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.

Comments

This Hack Was...

[Zurkeyon3733]

...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!

Re:This Hack Was...

[Bruce Perens]

The studio-transmitter links of the time were all analog, all NTSC, no security at all. The transmitters were all on the same tower. All one really had to do was get a hold of the STL hardware, set the channel, beam a signal from a nearby location, and roll tape.

It used to also be that you could set the brakes on a freight train with a walkie-talkie, by sending the right command to a device at the end of the train. It might even still be the case. Nobody considered that someone else could get on your frequency back then.

Re:Easier than you think.

[Mister Transistor]

Exactly this. The STLs (Studio->Transmitter Links) are on 900 MHz and 2.8 GHz in Chicago. The studios are in smaller buildings (not many stories) but the main TX sites are all the tall buildings (Sears/Willis, Hancock, etc.).

The links are directional beams or dishes and they are usually directly aimed at one another, but they are not that high power and can be overridden, especially if you have equipment maintenance penthouse access and can get up to the levels those things are at. Getting that access these days is much harder, post 9/11. It would probably be impossible to replicate that hack today, plus the STL's are digital and probably encrypted these days.

Every once in a while some of my old acquaintances used to get drunk and someone would bump into one of the STL dishes causing a momentary "outage". :)