Hackers seem to have "teased" Lime's electric skates, causing them to start cursing riders. The company, obviously annoyed, described the event as "not at all smart" and "not at all funny".
Lime's wireless electric skates, which have flooded the world and can be found in Athens and Thessaloniki, seem to have fallen victim to a humorist hacker in Brisbane, Australia. The hacker managed to modify them to play inappropriate voice recordings, a hack that the company was not amused at all.
The voice messages heard from the e-scooters, were recorded through the mobile of the phones by the users who went to use them and went up to the social media networks. In these you will hear the skates saying “Don't take me. I don't like running” (via a video on twitter from 7News Brisbane), or "If you are going to drive my ass, then please pull my hair, OK?", (via a video posted on YouTube).
Skaters normally reproduce sounds when they work, for example when are unlocked. Last year, the Guardian said that a Lime skate in Oakland was programmed to shout: "Unlock me to ride me or I'll call police”, if someone was just teasing it.
According to the company, the hacker compromised the physical port of the audio files, local to each skate, and did not gain access to the functional their system. Eight skates in total were affected and have now been withdrawn from use.
