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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from half

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, everyone, this is Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Strickland and you're listening to a tech Stuff classic episode

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Speaker 1: now on Friday's and today's classic episode is all about

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Speaker 1: a famous incident that happened in the nineteen eighties, the

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom Incident, a moment where a pirate with a

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Speaker 1: song in his heart and a rubber mask on his

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Speaker 1: face interrupted some television broadcast signals and made history. And

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Speaker 1: speaking of history, Chuck Bryant, historic podcast giant in his

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Speaker 1: own right and co host of Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: as well as the host of movie Crush, joined me

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Speaker 1: for this episode to talk all about this interesting moment

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Speaker 1: in tech history and the the move of signal pirates.

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Speaker 1: How was that even possible? So I hope you enjoyed

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Speaker 1: this classic episode of tech Stuff. Chuck. If you were

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Speaker 1: in Chicago on November two and you were watching h

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Speaker 1: w g N at nine pm because you you want

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Speaker 1: to check out the news and it's coming up on

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Speaker 1: the sports, which I know you're a fan of the sports,

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Speaker 1: what happened, Well, that could have happened because I would

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Speaker 1: have been sixteen at the time. Yeah, you and I

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Speaker 1: are in this age wheelhouse. Yeah, we we actually were alive,

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Speaker 1: yeah at this time, and we were, we would have

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Speaker 1: been aware of at least the entity that appeared instead

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Speaker 1: of the sports scores um. But yeah, something weird happened

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Speaker 1: at that moment. There was an interruption in normal service. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what they call it broadcast intrusion, and uh, like all

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Speaker 1: classic broadcast intrusions, it started with a little grainy, you know,

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Speaker 1: static going on, and they're always a little unsettling when

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Speaker 1: you watch them, even if they're goofy. Yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: something kind of creepy about it. You know, what's out

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Speaker 1: of place, and there's something that, especially when it's something

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Speaker 1: as ritualistic as the news, you know that follows a

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Speaker 1: very specific pattern, and when something goes outside that pattern,

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Speaker 1: you know, that upsets our little world balance for a moment.

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Speaker 1: So in this case, the there was, like you said,

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Speaker 1: there was this this disturbance in the horse and a

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Speaker 1: new picture popped up and replaced the sportscaster, and it

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Speaker 1: was a guy in a disturbing rubber mask and that

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Speaker 1: mask was of a specific eighties icon, which I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of people don't even know who this is anymore.

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Speaker 1: But Max headroom. Yeah, if if you're a child of

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Speaker 1: the eighties, Max Max Bedroom loomed large for a while.

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Speaker 1: And I know when this intrusion came out, this broadcast intrusion,

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Speaker 1: it seemed like about half the people even knew who

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Speaker 1: he was trying to imitate, and then the other half

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Speaker 1: just had no idea. They thought it was just some

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Speaker 1: weirdo with the mask. Yeah. Well, and part of that

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Speaker 1: was because, uh, the quality of the video was not

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Speaker 1: exactly super high quality. But on top of that, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of a niche thing, and he was Max

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Speaker 1: Hedroom was used as sort of a spokes thing, I guess,

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Speaker 1: a spokesman for a new coke. Sure that that great

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Speaker 1: move by the Coca Cola company. Yeah, oh man, I

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Speaker 1: remember that well, I remember it with Paine. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: living living in Atlanta, the whole Coca Cola New Coke

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Speaker 1: thing was it definitely strikes close to home. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: he um, he was a spokesman for that as well

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Speaker 1: as a kind of a fantasy character who appeared on

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Speaker 1: lots of other stuff. But generally speaking, if you don't

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Speaker 1: know who Max Hedroom is first, just go ahead and

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Speaker 1: do an image search, because it'll pop right up. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but it's a character that was supposed to look like

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Speaker 1: a digital character, right, It was supposed to like a

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Speaker 1: computer generated image, and it was kind of a guy

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Speaker 1: with a long face and weird, kind of ridged hair.

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Speaker 1: He had always had a dynamic c g I background

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Speaker 1: behind him that look like kind of just like Neon

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Speaker 1: stripes that were constantly twisting and turning in different ways.

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Speaker 1: And he would stutter, you have a digital stutter occasionally,

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Speaker 1: and Uh would be very kind of snarky and sarcastic,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately got a television series as well, as you know,

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Speaker 1: two couple different television series, one of them which was

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Speaker 1: like a talk show and one of which was more

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Speaker 1: of a like an actual fictional story, like an with

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Speaker 1: an arc. Yeah, that one was pretty good. Actually, the

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Speaker 1: original British show, even though it was a lot of

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Speaker 1: American actors, was was pretty cool and definitely ahead of

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Speaker 1: its time as far as you know. The whole idea

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Speaker 1: was that this uh roving reporter was I think Matt

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Speaker 1: Frewer played him as a real dude and as Max Headroom,

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Speaker 1: but he was digitally replaced with this character Max Headroom,

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Speaker 1: and at the time it just seemed really odd, But

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Speaker 1: now when you look back at it and watch it,

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Speaker 1: it's like, man, the show was kind of ahead of this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was really prescient. Yeah it was. It also revealed

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Speaker 1: where the name came from. Where Matt Frewer's character, as

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Speaker 1: I recall, is waylaid and the last thing he sees

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Speaker 1: before he loses consciousness is a sign on a on

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Speaker 1: a a wall that's tells what the Max Headroom for.

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Speaker 1: That wall is pretty clad became the character's name. Uh yeah.

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Speaker 1: So the person who appeared on this video was wearing

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Speaker 1: a Max Headroom mask and had this corrugated metal background

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Speaker 1: sort of emulated the digital look, wore the suit that

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Speaker 1: Max Headroom more like just a dark suit and tie,

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Speaker 1: and um yeah, this thing was the metal background. It

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Speaker 1: looked like like a garage door. It was just sort

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Speaker 1: of spinning in the background. Yeah, it was. It was

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Speaker 1: on some sort of gimbal or something. That's what I figured. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because you can tell it's swinging back and forth, so

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Speaker 1: predictably it can't be held by somebody. You had to

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Speaker 1: be on some sort of pivot or something, and but

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Speaker 1: it's moving backward and forward, so it kind of mimics

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Speaker 1: that that digital line twisting in the background, and except

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Speaker 1: for one part, there's a part where there's a clear

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Speaker 1: cut in the video. The video itself was about or

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Speaker 1: at least what we've seen is about a minute and

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Speaker 1: twenty two seconds. Yeah, well, actually, I don't think we differentiated.

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Speaker 1: There were two videos, two intrusions. The first one was

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Speaker 1: short and had no audio and was on w g N,

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Speaker 1: and then about two hours later they hijacked the PBS

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Speaker 1: affiliate and that's where the classic minute and a half,

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Speaker 1: nearly minute and a half with audio, really strange audio

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Speaker 1: comes through. That's right, because that first one, like you said,

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Speaker 1: I'm glad you pointed that out, it was silent. It

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Speaker 1: was the images from the and the image and the

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Speaker 1: audio from w g N was cut, but there was

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Speaker 1: no audio coming out of the I think there's like

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Speaker 1: a buzzing noise that came in through the first intrusion,

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Speaker 1: and you saw this this figure just sitting there and

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Speaker 1: kind of rocking back and forth like left and right,

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Speaker 1: which is concerning. Yeah, it was definitely like you felt

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Speaker 1: like something is really wrong at that moment. And when

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Speaker 1: it came back, the sportscaster said, you might be wondering

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Speaker 1: what just happened. I know, I am uh something along

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Speaker 1: those lines. But yes, the second one you had the

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Speaker 1: audio and it played for the what we what appeared

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Speaker 1: to be the length of the video. The first section

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Speaker 1: had uh, the guy just saying odd things and they

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Speaker 1: were all very Chicago specific. Well, and and sort of

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Speaker 1: slamming w g N because he slammed the Chuck swart

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Speaker 1: Sky Yeah as a freaking liberal. Yeah that one think

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Speaker 1: he is a sportscaster for w g N. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: uh he also talked about the Greatest World Newspaper Nerds

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Speaker 1: something like that. But w g N stands for World

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Speaker 1: Old's Greatest Newspaper. That. Yeah, So it turned out that

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Speaker 1: that little know, the great the great World Newspaper Nerds

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Speaker 1: or whatever however worded it, that was a reference back

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Speaker 1: to w g N. So it's very clearly intended for

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Speaker 1: w g N. And the first attack wasn't as effective

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Speaker 1: as as they had hoped because, uh, like I said,

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Speaker 1: there was no audio. And also the folks at w

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Speaker 1: g N, once they figured out something was going on,

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Speaker 1: very quickly changed the frequency transmitters. So they said, we'll

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Speaker 1: just hit PBS, I guess, yeah, yeah, which is interesting.

