
Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion - 9nGQluzmnq3M
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_broadcast_signal_intrusion
======
dr_dshiv
If you have never seen the original 1985 British film that introduced "Max
Headroom: 20 minutes into the future", you are in for a serious treat. It is
so much better than I ever expected -- and it's only 55 min long. More
relevant than ever:

[https://youtu.be/aZY-yQYVf38](https://youtu.be/aZY-yQYVf38)

~~~
prvc
Could you summarize the way in which it is "relevant" (and to what)?

~~~
tudorw
Dystopian media influenced oppressive states, a nation placated with purile
entertainment, an underground of those who 'really know' what is going on
fighting to restore humanity, watched over by a slightly crazed AI ...

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rubyfan
Always a favorite whenever it shows up here. It’s like you know this person
was breaking the law but no one was really hurt and it goes unsolved still.
It’s a great mystery story of someone messing with a system no one really
messes with.

~~~
tylersmith
It's a great go-to in the unsolved mystery community when people look for a
fun light-hearted mystery.

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Mountain_Skies
It's amazing that the identity of the signal pirate has never been leaked.
Doubly so since there were at least two people involved. Surely the statute of
limitations has passed. Perhaps everyone involved passed away before they ever
felt comfortable going public with their story.

~~~
saganus
Long ago I read a (4chan I think?) post from someone claiming that it was very
possible he knew the people who did this hack.

He said he wasn't 100% sure, but that there were strong reasons to believe so.

He explained that he used to hang out with 2 brothers, one of which had some
mental issues, perhaps autism or something similar, that acted strange at
times, and that seemed to have skills with radios and other tech. He also
remembers that a girl which is very briefly shown in the hacked video stream
looked like the girlfriend of the other brother.

Also recalled that the voices in the stream sounded familiar and I think he
even mentions remembering that they had a sheet of metal similar to the one in
the video, and that his theory was that the brother with autism was the one
with the mask, while the other one rotated the sheet of corrugated metal,
while the girlfriend was recording them.

Anyway, I don't remember the exact details and of course I'm not saying the
story is true or anything...

But it did have some interesting air of mistery even if it were false. The
poster didn't seem like he was trying to lie to anyone, just that he genuinely
thought he kew the people responsible for the hack.

And then the story he was telling suddenly portrayed a very cool and odd piece
of tech "history", if it were true.

To me, this always sounded a little bit like real-life cyberpunk stuff and
every time I remember about Max Headroom I'm reminded of the hack and the
story I read by random chance, on a random forum like 4chan, thinking, what if
it was real and I was just reading there a post written by someone that knew
the Max Headroom hacker...? I wish very hard for that to be real.

Well... I'm rambling here, but I guess that's the magical internet a lot of us
feel drawn too?

~~~
8ig8
Maybe Reddit?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eeb6e/i_believe_i_kno...](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/eeb6e/i_believe_i_know_who_was_behind_the_max_headroom/)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/UnsolvedMysteries/comments/3oaxi5/n...](https://www.reddit.com/r/UnsolvedMysteries/comments/3oaxi5/new_developments_in_the_max_headroom_incident/)

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acqq
To give a context to the younger readers, first, what of who Max Headroom was:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(character)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_\(character\))

The original was _not_ done with computers:

"the computer-generated appearance was achieved with prosthetic make-up and
hand-drawn backgrounds. Preparing the look for filming involved a four-and-a-
half-hour session in make-up, which Frewer described as "gruelling" and "not
fun""

But it looked like magic at that time.

Also:

[https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgay3n/headroom-
hacker](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgay3n/headroom-hacker)

~~~
cyberferret
One of my favourite shows growing up. Hard to believe it was all done 'analog'
and no CGI. Adds rawness and charm to the whole thing - Kind of like
'Thunderbirds'.

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dang
Related from 2018:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16816663](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16816663)

2015:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038)

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agildehaus
Is there any knowledge of the mechanism used to hijack the signal, or what
WGN/WTTW did to protect against it afterwards?

The Wikipedia article seems to indicate even the engineers never figured it
out.

~~~
th0ma5
I lot of broadcast operations have a frequency that isn't in the broadcast
band that they use to send their signal to a remote tower. Presumably if you
point a stronger transmission at the receiver you can become the dominant
signal. Or at least that's what I always thought. I would think you would have
needed some inside information or otherwise have worked in the industry at the
time to really pull this off? Maybe not, though.

