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The Max Headroom Incident

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Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#131

Post by hellbannedguy »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #37
mattl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't pre-Internet though. This happened in 1987. EDIT: "the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983" -- people who know more about this than you.

The internet effectively did not exist in 1987. Even the most tech savvy people didn’t have access. That didn’t start to change until the early 90’s. Al Gore’s contribution was actually important.

Yea--I give Al credit for informing the world about the internet, and global warming.

I would like to see him run again.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#132

Post by PostThisTooFast »

asdff wrote: post #47
dangle1 wrote: post #2

It's always fascinating seeing the internet catalog and consolidate knowledge, especially regarding events that occurred pre-internet. Back when these events happened, a blurb appeared on TV news and in papers, but there was no easy way to get the big picture as the investigations evolved.

People actually used to save stories that were interesting or cut them out of the paper, or go to the library and read a book on the subject. Fastforward to today, with the world at their fingertips, and who even saves anything anymore? It's all transient information on the web today. That interactive nyt article you might have bookmarked a few years ago has probably link rotted by now. If it wasn't for wikipedia cat…

A few of us (and probably a disproportionate number on this site as compared to the general public) undoubtedly download and archive interesting material for just that reason.

I wish there were a very good conversion utility to download sites and convert them to PDF, especially for Mac. If there is one, I don't know about it. I've resorted to either printing the "reader" version to PDF from Safari, or copying and pasting into a word processor.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#133

Post by PostThisTooFast »

mattl wrote: post #30
post-it wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but pre-"everyone is online always". Even things that happened in 2005, at the start of Reddit and Digg and well into the reign of MySpace, weren't summarized and consolidated as efficiently as they are today.

Sure. But we don't describe pre-smartphone as pre-telephone.

So what's your suggestion? Instead of "pre-Internet," we're supposed to say "pre-widely-available Internet?" Yeah good luck with that.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#134

Post by Retr0id »

a1pulley wrote: post #119
danachow wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I admit my memory may be spotty - but was there any reason to believe this could not easily have been pulled off by 2 people - ie a married couple? Sure relationships break up but I’ve seen plenty of secrets go to a married pair’s grave.

> I’ve seen plenty of secrets go to a married pair’s grave. Is that possible?

One can infer that a secret exists, without knowing its contents.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#135

Post by bregma »

setpatchaddress wrote: post #37
mattl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't pre-Internet though. This happened in 1987. EDIT: "the Internet, as we know it today, was not deployed until 1983" -- people who know more about this than you.

The internet effectively did not exist in 1987. Even the most tech savvy people didn’t have access. That didn’t start to change until the early 90’s. Al Gore’s contribution was actually important.

I wasn't all that tech savvy but I was using the internet in 1985 when I was a university student. Oh, right, it wasn't called "the internet" and we used bang addresses for email and rcp instead of scp to copy files between hosts because security was physical locks on the room with the VAX in it, but it was continuous with what is today called the internet.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#136

Post by fortran77 »

throwawaygh wrote: post #23
beaner wrote: post #6

Of all the conspiracy theories out there, this one, to me, has the highest coverage-to-interestingness ratio. It just seems like a teen hacked an AV system and did a goofy presentation. I'm surprised that type of thing isn't more common, and I'm befuddled as to why this one gets so much attention.

No, this would've been quite a bit more difficult than "hacked an AV system". Hijacking small town public access channels was fairly easy. Taking over the feed for two different stations in Chicago is a whole different level. The basic hack is the same, but "just scale it up" isn't trivial in this case.

If you were pretty close to the receiving end on the microwave link, it wouldn't be that hard to overpower the signal from the studio.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#137

Post by redleggedfrog »

hereforphone wrote: post #111

Couple of comments: - This is posted and discussed frequently - This was a pretty impressive feat of engineering - The most unusual thing is that this remained secret. Because there were a few people involved and three+ can't keep a secret. They don't even have a reason to anymore. I've often wondered whether this group of folks died shortly after this.

While it was most certainly a feat of engineering, I feel that it assays a work of performance art. It is strangely disturbing, and at the same time fascinating.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#138

Post by Reason077 »

hereforphone wrote: post #111

Couple of comments: - This is posted and discussed frequently - This was a pretty impressive feat of engineering - The most unusual thing is that this remained secret. Because there were a few people involved and three+ can't keep a secret. They don't even have a reason to anymore. I've often wondered whether this group of folks died shortly after this.

I'm pretty sure that's the current UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, in the bowler hat at the start of the video. Obviously he was a lot younger back then but it's him, right?

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#139

Post by Ruthalas »

PostThisTooFast wrote: post #132
asdff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People actually used to save stories that were interesting or cut them out of the paper, or go to the library and read a book on the subject. Fastforward to today, with the world at their fingertips, and who even saves anything anymore? It's all transient information on the web today. That interactive nyt article you might have bookmarked a few years ago has probably link rotted by now. If it wasn't for wikipedia cat…

A few of us (and probably a disproportionate number on this site as compared to the general public) undoubtedly download and archive interesting material for just that reason. I wish there were a very good conversion utility to download sites and convert them to PDF, especially for Mac. If there is one, I don't know about it. I've resorted to either printing the "reader" version to PDF from Safari, or copying and pas…

Just a heads up, many (all?) of your comments (including this one) show as dead. I vouched for this one. Might want to contact a moderator or something.

Re: The Max Headroom Incident

#140

Post by robryk »

Similar incident: in 1985, political opposition in People's Republic of Poland "hijacked" TV by broadcasting in sync with the actual TV signal. This allowed them to superimpose things on top of the image (within some range around their transmitter), which they used to broadcast political messages.

Differences: not complete replacement, but superposition; "attacked" signal was the final signal to consumers; the hackers were caught (by standard police methods).

Some details: https://hackaday.com/2016/07/05/retrotechtacular-how-solidar...

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