Slashdot Mirror
Radio Station Hijacked Eight Times In the Past Month To Play 'I'm a Wanker' Song (bleepingcomputer.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bleeping Computer: An unknown hacker has hijacked the radio frequency of a UK radio station to play an obscene song eight times during the past month, according to the radio station's manager who recently revealed the hacks in an interview with BBC Radio 4. The hacks have been reported to Ofcom, the UK's communications regulator, who together with the radio station's staff have tried to track down the culprit at last three times, without success. Ofcom and radio station officials believe the hacker is using a mobile radio transmitter to broadcast a stronger signal on the radio station's normal frequency, overriding its normal program. In eight different occasions, the hacker has taken over broadcasts and has been heard talking, screaming, or singing, and then playing "The Winker's Song" (NSFW) by British comedian Ivor Biggun, a track about self-pleasure released in the 70s. Station manager Tony Delahunty told BBC Radio he received phone calls from distressed listeners complaining that their kids started humming the song. Fellow radio stations also called Delahunty to inquire about the hack, fearing similar hijacks.
"calls from distressed listeners complaining that their kids started humming the song" -- that's hilarious
We know you are, you don't have to brag about it.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
where hacking was a form of art, done for fun not for profit. Before the commercial people took it over like everything on the internet.
Tony Delahunty's ratings "book" (UK equivalent?) will skyrocket for 3rd quarter.
It's like a British Bababouie.
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
mobile radio transmitter to broadcast a stronger signal on the radio station's normal frequency
Soooooo... that's hacking? Is the verb "hack" just equivalent to "did a nefarious thing" now... on Slashdot? Like, we don't even need computers, internets, IPs, mobiles, or two people on a keyboard to call it hacking?
I'm becoming convinced that the editors just post shit to give us two minutes of rage and keep up the time-on-page metrics, instead of actually posting news for nerds.
I had naturally assumed they were "hacking" Steve Wright on Radio 2
Sadly I was wrong.
> Ofcom and radio station officials believe the hacker is using a mobile radio transmitter to broadcast a stronger signal on the radio station's normal frequency, overriding its normal program.
Either this is the weakest commercial radio station in the world, or the "hacker" has access to a massive amplifier and antenna, or he's just overriding the station's frequency in a very small area. My money is on the last of those, and also that this story is of negligible significance.
Or perhaps the officials are wrong and the guy is overpowering a much weaker studio-to-transmitter link and using the station's own signal to broadcast his onanistic outrage.
why is he a hacker? This is just transmitting FM with a not so regulatory amp? If he would hack the digital feed in their studio he would be a hacker but now he's just a guy who bought some equipment and dialed in a radio station frequency and is driving around the city. Hacking my ass. But he still gets points for style, execution and repetition!
This is just an old fashioned pirate radio.
respect to this radio pirate!
catchy tune
I've never heard so many cries of "Well, I never!" There were bodies lying prostrate on fainting couches all about the city! The horror!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It will be awhile, but if the pirate continues doing this, they will find him and grind them into dust.
Most people don't realize that the BEST jokes are the ones that happen only a few times and when the jokester does it enough to be noticed but stops before they get caught.
Some of my best pranks are ones I only did a few times with long intervals in between. The best being an E-mail prank that I only pulled twice in 3 years and nobody suspected that it was me until a decade later after I told the Sys Admin staff the secret on my last day so they could fix the hole. I still remember the crazy searching for the perpetrator and the hand wringing memos from embarrassed management types getting posted on the bulletin boards in the break room....
Then there was the changing of the channels in the cafeteria TV's that just mysteriously happened even though they where out of reach and the remote controls locked up in the boss' office...I did that one a couple of times a week, using an IR recording/playback device, for a month, stopped when the Boss set up a surveillance camera, then did it every few weeks once the camera disappeared. I'm sure it drove him crazy because he was complaining about it in public... Not sure if he caught on to me after I left there or not, but I got really tired of CNN only on the TV's at lunch.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
You know what is even more obscene? Parents getting upset over this instead of bands of kids setting sleeping homeless men and women on fire for the thrill of it, something that happens in both the US and the UK
A Max Headroom hacker on every Windows 10 device.
I imagine they were able to pull that one by sending their own, more powerful microwave signal to the remote broadcast tower that most TV stations used. The FM capture effect (analog TV video used a variant of AM with the audio being FM for normal broadcast, but I am sure the station to tower mw link was all FM), helped insure a complete takeover of the broadcast tower.
Could have been worse. They could have played Nickleback.
Yeah that could have been worded better. Signal hijacking or intrusion is a better word. The transmitter towers are line of sight from the studio so all you need is a transmitter and antenna to get in the way. I wish the Max Headroom guy would come forward and reveal the details. The statute is limitations is long up.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
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I can help with the investigation. The person behind this is a wanker.
'Halfway Up Virginia' is a much better Ivor Biggun song. Should've used that instead.
a mobile transmitter... sounds like ge's got himself a CB radio with sidebands (illegal in the UK) which can hit the FM spectrum allocated to radio stations. then plug that little fucker into a linear amplifier(even 100watts will blast the shit out that station) and the antenna of your choice depending on how immediately mobile you feel you need to be.
As I recall you go onto the am bands and then hit the "high button".. and that takes you into FM where you can pick a station or an empty space to broadcast over/on. My cousin and i used to do something like that except we'd broadcast in vacant parts of the radio frequency and always from a different location.... mind you that was in the 80's and long before we got out Full RAE exams passed and became licensed radio amateurs.. way back when an MM0 *** call sign was shiny and new.
Where he over powered the HBO satellite signal
Isn't that Peg's mom?
"I'm a dirty white tomcat, enter my world..."
The part I'm not buying is "kids listening to radios". As if.
It's a shortcut.
The full story probably is :
Grand-pa and grand-ma are listening on their FM radio set (those thing still exist ? There are parts of Europe which haven't switched to DAB+ ?)
suddenly they hear this song and panic.
Little Johny registers that there's a fuss big enough to have him lift his nose off "Angry Pokemon Crush" on his iDroid 7.
He notice and makes association between the funny words that the radio sings and the interestingly impressive result on the grand parents.
He eventually begins to sing this bit to see if he can also cause the same mayhem : bingo !
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Either they don't know what the words mean and therefore it's as benign as singing "Ring a ring a roses". More benign, in fact. The number of deaths from wanking is nonexistent or a number you can count on one hand...
And if they know what the words mean, then it's too late to "protect" them from the words.
This is definitely not hijacking, and there is no way on God's green Earth this is hacking. No hacking happened.
This was a guy with a transmitter who interfered with the licensee over a very small geographical area compared to the BTA.
You all can technically do the same thing when you use one of those FM modulators to get your iPhone into your car stereo. This guy just did it on purpose and with malicious intent.
No computers were broken into. No networks were penetrated. Nobody was taken hostage for political purposes.
More Slashdot sensationalism.
All you need is a £20 quid walkie talkie from eBay/Amazon etc, covering 400-470MHz with 5W, know-how of where the Outside Broadcast frequency is (455 megs?), and what tower receives it, a bit of patience and away you go. Literally childsplay.