Broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of broadcast signals of radio, television stations, cable television broadcast feeds or satellite signals. During the 1980s there were a few incidents of TV hijacking around the world but the most famous are the Captain Midnight and much more mysterious Max Headroom incidents.
Captain Midnight TV Hijacking: As a protest against the introduction of high fees and scrambling equipment, John Macdougall transmitted a signal onto the satellite that for over 4 minutes overrode HBO’s telecast of the movie The Falcon and the Snowman. The text message that appeared on the screens of HBO subscribers across the eastern half of the country read:
GOODEVENING HBO
FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT
$12.95/MONTH ?
NO WAY !
[SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
Max Headroom TV Hijacking: On November 22nd, 1987 during an episode of Doctor Who the signal was interrupted by television static, after which an unidentified man wearing a Max Headroom mask and sunglasses appeared. He made some rambling statements about WGN pundit Chuck Swirsky, whom he called a “fricking liberal”. He continued to laugh and utter various random phrases, including New Coke’s advertising slogan “Catch the Wave” while holding a Pepsi can (Max Headroom was a Coca-Cola spokesperson at the time), then crushed the can, tossed it out of sight, leaned towards the camera and presented the finger wearing a rubber extension over his middle finger, though the gesture was partially off-screen. The man then retrieved the Pepsi can, and sang “Your love is fading”, removed the rubber extension, and then began humming the theme song to Clutch Cargo. An unidentified female accomplice wearing a French maid outfit said to him, “Bend over, bitch!” The accomplice then started to spank the man with a flyswatter as the man screamed loudly. The transmission then blacked out for a few seconds before resuming the Doctor Who episode in progress; the hijack lasted for about 90 seconds.
Really hope you all enjoyed this one as it’s a great piece of hacker lore and not everyone knows about it =)
SUBSCRIBE: https://www.youtube.com/c/L33TGUY
WEB: https://anons.ca
TWITTER: https://www.twitter.com/l33tguy
