Falun Gong Hacks Chinese Satellite

maetenloch writes: "Last week Falun Gong hackers in China were able to briefly take over the Sinosat-1 satellite and broadcast a banner for several minutes on all channels of China Central Television. This was apparently repeated several time on different channels on Sunday but so far the Chinese government has imposed a news blackout on the incident. However thanks to the Internet and the millions of witnesses, word has leaked out. Surprisingly, security on satellites can be very weak - often transponders are left on when not active and will continue to rebroadcast whatever is beamed at them. It's believed that Falun Gong used a 3 meter dish antenna mounted on a vehicle to overpower the government's uplink signal. This is not the only time that satellite signals have been hacked - there was the famous 'Captain Midnight' incident in 1986 and it's believed that Iraq has been attacking Kurdish satellite tv channels for several years. Hackers have even (discreetly) made use of the U.S. Navy's FleetSatCom satellites."

Comments

Re:Falun Gong are terrorists.

[Stiletto]

They could be seen as both. So could the Israeli soldiers who storm through Palestenian villages be seen as terrorists or "enforcers of law and order". It all depends on who is writing the book.

Despite what GW Bush would like us to think, rarely is it the case where a person is "pure evil" or "pure good". It all depends on whos perspective you are looking from.

TERROR is part of TERRORist for a reason.

[Andy Dodd]

IMO, the definition of "Terrorist" is not "Using crime to make yourself heard", but "Using crime to create fear and TERROR." - A key part of the word TERRORist.

Terrorists use violence to make themselves heard, not generic crime.

Using crime to make yourself heard is either simply immature (generic vandalism), or is activism (The civil rights movement, a key part of which was civil disobedience.)

Re:Reminds me of that scene in Hackers

[TWR]

The problem isn't that China is a backwards police state. The problem is that it's a rapidly modernizing police state. That's a billion times scarier.

All the idjits who whine about "1984" in the US aren't paying attention to the country where there's a good chance of it really happening.

-jon

Re:Falun Gong a dangerous

[jonerik]

Don't be fooled by Falun Gong. They hide behind their sham-of-a-religion to promote an overthrow of the current government. Their leader is a coward and a phony who should be dragged out and shot.

Let's hear it for President Jiang Zemin, everyone! Give him a big hand! Isn't he great?

At least they are straightforward about it

[Srin Tuar]

The chinese openly admit to censorship, restrictions on individual rights, etc.

Here in the US, we are every bit as much a police state as china is, however we claim to be the freest place on earth. (richest sure, but the freedom is an illusion)

Here we curtail civil liberties in "defense of freedom". Here we have a working massive fingerprint database, and a credit database that says if you are a good person or not, which furthermore you cannot argue against.

Our government has huge monitoring systems which silently listen to communications all over the world combing for information.

We have a War department that is called "The Dept. of Defense" which has been waging nearly perpetual war for 50 years across the globe.

We have huge witchhunts for the enemy of the day "communists" "child molesters" "terrorists".

The scariest thing is that it all arises without rigid central control: we censor ourselves to further our careers.

The doublethink in the USA is getting pretty scary.

Re:Stirring a Hornet's nest

[dalutong]

"blindly patriotic" -- "love it or leave it"

patriotism shouldn't be about kicking people out of america. america is supposed to be the all-accepting nation. if i want to walk around saying i hate america all day with a picture of bush laying dead on my shirt then i should be allowed to. patriotism isn't about supporting the current leader. it's about supporting the system. i believe in the morals of this country. separation of church and state, freedom of speech, electing my gov't representatives.

but that's where the blindness comes in. when i'm told i should not practice my freedom of speech if i choose to. that's not patriotism on my accusers part.

when i hear "love it or leave it" when i say that i agree that "under god" in the pledge or "in god we trust" on the money conflicts with the constitution (which is NOT a matter of majority rules -- that's the part of the government that is supposed to be permanent)

when I didn't vote for bush yet somehow i have to approve of what he does? or even if i DID vote for bush and he pulls the stupid stunts he is not and i don't agree with him, i can't criticize him? I'm unpatriotic?

NO! my accusers are unpatriotic! THEY don't understand what american stands for! It DOESN'T stand for profiling arabs. it DOESN'T stand for kicking all "unpatriotic" people out of the nation. it stands for freedom -- and the people who are so blind that they think that the current social system is promoting american values... then they are "blindly patriotic"

after 9/11 bush came to visit my school. i didn't stand for him. i didn't clap.

i was taken out of the auditorium and yelled at by several in the administration.

that's blindly patriotic.