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Television's Most Infamous Hack Is Still a Mystery 30 Years Later (vice.com)
It has been 30 years since the Max Headroom hack, arguably the creepiest hack in the television history took place. Caroline Haskins, writes about the incident for Motherboard: It was a few minutes after 9 PM on Sunday, November 22, 1987. Chicago sportscaster Dan Roan was cheerily summarizing the Bears's victory that day for Channel 9 local news. Suddenly, televisions went silent, and their screens went black. At first, it seemed like an equipment malfunction. Without warning, televisions in the area blasted loud radio static. It was overlain with the screech of a power saw cutting into metal, or a jet engine malfunctioning. At center screen, a person wore a Max Headroom mask -- a character who appeared on various television shows and movies in the 1980s. He appeared to have yellow skin, yellow clothes, and yellow slicked-back hair. As purple and black lines spun behind him, Max nodded and swayed back and forth. His plastic face was stuck in laughter, and opaque sunglasses covered his eyes, which seemed to peer through the screen. The screen went black again. After a moment, Roan reappeared. "Well if you're wondering what'll happen," Roan said with a laugh, unaware of what had happened during the interruption, "so am I." Two hours later, it happened again on another channel. This time, Dr. Who had just turned to get his companion, Leela, a hot drink, when a line of static rolled across the screen, revealing the yellow man. After 30 years and an intense FCC investigation, the people behind the Headroom hack remain unknown. The correspondent has spoken to the newscasters who were interrupted and mocked that day. You can read the interview here.
Thus dude was one cool cat. Loved it!
or it was the russians.
...One of the most "Interesting" Parts of being a kid in Chicago in the 80's. It stands as one of the most successful TV hacks of all time. After 30 years. Whoever did this, was either a super genius, or should have flown to Vegas and hit the tables the day after!
Broadcasted from our garage in Chicago. My brother was wearing the mask. Freaking liberals are still trying to ID us? What a bunch of clowns.
it's a really slow news day.
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I was 16, dead asleep on the couch that night, never could make it through a Dr. Who on WTTW at that started at 11pm and sometimes ran as late at 12:30 or 1. The VCR did start on time and on channel, that spinup and hum allowed me to crash to sleep at 10:55. I heard about it on the news in the morning and sure enough I had a perfect recording of this "event". Beyond a few minutes of attempting to decipher gibberish, watched the Dr Who episode and taped over it the next week. Local story, thought this happened everywhere when uplink signals were still sent up and down to national satellites in the clear.
With about 5 to 10 thousand dr who fans in the greater Chicago area it was the local did you see it in sci fi event to talk about.
It was one of his many jaunts to our little corner of the multiverse.
Creepiest? Maybe in the US. Internationally though, my money's still on the 1977 intrusion in the UK, by Asteron, a supposedly authorised representative of the "Intergalactic Mission". Dude went for six minutes!
What would be the point? It was finished at 480i on videotape.
It's an 80s TV show where the main character carried a camcorder. Blu-ray isn't going to improve the quality at all. DVD is already overkill but it's the lowest common format for video release.
This kind of attack was easy for an advanced electronics experimenter to pull off. All that needed done was to overpower the studio's signal on the studio to transmitter link with the appropriate signal and you were in. Most of the information was provided by the sign off program as the studio to transmitter link station identification occurred during this time and the frequency was provided. This was basically a terrestrial version of the HBO attacks.
sudo mod me up
nuttin' harder than a half nekkid woman in animal skins.
If you don't agree, Leela will CUT YOU!
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#DeleteFacebook
There is a buried comment on reddit on this topic. A guy chimed in saying he was somehow related to the guy who pulled this off along with his friends. He talked about how they set up a rogue transmitter from a van or something. The comment was very matter of fact and low key, and won't mostly un-noticed but it rang true.
if still alive come clean the time for prison is over hell the captain midnight guy did zero 0 days and he had more risk of damaging stuff
The point was that someone wanted to post an affiliate link, which will hopefully be modded to -1, but currently sits at 0.
Reminds me of this https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
So it’s creimer spamming affiliate links again?
Overpowering the main transmitter seems unlikely for more than a small area.
I wonder how the studio was connected to the transmitter?
If it was a radio link, then perhaps somebody managed to get in the middle and override the studio signal.
If not, then sounds like somebody with physical access to one of the ends.
I think it's a bit like hacking back then. Nobody really cared TOO much if you did. Getting caught meant a slap on the wrist, if that, and a stern lecture.
Try any of this shit today and you'll probably be doing quite some time for a lot of ridiculous reasons and everything that COULD have happened. Not to mention the billions of damage you did because a network couldn't broadcast their bullshit for 2 minutes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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God is dead. You're next.
Of course we do, sir!
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He limited his exposure.
And he hasn't succumbed to the need to "be famous".
The FCC had essentially NOTHING to go on.
FLAWLESS VICTORY!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
See
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... for more examples. The same prankster or different prankster? Who knows.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
For a Max Headroom virus infecting all Windows 10 PCs. He'll say "This is Windows calling..."
It is pretty simple to get away with a crime, just don't tell anyone about it. Ever. It is harder than you think.
The summary claims that a hack override of a local Chicago TV signal is more notorious than the HBO hack. The HBO attack was against the satellite dish and effected a much larger viewing audience.
Blank Reg was the pirate television broadcaster seen in the Max Headroom TV series of the 1980s. He traveled in his well equipped broadcast van, avoiding authorities and offering 'alternative' video that competed with the big broadcasters.
Someone at Gizmodo
https://io9.gizmodo.com/560967...
talks about the prescience of that TV show so long ago...
...omphaloskepsis often...
So, the the meta-story here is: noone knows anything worth writing about? Glad this was covered so well.
Requiem for the American Dream
Here's an even bigger TV mystery: How the fuck did the Star Wars Holiday Special actually happen?
What sticks with me is the concept of the "blitvert." The Max Headroom writer(s) showed remarkable prescience by featuring that idea. Look at the commercials broadcast today. A large number of commercials are resorting to using a barrage of images many of which are irrelevant and utterly meaningless. It's not uncommon to see a commercial where they'll run a series of images at around 1 every 0.5 seconds if not faster. Then there's also the method of rapidly cycling the screen between brightness and darkness. This doesn't do anything to make me want to buy their product.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.