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Speaker 1: We'll talk more about how that kind of helps us

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Speaker 1: know a little more about the attackers. Because here's the

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Speaker 1: other thing. To this day, there there's no the public

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Speaker 1: has no idea who did this. Yeah. I think that's

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Speaker 1: why this story has lingered, and it's so cool is

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Speaker 1: because anytime you have an unsolved mystery, even if it's uh,

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Speaker 1: just sort of an odd broadcast intrusion like this, people

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Speaker 1: are going to be obsessed with it. Um. We've a

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Speaker 1: lot of the information from that I did research on

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Speaker 1: came from a motherboard kind of the mother of all articles,

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Speaker 1: some great research yea Chris middle who wrote this. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the article, if you want to look for it, is

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Speaker 1: the Mystery of the Creepiest Television Hack. And I agree

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Speaker 1: this article is fantastic. It really lays out not just

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Speaker 1: the incident, but also other things that had happened beforehand

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Speaker 1: that kind of laid the groundwork for this, as well

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Speaker 1: as just a discussion, although a brief one, about the

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Speaker 1: hacker culture that existed at that time and how that

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Speaker 1: kind of lends itself to people who maybe are cleverer

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Speaker 1: than is good for them or could be very way

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Speaker 1: to say. Yeah, because as it turns out, the f

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Speaker 1: c C here in the United States does not take

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Speaker 1: kindly to folks intruding upon established airways. No, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a big no no, especially with bare butt, which I

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Speaker 1: think you said. Once the camera cuts, we didn't continue there.

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Speaker 1: That's when it got really weird because there's a camera

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Speaker 1: cut and then you see the mask is off, but

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Speaker 1: the guy has his head out of frame and is

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Speaker 1: just sort of holding the mask. He has pants down,

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Speaker 1: showing his his bear Fannie, and then yeah from profile

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Speaker 1: and then a lady on the right, uh, and it

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Speaker 1: looks like some sort of Old West like Antiochley type.

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Speaker 1: Garb spanked him with a fly swatter on his butt,

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Speaker 1: although spanks is really being generous. She's very slowly and

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Speaker 1: lightly tapping him on the bottom with the flyswater, so

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Speaker 1: to the point where you're you're thinking, like, I guess

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Speaker 1: that's supposed to represent spanking. Uh, doesn't look like any

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Speaker 1: spanking I ever received as a kid. And I got

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Speaker 1: you anyway, That's pretty much where the video cut off,

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Speaker 1: and then it went right back into Doctor Who and

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Speaker 1: which is really funny to see the transition. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he died of an electric shock. Yeah, you've got to

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Speaker 1: watch the whole incident on YouTube if you haven't already,

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Speaker 1: and in case you're cure areous, that episode is we're

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Speaker 1: talking classic Doctor Who obviously back in seven. This is

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Speaker 1: not the reboot. Uh, it was the Horror of fang Rock.

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Speaker 1: So if that's your favorite episode, I'm sorry that was

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Speaker 1: interrupted back. So yeah, and like we said, the the

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Speaker 1: audio really showed that that the public television station wasn't

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Speaker 1: the intended target. It was the It was a target

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Speaker 1: of opportunity after the first attempt failed. And uh, and

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Speaker 1: we'll talk more about the technology behind that and why

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Speaker 1: they had to switch from one to the other. Um,

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Speaker 1: it turns out it was largely a practical issue, at

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Speaker 1: least as far as I can determine. And it was.

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Speaker 1: There were also references within the little Weird diet tribe

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Speaker 1: the guy made to Coca Cola because he said catch

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Speaker 1: the waves and he had a new coat can that

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Speaker 1: he threw down the ground. Yeah, and also a reference

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Speaker 1: to the cult cartoon Clutch Cargo. Yeah, he hummed the

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Speaker 1: theme Clutch Cargo. If you've ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction, Um,

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Speaker 1: the scene with young Bruce Willis back in the nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 1: I guess with Christopher Walkin as his guardian. He's watching

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Speaker 1: Clutch Cargo on TV. There that with the mouth's cut out.

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Speaker 1: O'Brien has also used that same comedic effect using the

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Speaker 1: live action in order. Because what what the whole point

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Speaker 1: was was it was an idea of of reducing the

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Speaker 1: cost of animation big time. Because there was no animation.

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Speaker 1: You had to picture, yeah, still picture, and then you

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Speaker 1: would superimpose live actors mouths on top of it. And

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Speaker 1: if that sounds creepy and disturbing to you, you you're

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Speaker 1: on the right track. It was not the only cartoon

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Speaker 1: to do this. There were a few others. Um, thank

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Speaker 1: you Cambria Productions for who and uh yeah, so he

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Speaker 1: hummed like the whole Clutch Cargo theme and made references

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Speaker 1: to actual episodes of Clutch Cargo. Uh so it was

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Speaker 1: certainly someone with an odd sense of humor who did this. Now,

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Speaker 1: there was no other message, right, there was no. It

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Speaker 1: wasn't like a political thing, this very stream of consciousness

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Speaker 1: kind of weird. He holds up, I guess what we

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Speaker 1: can cleanly describe as a marital aid. Yes, at one

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Speaker 1: point and throws that on the ground and um, it's

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Speaker 1: just once the fly swatting comes in, it's just obvious

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Speaker 1: that they're kind of free forming. Although it was not live,

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Speaker 1: which is important to know. This is at a video

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Speaker 1: tape that they made. Yeah, yeah, and it was because

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Speaker 1: I mean, in order to do a live intrusion would

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Speaker 1: require essentially a studio and you'd have to have some

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Speaker 1: sort of linked to a transmitter that also had line

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Speaker 1: of sight to the same antenna as whatever target you

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Speaker 1: were you're aiming at, So that would have been an

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Speaker 1: astoundingly complicated. This is definitely a little easier to pull off.

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Speaker 1: So you know, now that we know that this, they've

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Speaker 1: they've never been found. They're likely never to be found.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's always possible that someone could come forward

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Speaker 1: and say, all right, well here's how it actually happened.

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Speaker 1: I'm the guy who did this. Would I'm surprised that

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Speaker 1: hasn't happened by now because the statute of limitations is

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Speaker 1: up from yeah, it's way up, so you can't get

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Speaker 1: in trouble and it's um I think they would, unless

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Speaker 1: they just think it's better left as a mystery. They

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Speaker 1: would live in like especially nowadays with the Internet like

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Speaker 1: it is, it would blow up, you know, it would

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Speaker 1: be right. It could possibly be the fact that I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, of course we're just projecting here, but it

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Speaker 1: could possibly be that they are no longer terribly proud

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Speaker 1: of what they did, and or that they've moved on

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Speaker 1: in their lives. Yeah, there's there's a significant amount of

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Speaker 1: time since then, and they might have thought, you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to brag about something I did when

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Speaker 1: I was younger and dumber, especially now that I'm the

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Speaker 1: CEO of ABC. Right, that might end up, By the way,

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Speaker 1: we do not actually mean that the CEO of ABC

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Speaker 1: or Didny Disney affiliates are involved, of course, of course.

