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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.
it's a really slow news day.
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Thank you for becoming part of the problem and not part of the solution.
These days, the most "interesting" parts of being a kid in Chicago involves trying to dodge a hail of bullets every time you walk home from school. I've actually purchased two handguns and given them to my kids to have in their backpacks, just in case.
You stupid dumbass. This is exactly the problem.
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.
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