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:<p><a href="https://youtu.be/aZY-yQYVf38" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/aZY-yQYVf38</a>
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.
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.
To give a context to the younger readers, first, what of who Max Headroom was:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(character)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_(character)</a><p>The original was <i>not</i> done with computers:<p>"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""<p>But it looked like magic at that time.<p>Also:<p><a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgay3n/headroom-hacker" rel="nofollow">https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pgay3n/headroom-hacker</a>
Related from 2018: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16816663" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16816663</a><p>2015: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9845038</a>
Is there any knowledge of the mechanism used to hijack the signal, or what WGN/WTTW did to protect against it afterwards?<p>The Wikipedia article seems to indicate even the engineers never figured it out.
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.<p>The dystopian future predicted in this series is well and truly upon us - a case of fiction predicting future truths.<p>We need Max Headroom to guide us out of the disaster of the modern Internet. Alas, we have Zuckerberg instead ..
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.<p>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.
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.