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Speaker 1: But the other interesting thing is that this was not

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Speaker 1: the first time that um A A an intrusion had

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Speaker 1: happened in in broadcast history. The first one, if you

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Speaker 1: want to go back, actually didn't happen in the United States.

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Speaker 1: It happened back in UH the UK in nineteen seventies seven,

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Speaker 1: and that was when a hoaxer interrupted a Southern television

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Speaker 1: broadcast by UH inserting audio. It didn't change the video.

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Speaker 1: So this was kind of the opposite of what had

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Speaker 1: happened the first time with the Max Hedroum incident. But

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Speaker 1: it was an audio stream that came in and carried

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Speaker 1: a message from the alien villain. Uh, and this is

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Speaker 1: in the like I said, in the UK, So obviously

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Speaker 1: the alien had an English accent. I guess that's only

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Speaker 1: you know, fair like, if you're going to interrupt someone's program,

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Speaker 1: you want to make sure you're speaking in the dialect,

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Speaker 1: you know, right, Yeah, suddenly they spoke like like with

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Speaker 1: a French accent. I mean that would just be adding

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Speaker 1: insult in But anyway, so it was a message that

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Speaker 1: essentially said that humans should prepare themselves for the worst

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Speaker 1: because you know, destruction is a common Yeah, that's great.

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Speaker 1: That's what a broadcast intrusion should be, some creepy warning,

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Speaker 1: not just a random series of images that disturb you

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Speaker 1: for things that you can't quite put your finger on,

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Speaker 1: although that is more disturbing. Almost. Yeah. Then six we

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Speaker 1: get the first one in the United States. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: this was an inside job deal. This was happened on

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Speaker 1: April at twelve thirty two am and it involved the

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Speaker 1: East Coast feed of HBO. And Uh, what happened was

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Speaker 1: the HBO was showing a movie called The Falcon and

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Speaker 1: the Snowman Classic. You know it certainly could not be

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Speaker 1: helped by approximately four minutes of footage missing because they've

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Speaker 1: been replaced by a series of colored bars that say

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Speaker 1: good evening, HBO from Captain Midnight twelve a month, no

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Speaker 1: Way Showtime movie Channel Beware. Yeah, that had a clear

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Speaker 1: motive and and and actually ironically the um the guy

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Speaker 1: was caught. His name was John R. McDougall, and he

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Speaker 1: was an employee of Central Florida Teleport And he used

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Speaker 1: what do he use? He the was it the text

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Speaker 1: that he used? He? Yeah, so the text generators that

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Speaker 1: the companies used in order to put an overlay on

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Speaker 1: top of a screen. So like like the actual words

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Speaker 1: that were being used there, Well, they're very particular. And

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Speaker 1: by measuring things like the height of the the font,

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Speaker 1: the how far uh the middle bar of an e

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Speaker 1: is according to the other sides, how close together those

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Speaker 1: words are, investigators were able to narrow it down to

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Speaker 1: a specific machine. Yeah, it's pretty fingerprint up there. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is like incredible forensics, right. It's sort of like

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Speaker 1: if someone gets hold of a typewritten sheet of paper

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Speaker 1: and is able to determine the model of typewriter that

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Speaker 1: was used to actually make this but in this case

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Speaker 1: it got even more specific, because these machines aren't everywhere,

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Speaker 1: and that's what led them to track down McDougall, who, uh,

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Speaker 1: who had just decided that the recent hike in prices

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Speaker 1: for a monthly subscription to HBO were unconscionable and he

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Speaker 1: had to make it known. So, yeah, he had a

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Speaker 1: side job selling satellite dish service. Yeah, so he thought

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Speaker 1: that would nick his business some. And so he eventually

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Speaker 1: was caught and pled guilty, paid a five thousand dollar fine,

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Speaker 1: and served just one year probation. And it was that

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Speaker 1: incident that led I believe Congress to make it a

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Speaker 1: federal violation to a broad Yeah, it was a felony

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden. Yeah, because they suddenly said, wait,

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Speaker 1: now that people can actually do this, now great, this

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Speaker 1: was someone, like we said, an inside job. They had

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Speaker 1: access to a satellite. What what he actually did was

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Speaker 1: he pointed the satellite of Central Florida Teleport at the

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Speaker 1: HBO satellite. So easy, chuck, you and I we wouldn't

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Speaker 1: even know where the heck that satellite is. So even

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Speaker 1: if we had the equipment and everything else, we'd just

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Speaker 1: beat it. Well, the sky is a lot bigger than

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Speaker 1: I had taken into account. And uh, you know, of

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Speaker 1: course we'd have to be someplace where we could actually

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Speaker 1: get a good clear view of the sky because if

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Speaker 1: they're building in the way or something. But uh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he he was a good example of that. And

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Speaker 1: then September, so this is just before the the incident

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Speaker 1: with the Max Hedgerm incident, Thomas Hainey hijacked a signal

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Speaker 1: at on the Playboy channel. I think I remember hearing

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Speaker 1: about this one. Yeah, it was one where it was

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Speaker 1: sending in religious messages essentially saying repent and and you

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Speaker 1: know you are, uh, discard your wicked ways, that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, right, And it's no surprise because he actually

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Speaker 1: worked for the Christian Broadcast Network. Yeah, so again he

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Speaker 1: had a job. Yeah, he had access to the equipment

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Speaker 1: necessary and the knowledge necessary to be able to do this.

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Speaker 1: It's not something that the uh, the average person would

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Speaker 1: be able to do. And again it was the character generator,

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Speaker 1: the the font generator that kind of led the way.

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Speaker 1: It was the main piece of evidence that was leveled

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Speaker 1: against him. Um. I remember that Pat Robertson was very

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Speaker 1: upset when the verdict was handled handed down. He said

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Speaker 1: that there wasn't enough evidence to um to say that

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Speaker 1: Haney was in fact the person who who did this. Well,

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Speaker 1: he was convicted, but um, I think just got probation.

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Speaker 1: And the first guy, McDougall, is interesting. What he got

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Speaker 1: convicted for was operating without a license even though he

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Speaker 1: had a license. So that was a bit of a

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Speaker 1: hinky ruling. I think they just had to convict him

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Speaker 1: of something because I don't know if the law was

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Speaker 1: in place at that point. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like that deal where you realize this

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Speaker 1: is someone that we need to punish, but we don't

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Speaker 1: have a law that covers the crime, and we haven't

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Speaker 1: defined it as a crime, but we know that this

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Speaker 1: is something people really shouldn't be able to do, so

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Speaker 1: we have to somehow justify it. Um. Yeah. And as

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Speaker 1: it turns out, the it every nation, uh, in some

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Speaker 1: way or another, ends up regulating the electromagnetic spectrum, but

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Speaker 1: it changes from one place to the other. Sure there's

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Speaker 1: only so much room, right, yeah, exactly. So electromatic spectrum

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Speaker 1: goes all the way from radio waves, which can a

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Speaker 1: radio wave can be kilometers long, right, and then you

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Speaker 1: go all the way to the other side to like

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Speaker 1: gamma rays we're talking about on the nanoscale and everything

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Speaker 1: in between. That's the electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light is part

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Speaker 1: of that. You know, visible light is on the short side,

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Speaker 1: but radio waves and microwaves are on the longer side.

