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According to WIRED’s Threat Level blog, it looks like Skullphone bought the ads, and the idea of electronic billboard vandalism was just so attractive that we all just wanted to believe in the hack. Either that or Clear Channel is engaged in a cover up that we’ll never know the truth about, making this event into a bit of a Schrodinger’s Cat. According to Clear Channel rep Tony Alwin, the only hack that occurred was the social one where Skullphone put one over on the poor, poor corporate graffiti empire (What? You don’t think billboards are just legitimized graff? Or that graff is just de-legitimized advertising?).

I’ve proclaimed graffiti dead before, and I guess in my heart I want it to be un-dead, if only for a moment, and only electronically.

Now there’s two ways to view this (providing that Clear Channel isn’t just doing damage control and Skullphone is now perma-crowned, but frankly Occam’s Razor makes it much easier to believe that Skullphone paid/scammed Clear Channel, rather than engaging in some kind of monumental and unprecedented hack involving simultaneously manipulating multiple billboards across Los Angeles).

Here’s one.

Skullphone is a toy, someone who lacks skills, who’s trying to buy his way to fame. Yesterday, I was in a public restroom, washing my face in a scratched up mirror, filled with accusations and counter-claims, and all I could think of was how anybody who skulks around with a little etcher to badly scrawl their silly name in a public restroom is the lowest animal on the graffiti totem pole, the biggest toy of all. So by “paying to get up” as one Threat Level reader aptly described this action , Skullphone is now crawling around in the muck one step below assholes on buses with pumice stones and restroom mirror rebels.

Here’s the other.

There’s more than one kind of hack – the social engineering hack. Some of the greatest hacks ever accomplished were the result of social engineering, whether its a simple lie told over the phone to get some info, to dressing up like workmen to get access (something which I totally don’t have enough opportunities to do in my daily life). If Clear Channel’s version of the story is true, and Skullphone fooled them into selling him a teeny, weeny bit of advertising time on ten of their billboards for a pittance, then he may just have engaged in a classic social engineering hack.

Personally, I’m still on the fence. I like my graffiti traditional, with some crime involved. Graffiti without the crime, to me, is like kissing your sister. Sure it’s fun, but you don’t want to admit to it. But on the other hand, I think Skullphone could very well claim that he engaged in a classic hack, if he did truly pull the wool over Clear Channel’s eyes. Oh, and the digital Skullphone image involved reminds me of the Apple ][ art from Wasteland, so I’m kind of happy it’s out there.

Technorati Tags: Skullphone, hack, social engineering, WIRED Threat Level, Clear Channel, billboard, advertising, graffiti, digital graffiti, Wasteland