Pop-Ups Plague Philadelphia Police
Ads For 'Viagra-Like' Pills
POSTED: 1:12 p.m. EST December 23, 2003
PHILADELPHIA -- We have all been bothered by those pop-up advertisements while trying to search the Internet. Recently those annoying ads also plagued the Philadelphia Police Department.
There have been computers on board police patrol cars for a number of years. They are called MDTs, or mobile data terminals. They are now as much of a part of police equipment as a gun or a radio.
"The information gets updated in the MDT as you're in route to the scene," said Sgt. Thomas Macartney.
Information is what officers normally see and expect to see on their computer terminal screen. But a week ago Saturday, some of the cops using the 300 newest MDTs had quite a surprise.
They got a pop-up advertisement for a pill similar to Viagra on their screens.
"It was, to say the least, an inappropriate pop-up for a police department to see," said Deputy Commissioner Charles Brennan. "Most of the officers took it as fake and I think they actually got kind of a chuckle out of it."
Brennan is in charge of scientific and technical services for the Philadelphia Police Department. He says the department's computer provider, Verizon, accidentally left open a wireless connection to the Internet on some computers.
"We believe that an officer got out to the Internet, got a pop-up ad and then drug that pop-up ad back into our infrastructure, and the pop-up ad actually duplicated itself on several dozen computers," said Brennan.
The pop-ups didn't affect police response time and Brennan says this does not indicate that the system is vulnerable to hackers. "The most secure information that we have doesn't go over the wireless network. That goes over wired lines, which are linked through another encrypted network. Even if someone got in, they would have to know the encryption key we're using so they would just see a bunch of encrypted data. They wouldn't know what it meant."
Brennan says the pop-up ad was eliminated from the system and Verizon is in the process of checking the new MDTs to make sure that the wireless connection to the Internet is disconnected.
Copyright 2003 by ClickOnDetroit.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Outgoing Detroit City Council members Barbara-Rose Collins and Martha Reeves have been told the city can't afford to let them buy their city-issued 2008 Ford Crown Victoria cars.
A Michigan teen who was sentenced to four days in juvenile detention Thursday for refusing to visit his father was released after spending only one night there.
Authorities say a 15-year-old boy who was ringing doorbells as a prank in Livingston County was shot by a 69-year-old man at one of the homes.
A newborn baby was found in a Dumpster outside of a collision shop in Garden City.
Local 4 has exclusive footage of a driver that pulled over at a gas station and got into a confrontation with a man just moments before police shot the man with a Taser. He died at a nearby hospital shortly after. 
The family of slain 15-year-old Jamar Pickney Jr. was overcome with emotions Wednesday as his father was led into court and arraigned on first-degree murder charges in his death.
Clarkston versus Sterling Heights Stevenson.
The only automobile dealer in the city of Detroit held a wake Friday in honor of the death of the dealership.
As we prepare for this year's Thanksgiving Parade, you can get a sneak peek at what to expect.
See the beauty of Michigan's most colorful season!
Football Frenzy! See our viewers' pictures of local cheerleaders from schools all around metro Detroit.
See Hot Shots of high school football highlights sent in from viewers all around town!
Email Alerts
RSS News Feeds
Mobile
Live Streams
Slideshows
Video
Search