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Speaker 1: And uh not all those radio waves. You know, we

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Speaker 1: can't just all use the same ones, because then we

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Speaker 1: would have interference. Right if if the television and your

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Speaker 1: phone used the same frequencies, then you would have interference

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Speaker 1: between the two, and that would be terrible. Nothing would

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Speaker 1: be usable, a crunch if there's too much activity on

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Speaker 1: one frequency. Yeah, that's that's if you've got everyone just

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Speaker 1: using you know what they're supposed to. Let's say everyone

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Speaker 1: in the cellular network has they're all on their phones

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Speaker 1: that we've seen this happen in the life events they're

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Speaker 1: post nine eleven New York couldn't. Yeah, or even just

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Speaker 1: going to a big event like any like c e

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Speaker 1: S or any large event like that, you suddenly can't

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Speaker 1: get access to anything. That's where you've got more demand

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Speaker 1: for data transmission than there is capacity. Yeah, I've tried

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Speaker 1: to get a signal at Comic Con before and ye, no, no,

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Speaker 1: the same thing is true a dragon con and that's

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Speaker 1: a like a third the size of Comic Con. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's It's also true that there are wavelengths within the

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Speaker 1: electromagnetic spectrum that are really good for carrying data and

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Speaker 1: some that aren't. So the government has divided up the

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Speaker 1: electromannetic spectrum and saying these are the sections that can

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Speaker 1: be used for specific purposes. So a large part of

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00:22:52,640 --> 00:22:55,800
Speaker 1: it is set aside for government and military use, a

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Speaker 1: large part of his side for radio so AM and

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Speaker 1: FM UH. And then you also have television broadcasts that

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Speaker 1: are that are partial partitioned off as well cellular data WiFi.

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Speaker 1: All of these things have their specific place that is

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Speaker 1: mandated by the government. Yeah. Well, guys, Chuck and I

407
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: have a lot more to talk about with the Max

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Speaker 1: Headroom incident, but before we continue, let's take a quick

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Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. So if you go in

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Speaker 1: and start messing around with that, the government gets pretty upset. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I think, you know, it's sort of in Nipot

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Speaker 1: in the bud situation, like one broadcast intrusion really no

413
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Speaker 1: big deal, And that apparently is why the lead investigator

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Speaker 1: said that, um I think his name was Marcus. He

415
00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,119
Speaker 1: had a hard time getting resources because there was a

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Speaker 1: little egg on the face and they probably just wanted

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Speaker 1: it to go away more than anything. And no one's

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Speaker 1: really hurt. There was no damage done, so they're not

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Speaker 1: gonna throw a lot of money in time. I'm trying

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00:24:00,800 --> 00:24:03,920
Speaker 1: to find this person. And and he also had some

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00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:09,200
Speaker 1: fairly harsh words for an fcc UH investigator. He was

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Speaker 1: actually in Chicago. He didn't name the person's still salt

423
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:14,639
Speaker 1: about it though, Yeah, I said that said that this

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00:24:14,680 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 1: guy wasn't willing to go and knock on doors to

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Speaker 1: actually do some investigation. And part of that is probably

426
00:24:20,359 --> 00:24:24,479
Speaker 1: because there was this embarrassment factor. They're also but without

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00:24:24,520 --> 00:24:27,760
Speaker 1: the teeth, you know, with the authority, it makes it

428
00:24:27,800 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 1: hard for someone to go out and say there's a

429
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,960
Speaker 1: justification for spending the time, resources and money necessarily investigating

430
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: for a small fine and probation even if they do

431
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:41,480
Speaker 1: catch the person. Now the maximum fine, although I doubt

432
00:24:41,520 --> 00:24:44,280
Speaker 1: that we would see a maximum fine for something as

433
00:24:44,280 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: small as a min and a half interruption in Doctor who,

434
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:51,040
Speaker 1: Doctor who fans, please don't take me to task for that.

435
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 1: But the maximum fine is a hundred thousand dollars or

436
00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:56,000
Speaker 1: a year in jail or both, yeah, which they were

437
00:24:56,119 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 1: very big on announcing at the time, as well as

438
00:24:59,760 --> 00:25:02,639
Speaker 1: a think they had a lot of misinformation they or

439
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:04,600
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's misinformation or they were trying

440
00:25:04,640 --> 00:25:08,159
Speaker 1: to get out a little misinformation saying how sophisticated of

441
00:25:08,200 --> 00:25:10,720
Speaker 1: an operation it was and how expensive all the equipment

442
00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: must have been, which is really not in the case now.

443
00:25:12,920 --> 00:25:15,960
Speaker 1: I think I think it was a lot of people

444
00:25:16,080 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: trying to discourage future pranksters from following in there. So

445
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: that means, well, let's make sure we we set the

446
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:28,520
Speaker 1: the bar very high, saying it's really hard to do

447
00:25:28,600 --> 00:25:31,720
Speaker 1: and it's really expensive. Try. Yeah, and if you do try,

448
00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:33,719
Speaker 1: it's gonna get even more expensive for you because we're

449
00:25:33,720 --> 00:25:36,919
Speaker 1: gonna find you a hundred thousand dollars. So now, the

450
00:25:36,960 --> 00:25:40,800
Speaker 1: truth was that the transmission equipment that was that could

451
00:25:40,880 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: be used to do such a thing, while brand new,

452
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: would cost maybe you know, a few thousand dollars, which

453
00:25:46,560 --> 00:25:50,120
Speaker 1: is a significant amount of money once it hits the aftermarket.

454
00:25:50,200 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: Like you know, let's say that you've got a a station,

455
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: a small station that is upgrading its equipment and it

456
00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:58,840
Speaker 1: gets rid of the old stuff that was on the

457
00:25:58,880 --> 00:26:01,479
Speaker 1: amateur market. You could go out and buy that stuff

458
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:03,639
Speaker 1: and it would be much less expensive than if you

459
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,240
Speaker 1: were to buy it brand new. So I mentioned earlier

460
00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: in this episode about the the hacker culture. Well, have

461
00:26:12,720 --> 00:26:17,199
Speaker 1: you heard about freakers? Okay, so a freaker spelled p

462
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 1: r e A k I n G freaking. It's all

463
00:26:22,080 --> 00:26:26,120
Speaker 1: about manipulating the phone system. So Steve Jobs and Steve

464
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:30,120
Speaker 1: Wozniac were freakers founders of Apple. Actually Wasniac was really

465
00:26:30,160 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 1: the guy who knew how to do it. But there

466
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,479
Speaker 1: were a ton of them. One of the most famous

467
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,840
Speaker 1: ones his name was Captain Crunch, and Captain Crunch was

468
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: called that because he discovered that by using a Captain

469
00:26:41,119 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: Crunch plastic whistle that came in a box of cereal,

470
00:26:44,680 --> 00:26:48,119
Speaker 1: he could mimic the tone that the telephone company was

471
00:26:48,240 --> 00:26:52,359
Speaker 1: using and allow him to make free long distance phone calls.

472
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:55,920
Speaker 1: So you had this culture of people who were what's

473
00:26:55,920 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 1: a long distance phone call? Yeah? Okay, kids, Once upon

474
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: a time, if you wanted to call anyone outside of

475
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:06,480
Speaker 1: your area code, it cost extra. Lady actually tell me that.

