Max Headroom Signal Hijacking | Hacker News Reader

Max Headroom Signal Hijacking

en.wikipedia.org

133 pointstambourine_man36 comments

I celebrate this and other geeky events, and maintain a public calendar of them:

https://calendar.google.com/calendar/u/0/embed?src=9t07jqib6...

You, sir, are the hero we didn’t know we needed.

This is fantastic, thank you.

That’s great. Just FYI I noticed that NES’s birthday description has a typo saying it was introduced on October 15th instead of the 18th.

Thanks! Fixed.

Nice. Added to my google calendar by subscribing to: 9t07jqib63if4kecndchr1nk74@group.calendar.google.com

There's also a button in the bottom-right that people seem to always miss. They should put it up top.

Awesome!

Here's an ICS link for other calendars: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/9t07jqib63if4kecnd...

Great information. Is there a way to download the file you make it from? I can't export the calendar.

Like in iCal format? You can get that here: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ical/9t07jqib63if4kecnd...

> These guys were part of the local BBS/DDial scene which is how I knew them...I remember seeing heavy duty AV equipment there, but I had no idea what it was used for

From https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1b4gz1/comment/c93...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21611551

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1207937

...actually wow this gets posted too many times to count

Rather Max Headroom than more OpenAI drama/hype

Reddit thread looks like it was deleted

That's what it looks like when the poster deleted their account, but not the post. When the post is deleted, the body text disappears. Account deleted but not post is relatively common on decade old reddit threads.

You can still view it by going to old.reddit.com instead.

Note that the AMA mentioned in the response to that comment was updated later on to mention that the two people bpoag suspected to have done it (and by extension, the people referenced by Anonemoosity, I guess) did not do it: https://web.archive.org/web/20190722060448/https://old.reddi...

Here's an update ruling out that an outsider could have done this, given the equipment that was required to pull it off: https://web.archive.org/web/20161006032146/https://www.reddi...

Lots of people have claimed to be the person(s) who did it, or claim to know them, so far all without proof (as far as I'm aware).

The equipment is the ability to transmit FM video on 6 or 18 GHz. Both stations were on the same building, so all they needed to do is be close enough to get FM capture.

I am guessing someone found an STL transmitter in a dumpster. TV stations were not careful about discarding old equipment.

The thing about those FM STLs is, the receiver AFC circuit would lock on the strongest carrier within 40 MHz. The culprits didn’t need to know the exact frequency nor be on it, they just needed to be within 80 MHz (40 MHz each side of desired carrier frequency) and be the strongest signal and the receiver would move to them.

What they did need to know is audio subcarrier, and the distorted audio hints that they were off by one channel.

I used to repair this gear. It isn’t common equipment, but it also isn’t a truckload. It was quite luggable by the early 70’s, and the reason I suspect it was the result of dumpster diving is, 1987 was a year deep into the transition to NTSC with MTS audio. TV stations needed new STLs to support it. A station upgraded and pitched their oldest mono STL transmitters.

If this was one guy doing it on his own, that he has been able to keep his mouth shut all these years would be impressive on its own but there's at least a second person involved, and she's kept quiet too. Sure, one or both might be dead by now, but anytime you have multiple people involved with a secret, the odds of it leaking increase in a non-linear manner. But maybe Blipverts got them soon after the broadcast. As an aside, really getting Blipvert vibes from Tiktok (sounds like Zikzak) and some of YouTube's ultra short ads.

Three people can keep a secret provided two of them are dead

What about two people?

Only one need be dead

Depends on how intoxicated the people involved were, too.

I suspect there was more than just two involved in this; and I expect that when they saw the news the next day (or later) they had no idea that was them being talked about.

Thematically it's right in line with the Max Headroom TV series, and yet it happened in real life. Utterly amazing.

Video: https://youtu.be/jjeUuakHsLw

How funny is that his voice is altered presubmably by the two signals heterodyning, and the effect is similar to what they would accomplish with a ring modulator, which was the same effect used to create the Daleks voice in Doctor Who.

I'm pretty sure the voice is distorted because they were a bit off on setting their audio subcarrier frequency. I doubt that sound was their goal.

I wish that one day someone finds the master copy of this tape in an estate sale or something. It deserves to be preserved in full fidelity.

The Damn Interesting article covering the event appears as a footnote reference: https://www.damninteresting.com/remember-remember-the-22nd-o...

I loved their stories back in the day, tons of intriguing topics.

I never watched Max Headroom, but I'm reminded of the Cafe 80's in Back to the Future 2. "You must have the hostage special. I demand you eat tofu!"

Max Headroom on puns and car parts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEIE2q7kvxQ

To give you some context, the signal strength required to capture a TV signal in a normal house one story is about a 12 volt radio battery.

How do I know this? Because it is the first thing you try when getting one of those 150 piece electronic kits out of the Sears catalog. Takes two transistor amply circuits with a square or other wave and the right capacitor combination.

This is the single most interesting thing to happen in modern history and I hope I get to find out who did it in my lifetime.

I agree, but my hopes are a bit different -- I hope it happens again and nobody ever finds out who was behind either one.

Modern broadcast is a completely different animal than it was for the original. It is however, not encrypted, yet, so it's not impossible.

ATSC3 is encrypted in some markets.

The studio transmitter links very much support encryption these days. They also use COFDM, so you need to guess at a number of settings.

Making it worse for would be pirates, the receivers are ridiculously stable and will not respond like old FM links.

Wouldn't it be fun if it turns out that Max Headroom signal hijacker, D. B. Cooper and Satoshi Nakamoto are the same person ‽

Let's throw in Pynchon while you're at it

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