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I'm sure the executives at HBO are thinking the same thing about people who have the ability to pay for HBO yet won't.

They are probably thinking "Premium cable was a lot easier when all you had to worry about was Captain Midnight."

Anyone remember Captain Midnight and the HBO incident?

Tracking dish, knowledge of the frequencies in use, signal generator and amplifier and you're pretty much there.

Of course if they're using DS spread spectrum and they don't have the spreading code, it could be considerably harder, though turning up the power sufficiently would probably desensitise the front end of the satellite enough to stop it from working.

If you have two signals at the same frequency arriving at the radio at the same time, they'll overlap, not cancel.

With no doubt, this must be the biggest security hole I have seen lately. 802.11g directly to the hard drive. Bravo. Is this an April Fool's joke posted prematurely or are they really out of their minds thinking that anyone would be so stupid to buy such a hard drive, which is basically asking to be cracked? I find it insulting. I hope script kiddies will have lots of fun.

Basically HBO gets their broadcast screwed, he gets found, and off on a year probation and a decent fine.

Slashdot discussion of "Captain Midnight" in this story

http://www.signaltonoise.net/library/captmidn.htm - Link to the story originally linked in that thread.

Enforcement doesn't have to mean seizing the satellites -- it could be seizing the ground stations or the assets of the companies controlling the satellites. Worst comes to worst, just seize the satellites electronically -- something that doesn't require a lot of space know-how; just off-the-shelf components.

You're correct - the US telephone companies used a signal at 2600Hz to switch customer lines onto the telephone 'trunk'. More information can be found in Chapter 5 of 'The Phreakers Manual' as well as the details of the legendary blue box
Richy C.