476
00:27:06,560 --> 00:27:08,360
Speaker 1: The other day that was cutting my hair, she got

477
00:27:08,359 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: a phone call. She said I'm sorry, it's my daughter

478
00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 1: long distance. I need to step away. And I was

479
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:16,880
Speaker 1: sitting there going what's long distance? Yeah? Maybe international? Yeah

480
00:27:16,960 --> 00:27:18,679
Speaker 1: that might be it. That's about it. Or you can

481
00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:20,840
Speaker 1: just keep cutting my hair right, Yeah, yeah, you know

482
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 1: it's fine. I mean, I'm not gonna know her half

483
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:28,160
Speaker 1: the conversation. But yeah, the the uh. These were people

484
00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,440
Speaker 1: who thought that these huge systems were fascinating, that the

485
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: telephone system was really interesting, and learning how it worked

486
00:27:34,600 --> 00:27:36,919
Speaker 1: was fascinating, and then once you know how it works,

487
00:27:37,200 --> 00:27:40,240
Speaker 1: you know how to kind of game the system. Yeah,

488
00:27:40,280 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 1: And it's not necessarily the case that they were looking

489
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:47,240
Speaker 1: to cause trouble or to be pranksters. Although there was

490
00:27:47,280 --> 00:27:49,760
Speaker 1: some mischief involved there too, a lot of it was

491
00:27:49,800 --> 00:27:52,720
Speaker 1: more about oh, now I know how this works, and

492
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 1: that means this works this other way. It was really

493
00:27:54,920 --> 00:27:58,520
Speaker 1: more about learning the system and and then negotiating it

494
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 1: kind of like war games. Yes, very much like a

495
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: little mischief, a little civil disobedience. But I don't think

496
00:28:04,600 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: most of these people early on, we're trying to cause harm. No,

497
00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: it was really more of insatiable curiosity, like really, I can,

498
00:28:11,600 --> 00:28:13,240
Speaker 1: so let me just try it out right and see

499
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: if it works. I think that's exactly what happened with this,

500
00:28:15,600 --> 00:28:18,520
Speaker 1: Max he I totally agree. You had people who said,

501
00:28:19,200 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: let's you know, we know how radio works. The television

502
00:28:21,840 --> 00:28:25,199
Speaker 1: broadcast is essentially a radio broadcast. So once you know

503
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,200
Speaker 1: how that works, and once you know that the basics

504
00:28:27,240 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: behind it, are there ways where we could end up

505
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 1: injecting our own signal into this and have a little

506
00:28:33,119 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: fun and have a little fun exactly. And so it

507
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:37,560
Speaker 1: was one of those things where you had the people

508
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:39,280
Speaker 1: who had to know how, and you have the people

509
00:28:39,280 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 1: who had the willingness to do it, and they were

510
00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:46,440
Speaker 1: working together to create this prank and uh again aiming

511
00:28:46,480 --> 00:28:48,480
Speaker 1: at a very specific target, and when that didn't work,

512
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,360
Speaker 1: switching to doctor who, Yeah, I appreciate the attitude of

513
00:28:51,400 --> 00:28:53,720
Speaker 1: most of this stuff too. To be honest, Um, I

514
00:28:53,720 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: don't think there's anything wrong with a little hi jinks

515
00:28:56,440 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: to thumb your nose at the man if you're not

516
00:28:58,160 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: hurting anybody. Um. I mean, you don't want to see

517
00:29:00,680 --> 00:29:01,959
Speaker 1: it all the time because then it takes out all

518
00:29:01,960 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: the teeth out of it. But every now and then,

519
00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:06,120
Speaker 1: I kind of like, you know, when they interviewed people

520
00:29:06,120 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: in Chicago, some people on the street were really upset

521
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:10,280
Speaker 1: and some people just kind of laughing. It's like I

522
00:29:10,320 --> 00:29:13,360
Speaker 1: think it's pretty great. Yeah yeah, because again, like like

523
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,400
Speaker 1: we were saying, there wasn't any lasting harm here, right

524
00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:20,320
Speaker 1: of course not the actual intrusion didn't cause any damage.

525
00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 1: It wasn't it wasn't something that was going to wreck

526
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:27,080
Speaker 1: physical equipment. No, you lost eighty seconds of Doctor Who. Yeah,

527
00:29:27,240 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: which some might say is and some people say it's priceless. Uh,

528
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:33,719
Speaker 1: you know this is Tom Baker doctor Who we're talking about. Well,

529
00:29:33,760 --> 00:29:35,800
Speaker 1: especially back then when you just couldn't go look up

530
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 1: you know the scene that I missed the night before,

531
00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:40,240
Speaker 1: like that was a true intrusion. Yeah, yeah, I mean

532
00:29:40,320 --> 00:29:43,280
Speaker 1: this is this is obviously pre well. I mean the

533
00:29:43,280 --> 00:29:46,120
Speaker 1: Internet was around, but nobody was on it except for

534
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: it was like bullets and boards and stuff. Yeah, that

535
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 1: was That was pretty much what most hackers had access

536
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:53,480
Speaker 1: to unless they were in a university and they had

537
00:29:53,520 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: some access to the preliminary version of the Internet. Um,

538
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,200
Speaker 1: but there was no worldwide Web. There was no web.

539
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:01,160
Speaker 1: There wouldn't be another. There wouldn't be a Worldwide Web

540
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 1: for another five years, so there was no way of

541
00:30:05,480 --> 00:30:08,280
Speaker 1: being able to go on and and check something you missed.

542
00:30:08,720 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 1: Nor was there a way for you to really easily

543
00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 1: communicate with folks all over the world. Now they could

544
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: do it with local Bolton board systems, And in fact,

545
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 1: that's what we suspect, or at least there there's a

546
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: lot of suspicion that, in fact, one of the local

547
00:30:22,720 --> 00:30:26,600
Speaker 1: Chicago bbs is had people in a forum who were

548
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,320
Speaker 1: at least tangentially involved in this, if not directly responsible,

549
00:30:31,960 --> 00:30:35,160
Speaker 1: but to really understand what was going on, it helps

550
00:30:35,160 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: to understand how a broadcast television broadcast actually works. So

551
00:30:41,960 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 1: here we go. We're gonna going back to the analog

552
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: days of TV broadcast technology. So now, Chuck, you've you've

553
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:53,880
Speaker 1: been in a television studio too, right, Yeah, you and

554
00:30:53,960 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: you and Josh I'm sure have done some of this.

555
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:58,120
Speaker 1: I've done some of this. When you see how a

556
00:30:58,200 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 1: TV studio works, it's actually very eye opening. I mean

557
00:31:02,040 --> 00:31:05,959
Speaker 1: to me, it's completely pulled away a lot of misconceptions

558
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:09,520
Speaker 1: that I had had. For example, you think of like cameramen,

559
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: but in large part camera operation is done remotely, not

560
00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: behind a camera. Right. Uh. These cameras that you see

561
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 1: in the studio are enormous and they're heavy. And this

562
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: is also the reason why I'm explaining this is also

563
00:31:25,720 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: to to illustrate why doing this live would have been impractical.

564
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 1: These television cameras are. The reason why they're so big

565
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,080
Speaker 1: and heavy is in part so that they're incredibly smooth

566
00:31:40,120 --> 00:31:43,680
Speaker 1: and steady and they aren't going to jitter. If you know,

567
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: you could drop something right next to one, it's not

568
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: going to move at all. Yeah, it's the same reason

569
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 1: a camera Dolly ways, you know, a thousand pounds. Yeah, yeah,

570
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: it's in order to get that that stability that you want,

571
00:31:54,280 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: so that you have thousand pounds. By the way, they're

572
00:31:57,440 --> 00:31:59,560
Speaker 1: less than that, but they're super heavy for that reason, right,

573
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: want that stability and that smoothness. Uh. And also, television

574
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: camera doesn't pick up sound, doesn't have a microphone on it.