~~~
xxpor
Every microwave uplink frequency is listed on the the FCC's ULS site:

[https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/systems-utilities/universal-
lic...](https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/systems-utilities/universal-licensing-
system)

Usually the uplinks are in the 10+ GHz band, and the antenna (usually looks
like a big bass drum on the tower, [http://www.steeltowerchn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/06/Micr...](http://www.steeltowerchn.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/06/Microwave-Antenna-Radio-Tower-GSM-Tower-800x480.jpg))
is pointed towards the station's studios.

So hijacking it would not be trivial. You need to be in the line of site and
be able to produce enough power to overwhelm the real signal, which isn't
trivial at those frequencies. There's also probably something similar to ATIS
to stop unauthorized transmissions.

Here's KIRO uplink from their studio to a tower atop Queen Anne Hill in
Seattle. The exact location of the transmitter and receiver are in the
locations tab.

[https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKe...](https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/UlsSearch/license.jsp?licKey=959133)

~~~
0db532a0
What about 10GHz+ is important to uplink transmission? Better directionality?
Harder to spoof?

~~~
Scoundreller
Smaller antennaes needed for the same gain as lower frequencies.

Terrible ability to go through, say, a concrete wall, but that’s an issue for
broadcast, not point-to-point. Possibly an advantage by reducing noise from
other 10ghz signals (maybe harmonics from a bad microwave oven?).

They also have narrower fresnel zones than lower frequencies, so it’s easier
to hit your target without having to be too high at both sides.

And the usual tradeoffs: Spectrum is available and you want equipment that’s
cheap and reliable, but not too cheap either.

~~~
0db532a0
Thanks for the info.

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fit2rule
Max Headroom is now more relevant than ever. If you haven't watched the TV
series, stop what you're doing and get the binge over with.

The dystopian future predicted in this series is well and truly upon us - a
case of fiction predicting future truths.

We need Max Headroom to guide us out of the disaster of the modern Internet.
Alas, we have Zuckerberg instead ..

~~~
ganzuul
I too keep telling people to watch it.

We are close to accidentally creating an attention-democracy where whoever is
able to keep the attention of the masses has the most influence over politics.
It could be argued that whoever is able to get the most attention is also the
most in tune with what people want. Since centralized filtering of news is an
important part of the political meta-game of building opinion, perhaps it is
not wrong to formalize this process. Enter Max Headroom.

~~~
Nasrudith
I don't think that this new and it arguably predates democracy. Being able to
keep the attention of the masses influencing policy has generally been called
'leadership' \- even if they are frankly idiots who lead them straight off
cliffs. It is another one of those annoyingly conflated words like 'empathy'
assuming that understanding people and caring about them are the same -
leadership has connotations of actually being effective and getting others to
follow.

~~~
ganzuul
True. Follow-the-leader is easy and democracy isn't. Especially when idiots
are all too willing to jump off cliffs instead of acting with the
responsibility that democracy places upon us. Perhaps there exists forms of
democracy which steer us away from the obvious precipice.

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xouse
I've always been surprised some inspired performance artist hasn't done this
to the live sound feed at a big music festival like Bonnaroo or Coachella yet.
Audio runs from the stage/band to a sound guy in the middle of the field who
controls the mix then from there it goes back across the field to the PA
system mounted on stage. The audio cables are literally just big snakes that
run right through the crowd where anyone could access them. Highjack a post
mixer cable and bob's your uncle.

The only hitch would be that afaik at festivals the pa arrays are passive so
you'd need to steal power too so you can power an amplifier and send a powered
signal, but if you managed that it'd be even worse than the tv broadcast
intrusion because there's no easy way to shut it off, the sound guy has no
control because you're after him in the signal chain and nobody onstage is set
up to handle something like that. It's not like beyonce is gonna climb the
scaffolding and start unplugging speakers when the crab rave starts playing
inexplicably.

~~~
larkfofty
I'm actually surprised this doesn't happen with wireless microphones more
often. While the industry is slowly moving towards digital transmitters, many
broadway shows still use old body pack analog transmitters on their actors.
Since these shows are stationary they are likely using the same frequencies
for each transmitter every night.

I can't imagine it would be too hard to figure out some of these frequencies
and transmit over them into the PA. There is a pilot tone but I don't think
it'd be difficult to spoof.

I used to work in a shop that rented out audio equipment to broadway shows.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Not quite the same thing, but James Randi famously debunked a “faith healer”
by listening into to their analogue earpiece:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7BQKu0YP8Y)

Maybe more on-topic, an early demonstration of long-distance radio was
hijacked:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2qqMegNKA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sP2qqMegNKA)

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LeoPanthera
I have always felt a personal annoyance about this, as it interrupted an
episode of "Horror of Fang Rock" \- one of my favorite Doctor Who stories.

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grafelic
It was the KLF

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lloydatkinson
Maybe one day people will stop posting about this inane nonsense.

