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The Cold Case of the Max Headroom Signal Intrusion
- dopamean 9y agoAn inspiration.
- lostgame 9y agoI absolutely love that this is still an unsolved mystery. Fantastical story.
- starmftronajoll 9y agoThis is a perennial story, but the best treatment of it, in my opinion, remains Chris Knittel's 2013 re-investigation of the case [1] for Vice Motherboard. [1] https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgay3n/headroom-hacker https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/pgay3n/headroom-h...
- astronautjones 9y agobest, definitive, really great writing to boot
- bbctol 9y agoUnrelated, but it's fascinating to see an article from 2013 reference Andrew Auernheimer as a benign hacker. That's turned into a hell of a story on its own, huh.
- egypturnash 9y agoI am glad that nobody has caught "Max" in all these years. The British signal intrusion from "Vrillon of the Ashtar Galactic Council" also mentioned in this article is pretty wild!
- fossuser 9y agoI’m pretty sure the last time this came up somebody on HN talked about meeting the people that did it (he knew them at the time it happened) along with some other interesting unpublished details.
- flatline 9y agoSure enough: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038
- alex_young 9y agoLooks like a person who claimed (4 years ago) to know the person who did it, and has recently ruled them out per the linked Reddit thread.
- cyberferret 9y agoIf nothing else, this may bring a new legion of younger fans to the old "Max Headroom" British TV show. I enjoyed the show in my younger days.
- peterclary 9y agoThe only way of getting the TV show or the movie in the UK seems to be Region 1 DVDs.
- Deimorz 9y agoI'm confused why the subtitle on the article is "This was actually an international crime" when it just goes on to say that it was probably a local, but they still don't know.
- alex_young 9y agoI had the same reaction. I wanted it to be some Canadian attack on Chicago or something, but I think the editor was trying to point out that the same thing happened in the UK too.
- tallytarik 9y agoI'm not sure they were implying that the crime itself was committed across borders. My interpretation was that they are emphasising that the act of interfering with a TV broadcast is actually a crime around the world - something that may be overlooked because of how ridiculous (and potentially humorous) this event was, especially upon reflection.
- drharby 9y agoI love the maxheadroom sig. Intrusion. The whole 4chan rumor mill about it was the stuff of urban legends. A couple brothers obsessed with electronics and signal jamming. I didnt realize it was truly a cold case
- joezydeco 9y agoAh, it must be spring. This pops up about once a quarter either here or on /r/chicago. I still think Doc Ripco knows who did it.
- paxys 9y agoI figure even if the perpetrator comes clean at this point, there will be no way to actually verify it. Maybe it actually is one of many people claiming so online.
- ggm 9y agoMysteries die when somebody owns up. This story works better for everyone as a bit of the past which will probably never come back, because swamping a local analog microwave feed with another beam can't happen in a digital signal world [1] [1] for some value of can't, which includes maybe can
- digi_owl 9y agoI suspect one maybe still can, but that the result will be blank screen rather than a alternate feed.
- SwellJoe 9y agoI wonder if that's true. When the TV station I worked at in the 90s transitioned to digital around about the time I quit, they continued to transmit the signal from station to tower over a microwave link. I would think that'd be true in a lot of cases. It's probable, though, that the signal is now signed and encrypted and thus not easy to hijack. Then again, satellites were also broadcasting syndicated shows and news feeds in the clear back then, and probably now, for things that aren't premium channels. It was assumed that if a signal was coming down from the right satellite at the right time, it was the right content. That said, even back then, it was non-trivial to hijack that signal. There's only a few points of entry: In the station itself, inserting a microwave signal that's closer to the tower or maybe more powerful than the one on top of the station, or in the satellite feed (which has a couple of points of entry, as well, but that would be interruptible by the station master control operator). The microwave transmitter would have to have line of sight to the tower, further complicating matters. The article suggests that the station employees were able to "stop" the second hijacking quickly...I'm not sure how that would happen if it was a microwave hijacking. They maybe could have boosted the microwave transmitter output at the station to push the imposter down into noise, but those are regulated, I would think, and probably don't have much wiggle room. I dunno. Even as someone that has worked in TV I don't know exactly how they did it, which makes it all the more fascinating that they did. The simplest thing I can think of is getting into the station and faking all the noise to make it look like it's "merely" a microwave hijacking. Then again, microwave is not terribly advanced technology, it is available on the surplus market, and if you can get closer to the tower with your transmitter, you don't need a whole lot of power. So, that's probably how it was done.
- emmelaich 9y agoIn the movie "Ready Player One" I had a pleasant memory triggered by the appearance of Matt Frewer, who played Max Headroom in the TV series later. He's one of many tech / 80s cameos in the movie. I wonder if someone has counted them all.
- emmelaich 9y agoDown voters please respond -- off topic? Something else? Genuinely interested.
- ganzuul 9y agoRPO might be the newest victim of choice for the cool-to-hate crowd.
- KozmoNau7 9y agoWell, it is bland and blatant 80s pop culture pandering with nothing real to contribute on its own. I'm amazed that Spielberg was involved, because it's way below him.
- rrcaptain 9y ago$$$
- ctdonath 9y agoHe's practically the only one who could do it, having enough influence to get the plethora of intellectual property required to make the movie work. You just can't make an 80s nostalgia trip work without a director everyone can trust their franchise characters/content to - and I do mean everyone.
- ganzuul 9y agoThis feat is hailed as the major accomplishment of the movie. It's leagues above the average Hollywood action movie in regard to breaking 'new' (old) ground.
- b6 9y agoTo me the most disturbing thing about this incident is the way people talk about it as if it's a serious crime. It was funny and interesting, and kindled wonder and curiosity, and that's enough of a reason to do it.
- marksomnian 9y agoFor people more in the know than me: how do the broadcast engineers stop a signal jacking? If it's with sufficiently powerful microwave equipment, doesn't it drown out the real signal, and thus it wouldn't be possible to drown it out? Or am I missing something here?
- Bizarro 9y agoI remember being over at my dad's house and watching the HBO signal intrusion happen. But how times have changed. These guys would be doing some serious prison time these days.
- martinwww 9y agoThat reminds me what happened in Czech TV in 2007 : https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/arts/design/24abroad.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/arts/design/24abroad.html One Sunday early risers gazing at Czech Television’s CT2 channel saw picturesque panoramas of the Czech countryside, broadcast to the wordless accompaniment of elevator music. It was the usual narcoleptic morning weather show. Then came the nuclear blast. Across the Krkonose Mountains, or so it appeared, a white flash was followed by the spectacle of a rising mushroom cloud