575
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,239
Speaker 1: It's all about just capturing the image. Yeah, the mic

576
00:32:10,560 --> 00:32:17,480
Speaker 1: the sound is captured separately. And yeah, so the photons,

577
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,320
Speaker 1: that's the particles of light that are coming from a

578
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: scene are being captured by a camera. The light passes

579
00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: through a lens, which goes through a prism. The prism

580
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: is the purpose of a prism is to break up

581
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:33,760
Speaker 1: light into its component parts and this case, we're talking

582
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 1: about a prism that breaks light into red, green, and blue.

583
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:41,840
Speaker 1: That's all you needed. And each of those streams goes

584
00:32:42,000 --> 00:32:44,720
Speaker 1: and is hit by or it hits a c c

585
00:32:44,880 --> 00:32:48,040
Speaker 1: D a charge couple device. Now a charge couple device.

586
00:32:48,080 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: What does is when photons hit it, it it generates a

587
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 1: stream of electricity that essentially reflects the nature of the

588
00:32:54,840 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: photons that hit it. So you've got these three streams

589
00:32:58,680 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: coming out the red, green, and blue. Uh. They then

590
00:33:01,600 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: go into an encoder. Meanwhile, the sound that you're creating

591
00:33:06,520 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: is also going to head back over towards the master

592
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: control room. The information from the encoder goes to the

593
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:15,520
Speaker 1: master control room, it gets mixed together. So you then

594
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:19,360
Speaker 1: have a signal that has both video and sound. Now there,

595
00:33:19,880 --> 00:33:23,120
Speaker 1: if you were to be able to visualize this, uh,

596
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: it would actually be like the the visual data would

597
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:31,000
Speaker 1: make up most of the a range of frequencies like

598
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:36,320
Speaker 1: like four within four mega hurts, and then the very

599
00:33:36,440 --> 00:33:38,920
Speaker 1: edge of it, like on the far right side, that

600
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: would represent the sound. So it's just a little sliver

601
00:33:41,800 --> 00:33:44,680
Speaker 1: that's the sound. Yeah, And you're either preparing to broadcast

602
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,840
Speaker 1: this out to the masses live or you're just putting

603
00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:49,160
Speaker 1: it to tape do so later. Yeah, these days we

604
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:51,720
Speaker 1: put on a server, I guess or both. Yeah, exactly

605
00:33:51,760 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 1: if you wanted to to to keep it forever. Now,

606
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,600
Speaker 1: you may have heard that there were times where people

607
00:33:57,640 --> 00:34:01,240
Speaker 1: were broadcasting stuff and never according it. So there there

608
00:34:01,240 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: are things that have been created for television that we

609
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: will never see again. It's kind of like in some

610
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: ways going to see a live stage show. If you

611
00:34:10,080 --> 00:34:12,880
Speaker 1: were there, you saw it and you weren't that's it's

612
00:34:13,560 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: but uh, in this case, we're talking about a live newscast.

613
00:34:18,719 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 1: So that's being broadcast out from that point. When it's

614
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:25,000
Speaker 1: all been encoded and you've got this video signal that

615
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:26,919
Speaker 1: has all the information. It's got the red, the green,

616
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: the blue, and the audio, all four things that you need. Yeah,

617
00:34:31,200 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 1: it's time to transmit that out and it goes from

618
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:40,439
Speaker 1: the studio to a transmitter. It's called a studio transmitter link. Now,

619
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: most studios don't have an enormous antenna that's at a

620
00:34:44,600 --> 00:34:48,760
Speaker 1: really high elevation in broadcast to the general area. Cities

621
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:52,400
Speaker 1: share them. Yeah, and we're talking about an era of

622
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,360
Speaker 1: over the air television, right you're using your antenna to

623
00:34:55,440 --> 00:34:58,480
Speaker 1: pick up wavelengths. So what what they would do is

624
00:34:58,520 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: they would use the studio trend emitter link to beam

625
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: this information to a nearby antenna on a very tall building. Yeah.

626
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:10,479
Speaker 1: Usually the tallest buildings in your city will have these,

627
00:35:10,640 --> 00:35:13,040
Speaker 1: and Chicago has a lot of tall building, yes, and

628
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:17,880
Speaker 1: they use them for that purpose exactly. So if you

629
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,399
Speaker 1: stream that out to the antenna, the antenna then ends

630
00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: up broadcasting an electro magnetic signal and that ends up

631
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:28,520
Speaker 1: being picked up by the antenna of your television, which

632
00:35:28,800 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 1: the electromagnetic signal when it hits the antenna generates an

633
00:35:32,040 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: electrical current. A tuner in your television is able to

634
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 1: focus in on a specific channel and thus kind of

635
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:42,520
Speaker 1: filter the signal from the noise, and then it ends

636
00:35:42,600 --> 00:35:46,640
Speaker 1: up pulling out that video stream, creating the red, green, blue,

637
00:35:46,680 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: and the audio, and you get your TV that you

638
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:53,759
Speaker 1: get to watch. It's beautiful. It's I joked with you

639
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: earlier that we should just give them the explanation from

640
00:35:56,680 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 1: Willy Wonka, which is slightly more simplistic but but easier

641
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:06,200
Speaker 1: to explain. But unfortunately it's not quite that easy. So

642
00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:09,879
Speaker 1: knowing how this works, where you've got the signal coming

643
00:36:09,880 --> 00:36:13,480
Speaker 1: from the studio being transmitted out to a giant antenna

644
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: and then broadcast to an area. There are several areas

645
00:36:17,719 --> 00:36:22,439
Speaker 1: that could be potentially vulnerable to intrusion. If you are

646
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:26,279
Speaker 1: working on the inside, then if you're able to intercept

647
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:28,360
Speaker 1: and put in a new signal to go to the

648
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: studio transmitter link to go out, then you're done. That's

649
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: all you need to do. You need just very easy

650
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:37,319
Speaker 1: to do and very easy to trace back exactly. Yeah,

651
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:39,680
Speaker 1: inside job, you're like, well, let's look at the people

652
00:36:39,680 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 1: who have access. Now, that's all that could have done this.

653
00:36:43,120 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, with a over the air

654
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: analog transmission, there was an easier way of doing this

655
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:52,920
Speaker 1: where you didn't have to break into the studio to

656
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,759
Speaker 1: do it. It was pretty great. Actually, yeah, So all

657
00:36:55,800 --> 00:36:57,960
Speaker 1: you have to do, and I say all you have

658
00:36:58,000 --> 00:37:00,520
Speaker 1: to do this still is pretty significant, is you have

659
00:37:00,560 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 1: to have a transmitter of your own. You have to

660
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: be able to have a direct line of sight to

661
00:37:05,719 --> 00:37:09,640
Speaker 1: the antenna that's going to pick up the transmission from

662
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: the studio, and you have to transmit on the frequency

663
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:17,239
Speaker 1: that the studio uses at a higher intensity than what

664
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:20,280
Speaker 1: the studio is doing. And then the antenna which is stupid. Yeah,

665
00:37:20,480 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 1: it can't differentiate all of noses. That's a bad signal.

666
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:25,400
Speaker 1: I don't want to proast, but they don't know if

667
00:37:25,400 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 1: it's the right frequency, it's gonna broadcast it. So when

668
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:32,400
Speaker 1: you hit the antenna, it's gonna go for the strongest signal.

