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

Disregard the politics for a second

[ringbarer]

Whatever you think of Falun Gong vs. The Chinese Government, you've got to admit that this is a cool hack. The kind of thing you used to see in 'futuristicky' 1980's sci-fi movies.

Moments like this, along with the Anthrax outbreak last year, are beginning to define socio-political conflict in the 21st Century.

Re:Who's the "terrorist?"

[bourne]

Are the Falun terrorists for "hijacking" Chinese TV? Or are they rebels in a quest against the evil empire?

Insofar as they aren't practicing any actual form of terror, I'm going to vote "not terrorist."

To the best of my knowledge, they aren't...

• Attacking or killing non-combatants
• Threatening harm to non-combatants
• Attacking or killing police or military forces
• Threatening harm to police or military forces
• Threatening vital public infrastructure

I think, at worst, you could call them an insurgent organization. But in my book, no terror = no terrorism - and popping "falun gong is good" on the telly signal for a few seconds is not "terror" by any definition I've ever heard.

Terrorist, as defined by USA PATRIOT

[ehintz]

Since we seem to have a flurry of conflicting opinions regarding whether Falun Gong's activities are terrorism...

USA PATRIOT defines domestic terrorism as activities that attempt "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion".

Dictionary.com defines "coerce" thus:

coerce (k-ûrs)
tr.v. coerced, coercing, coerces
1. To force to act or think in a certain way by use of pressure,
threats, or intimidation; compel.

By that definition, Falun Gong are terrorists. So are all of us that marched on federal buildings attempting to use "pressure" to "compel" the DOJ to free Dmitry. Which serves as a good example of one of the many things that are wrong with USA PATRIOT.

Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the terrorist party?