingly swaddled. Except instead of a baby, it's memes or a guy figure skating to Lil Jon. It means a lot to me.

Today's tidbit comes from New Zealand, home of good things like Lorde and indeed the Lord of the Rings films, where an intrepid hacker has been playing NWA's protest anthem "Fuck tha Police" (as well as a Rage Against the Machine cover) on a loop over police radio frequencies, ergo forcing cops to listen to a song about how institutionally terrible the LAPD were. This, in and of itself, is darkly funny. However it did have some probably undesired effects.

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The police in Dunedin, to whom the song was broadcast, told the Otago Daily Times that the music interfered with police co-ordination in response to an incident. Local chief Kelvin Lloyd noted that "There's no question that if it carries on and if they do what they're doing it will delay a response."

It's not the first time police in the area have had trouble with radio hackers. I can't really put better words to this last bit than the Otago Daily Times, so I'm just going to give the final comment to them:

Last August there were reports of someone broadcasting pig grunts and abuse over police radios in the lower North Island.

Ahem.

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