669
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:34,799
Speaker 1: I mean, this makes sense because if you had two

670
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,840
Speaker 1: signals that were the same frequency and one is stronger

671
00:37:37,880 --> 00:37:41,160
Speaker 1: than the other, chances are the other frequency is coming

672
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 1: from a different source further away, and that's not the

673
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:47,280
Speaker 1: one you want to transmit. Yes, so literally all they needed,

674
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: I mean, they didn't need to to blow it out

675
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,359
Speaker 1: of the water. They just needed to be stronger and

676
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:54,040
Speaker 1: to do so, do you just need to be a

677
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,760
Speaker 1: little closer. Yeah, maybe a lot closer in this case,

678
00:37:56,880 --> 00:37:59,280
Speaker 1: but but yeah, exactly, they just had to be somewhere

679
00:37:59,280 --> 00:38:02,800
Speaker 1: along the path way from the studio to the antenna

680
00:38:02,840 --> 00:38:05,200
Speaker 1: that was being used. Uh, they and they just had

681
00:38:05,239 --> 00:38:08,279
Speaker 1: to transmit on the right frequency, which was that was

682
00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,719
Speaker 1: information they could get. They could get the information on

683
00:38:10,760 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: what frequency to use. So you've got your transmitter, you've

684
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: got your media, which in this case was a tape

685
00:38:16,960 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: that they had shot earlier. Because that wasn't lying. You're

686
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: probably on a building, and they've got to be somewhere

687
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: pretty high up. So yeah, likely on top of a

688
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: building or at least on like a balcony or fire

689
00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:29,080
Speaker 1: escape or something. They can have a line of sight. Uh,

690
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,480
Speaker 1: they are, They've got their transmitter and geared up to

691
00:38:32,480 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: the right amount of power, they shoot it off and

692
00:38:34,800 --> 00:38:37,799
Speaker 1: everything else is taken care of for them. They try

693
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:39,880
Speaker 1: to do anything else. In this case, the John Hancock

694
00:38:39,920 --> 00:38:41,840
Speaker 1: building in the Sears Tower with the two towers that

695
00:38:41,880 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 1: had these two receivers, And there's been a lot of

696
00:38:45,360 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: theories over the years. Um, most people believe they were

697
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: probably high up, but I have seen one theory that

698
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:55,440
Speaker 1: they were mobile in a van, necessarily high up, but

699
00:38:55,560 --> 00:38:58,880
Speaker 1: just super super close they Yeah, that would also require

700
00:38:58,920 --> 00:39:02,839
Speaker 1: them to have some way of maintaining that line of

701
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,879
Speaker 1: sight and that that steady transmission, because you know, if

702
00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:10,080
Speaker 1: you if you don't, if you don't have your electromagnetic

703
00:39:10,160 --> 00:39:15,000
Speaker 1: waves directed right at the receiver, then it's going it's

704
00:39:15,040 --> 00:39:16,640
Speaker 1: not going to be a strong enough signal. Yeah, I

705
00:39:16,640 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: don't I don't buy the van theory. It would be

706
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 1: really really challenging, e empowering everything. It's wuld be a

707
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:24,640
Speaker 1: pretty more sophisticated. It does make me suddenly think that

708
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:28,120
Speaker 1: the Scooby Gang was responsible for it, because you've got

709
00:39:28,120 --> 00:39:32,160
Speaker 1: the big rubber mask like old Nan Withers. We've got

710
00:39:32,239 --> 00:39:34,200
Speaker 1: a bit more to talk about when it comes to

711
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:39,080
Speaker 1: this crazy incident in tech history. But before we conclude,

712
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:49,319
Speaker 1: let's take another quick break to thank our sponsor. So

713
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 1: channel nine, which was w g N in Chicago. Uh,

714
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:55,720
Speaker 1: if you look at the channels in the United States,

715
00:39:55,719 --> 00:39:59,040
Speaker 1: they actually have the designated frequencies they have to, you know,

716
00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 1: use our least the range that's around a D eighties

717
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,640
Speaker 1: seven mega hurts. So you tune your transmitter to that

718
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:08,160
Speaker 1: signal and you aim it at the you know where

719
00:40:08,160 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 1: the antenna is. You've identified that, you've got it all

720
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:14,520
Speaker 1: lined up, and you're good to go. Well, once w

721
00:40:14,680 --> 00:40:18,279
Speaker 1: g N changed their frequency, that meant that it didn't

722
00:40:18,280 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: matter how much power they poured into the transact. It's

723
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:24,799
Speaker 1: like you're speaking the wrong language. So that meant that

724
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: suddenly there their prank didn't really go anywhere. They had

725
00:40:27,920 --> 00:40:31,360
Speaker 1: a brief appearance with no audio. Yeah, so they probably

726
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:34,200
Speaker 1: did something a little wrong on their end. On there

727
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:36,880
Speaker 1: probably wasn't a test run. They probably wanted it to

728
00:40:36,880 --> 00:40:41,759
Speaker 1: work right, right, right, but then unfortunately for them, unfortunately

729
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:44,320
Speaker 1: for them, it didn't work with you know, without a hitch.

730
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,799
Speaker 1: So they then say, well, what can we do, how

731
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:51,160
Speaker 1: can we um save this and maybe get the actual

732
00:40:51,400 --> 00:40:56,919
Speaker 1: video that we shot scene and yeah, if you guys

733
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,160
Speaker 1: haven't watched this video, you really kind of need too.

734
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 1: But at any rate, so they then decided to do

735
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:07,440
Speaker 1: their backup plan. They knew the frequency that the local

736
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 1: public broadcast channel was using, and they knew that that

737
00:41:11,400 --> 00:41:13,640
Speaker 1: antenna was on top of the Sears tower and that

738
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 1: they could aim at that one. And uh so, whether

739
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:20,520
Speaker 1: or not they had to relocate, they they probably did

740
00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: just to get a good line of sight on the

741
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:27,200
Speaker 1: on the antenna, but uh it was only a two

742
00:41:27,239 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: hour time difference between the first attack and the second attack,

743
00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:35,040
Speaker 1: So to retune the transmitter, to prep it to get

744
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:38,120
Speaker 1: ready to hit the target, and to make sure you

745
00:41:38,160 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: have a line of sight on it, they probably stayed

746
00:41:40,640 --> 00:41:46,120
Speaker 1: in the same general area, which is northwest part of Chicago. Northwest. Yeah,

747
00:41:46,160 --> 00:41:49,839
Speaker 1: there's actually that that article we were talking about, the

748
00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:53,719
Speaker 1: Motherboard article. They have a great picture that shows the

749
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:56,919
Speaker 1: location of both studios on both antenna and it kind

750
00:41:56,920 --> 00:41:59,439
Speaker 1: of shows you like an area where where the two

751
00:41:59,480 --> 00:42:04,200
Speaker 1: lines almost cross, and you figure, I bet, I bet

752
00:42:04,239 --> 00:42:06,640
Speaker 1: they were somewhere in this general area so that they

753
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:10,080
Speaker 1: could if they didn't have to relocate. Uh, then they

754
00:42:10,200 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 1: just you know, shifted position, or maybe they relocated by

755
00:42:13,760 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: a couple of blocks. Um, which raises the question, how

756
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:19,719
Speaker 1: did they get access to a high enough area and

757
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: still have power and all that kind of stuff right

758
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:23,920
Speaker 1: now they were just on their buddies the roof of

759
00:42:23,960 --> 00:42:29,080
Speaker 1: his apartment with an extension court. That's probably what happened. Uh.

760
00:42:29,160 --> 00:42:33,240
Speaker 1: So they then did the second attack at eleven o'clock

761
00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:37,920
Speaker 1: or eleven fourteen, and that one worked much better. Um.

762
00:42:37,960 --> 00:42:41,760
Speaker 1: And like we said, the material they had, the equipment

763
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: they had was readily available, wasn't It wasn't as rare

764
00:42:46,080 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: as you would think it would be. No. Dr Marcus,

765
00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: the lead investigator, said that, uh, like a direct TV

766
00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:53,560
Speaker 1: size Antenta these days, it is about all you would

767
00:42:53,560 --> 00:42:56,160
Speaker 1: have needed. It's not like one of those like school

768
00:42:56,160 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: bus size satis in backyards back in to day. It's

769
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: pretty incredible, Uh, the how little you would need in

770
00:43:04,680 --> 00:43:10,359
Speaker 1: order to do it. So fascinating attack fascinating fact that

771
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:13,760
Speaker 1: it they were able to do it without being caught. Um.

