They turned them into “Automated Truth Machines.” (Now they’re exponentially more useful than the totally useless Wells Fargo ATMs in the Mission.) Hacking! Rainforest Action Network explains how it was done:
The activists used special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus offered a list of everything BoA customers’ money is being used for, including investment in coal-fired power plants, foreclosure on Americans’ homes, bankrolling of climate change, and paying for fat executive bonuses.
Get the whole story, an interactive map of the project, and lots more pictures here.
 Hacking! Rainforest Action Network explains how it was done: The activists used special non-adhesive stickers designed to look exactly like BoA’s ATM interface. But instead of checking and savings accounts, these new menus […]</p>
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Awesome, but stickers aren’t hacking.
Would you accept “Culture Jamming”?
at this point people are using the word ‘hacking’ to describe putting unconventional topping on pizzas
give it up, mr mitnick, the word is no longer ours to claim
this.
I came here to say the same thing.
I just hacked the fuck out of a PB&J sandwich.
I guess you have not been to MIT in recent years and seen the installation piece regarding the hacking, hacks, and hackers that have occurred in, on, or around campus grounds. You should see it and then question their definition of a hack.
No, but you’re a hack.
Yeah. I like it, but it would’ve been cooler if they actually hacked the machines. Jailtime is sexy.
That’s totally fucking brilliant!
Wow…way to punish the 99% trying to access their money.
BofA is waaaay too big to give a crap about the 99%. Unless you’re a big business, you’re a liability to BofA rather than an asset.
At first I was like “holy shit”, but then I realized that “hack” was used in the MIT “to screw around with” sense here, not in the more common “to break into a computer” sense.
Not many people know the MIT vernacular so it’s kind of funny when you see it outside of the MIT bubble.
That would be cracking btw (hacking is making not breaking something).
Except no one actually uses “cracker” like that. In the hacker scene the term is looked on with derision.
C’mon, say it like you’re French: détournement! I know, it’s like I’m beating a dead Debord over here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9tournement
So these stickers are the accoutrements of détournement? That’s got serious caché de la boulevard.
totally hacked my coffee with some cream this morning.
I approve this message.
You shoulda seen the size of the hack I left in the men’s toilet at Starbuck’s today (Mission @ Fremont)
I feel 8.5 pounds lighter.
Stickers aren’t hacking? Do you have any idea where the term “hacking” came from?!? http://www.amazon.com/Hackers-Computer-Revolution-Steven-Levy/dp/0141000511
Uhhh… Anyone who thinks that this does not qualify as a hack does not really have a firm grasp on the concept of hacking. Computers are merely one possible medium for the mindset and intent of the hacker. Stuff along the lines of this hack is generally referred to as “culture hacking” or “culture jamming”. Perhaps the most famous group in this particular sub-genre would be the Yes Men.
not all x are y.
THIS IS NOT HACKING YOU FUCKING RETARD
As has been stated in this thread many times, hacking != computer hacking.
Uh, yeah, Yeah it is.
Sorry, I mean
YES THIS IS HACKING YOU FUCKING RETARD
there, was that more on your level?
I approve of this use of stickers and ATMs, but the comments thread on this blog post isn’t nearly pedantic or vitriolic enough for me. B+.
I woulda thought this was subvertizing – or did that term die in the 90s?
I would have gone with the much clearer “fuck with”, as in “guerilla activists fuck with b of a’s ATMs all over sf”
it is hacking. but, because of the title says hacking atm’s, and atm’s are computers, it is confusing.
i learned about hacking today, thanks commenters