772
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: And the fact that you know, there weren't a whole

773
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,880
Speaker 1: lot of broadcast intrusions after this point. You've heard about

774
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 1: maybe one or two. The Disney Channel has infamously been

775
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:28,640
Speaker 1: the attack, the side of an attack on multiple occasions. Yeah.

776
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:30,960
Speaker 1: I think the super Bowl was hijacked briefly a few

777
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:34,879
Speaker 1: years ago in one city only though. Yeah. Yeah, Uh,

778
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 1: it's it's harder and harder to do now because you've

779
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 1: got things like digital encoding. Yeah, that make it much

780
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 1: much more difficult for the average hacker to do. I'm

781
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:47,760
Speaker 1: surprised it didn't happen more often back in those days.

782
00:43:48,200 --> 00:43:50,759
Speaker 1: With those early I think there's sort of the wild West.

783
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:53,280
Speaker 1: It may very well have been that the scare tactics

784
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 1: the FCC used. We have totally worried, Like people said like, well,

785
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:58,799
Speaker 1: I know I can do this, but I'm totally not

786
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:02,279
Speaker 1: gonna do this. Um. And you know, we we talked

787
00:44:02,320 --> 00:44:05,680
Speaker 1: a little bit. Uh. There are some theories out there

788
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:08,319
Speaker 1: about who it could have been responsible for this. My

789
00:44:08,440 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: favorite was the the one that is probably the easiest

790
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 1: to dismiss, which was Eric Fournier who was a punk

791
00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:20,440
Speaker 1: rock musician as well as an avant garde artist who

792
00:44:20,480 --> 00:44:24,719
Speaker 1: created a series of videos. Um. It's funny because the

793
00:44:24,719 --> 00:44:28,080
Speaker 1: Motherboard article refers to it as a YouTube channel, but

794
00:44:28,160 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: in fact the videos pre date YouTube. Oh yeah, I

795
00:44:30,680 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: guess it is now on a YouTube channel. But they

796
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:35,839
Speaker 1: were called shay uh s h A y e St

797
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:38,600
Speaker 1: John Sha st John. And if you look at these,

798
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: you you've forced me to earlier. Uh they do have

799
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: similar quality, um, very similar feel almost absurd, surreal, disturbing.

800
00:44:48,600 --> 00:44:51,400
Speaker 1: Doesn't necessarily make much sense, you know. I think of

801
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:53,920
Speaker 1: it like you you've seen the horror movies where they

802
00:44:54,400 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 1: all um center around like a creepy looking doll. Right,

803
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,640
Speaker 1: it's a genre unto itself. There's a brand new one

804
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:06,560
Speaker 1: right about it all and about yeah yeah, so that's

805
00:45:06,560 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: the fact that I responded so quickly with that is

806
00:45:09,320 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: not good for me. But yeah, it's this idea of

807
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:17,719
Speaker 1: things that look not quite right, and the Saint John

808
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:21,440
Speaker 1: videos are all about that, and they involve the looping

809
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: of certain phrases over and over again, experiments and lighting

810
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 1: experiments in uh camera angles, as well as digital effects

811
00:45:32,320 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 1: or maybe not even digital effects, but special effects. The

812
00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: earlier ones are actually more trippy the ones that are

813
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: on the YouTube channel itself. Um, so you can see

814
00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:48,799
Speaker 1: that the there's some shared uh aesthetics. Yeah, and he

815
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:52,920
Speaker 1: lived in Indiana, apparently just a few hours from Chicago. Um,

816
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:55,160
Speaker 1: he passed away in two thousand tens, so we'll never know.

817
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:58,640
Speaker 1: I read one article that said that he admitted to

818
00:45:58,719 --> 00:46:01,120
Speaker 1: his friends that it was him, but I couldn't find

819
00:46:01,160 --> 00:46:05,239
Speaker 1: anything else to substantiate that. And the Motherboard article goes

820
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,879
Speaker 1: so far as to suggest that that it's not him.

821
00:46:07,880 --> 00:46:10,600
Speaker 1: It's not him because his friends all said he at

822
00:46:10,640 --> 00:46:14,000
Speaker 1: that time in n he had no knowledge of video editing.

823
00:46:14,920 --> 00:46:17,319
Speaker 1: All the video stuff he did was later on. It

824
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 1: was in the late nineties, early two thousand's, so it

825
00:46:21,000 --> 00:46:24,759
Speaker 1: would make sense that, um, while it's the same sort

826
00:46:24,800 --> 00:46:27,959
Speaker 1: of kind of humor, it's not the same person. Yeah.

827
00:46:27,960 --> 00:46:31,400
Speaker 1: His old bandmate even said, you know, Eric didn't do this,

828
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: but he would have loved it. He would have thought

829
00:46:33,600 --> 00:46:38,000
Speaker 1: it was really funny. Yeah. Yeah, and there's another theory

830
00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: that Ice first saw and read it. That's how I

831
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:44,480
Speaker 1: saw the link to Motherboard, and you sent me the

832
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:46,439
Speaker 1: link and I saw it and read it as well. Yeah,

833
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,280
Speaker 1: this one holds some water to me. Unless this guy

834
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: Bowie j a po Poagg, one of the two poag,

835
00:46:56,840 --> 00:47:00,239
Speaker 1: Unless he is just making all this stuff up right

836
00:47:00,400 --> 00:47:03,000
Speaker 1: this otherwise, this sounds like a pretty decent lead. Yeah,

837
00:47:03,040 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: I've heard. I've heard some people suggest that that perhaps

838
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: the guy himself is the one who did it, and

839
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,960
Speaker 1: he's invented these personas to be the way of him

840
00:47:12,000 --> 00:47:14,360
Speaker 1: explaining how it was done without actually admitting that he

841
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: did it. But he he maintains his innocence, He says, no,

842
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: I really, all of the evidence I have is purely circumstantial.

843
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:24,160
Speaker 1: I was thirteen when this happened, which to me suggests

844
00:47:24,160 --> 00:47:26,160
Speaker 1: that it's not him. It does not seem like a

845
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:30,839
Speaker 1: thirteen year old. The voice in the video is distorted,

846
00:47:30,960 --> 00:47:33,120
Speaker 1: but it does it definitely seems like it's someone who's

847
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: older than that. Um. But he talks about uh, two

848
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:42,160
Speaker 1: brothers and one brother he said. He described him as

849
00:47:42,280 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: seeming to be on the autism spectrum, and that he

850
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:51,120
Speaker 1: had a very keen interest in broadcast spectrum and broadcast technology,

851
00:47:51,880 --> 00:47:55,799
Speaker 1: but didn't have very many social skills. Yeah, he was

852
00:47:55,920 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: the Yeah, he was very big as a thirteen year

853
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:03,120
Speaker 1: old on that In that hacker scene, but trying it

854
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:05,279
Speaker 1: sounded like really like one of the young ones trying

855
00:48:05,280 --> 00:48:08,399
Speaker 1: to ingratiate himself into the group. Into the group. These

856
00:48:08,400 --> 00:48:11,480
Speaker 1: were a little older guys who were more experienced. Um.

857
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:13,800
Speaker 1: He calls them J and K, which are not their names,

858
00:48:14,360 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: to provide their you know, to guard their anonymity. And

859
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,359
Speaker 1: he said that Jay, who was supposedly the autistic one,

860
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,000
Speaker 1: was He's the one who says that was the guy

861
00:48:23,040 --> 00:48:26,520
Speaker 1: in the mask. They had the same build. He references

862
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:28,919
Speaker 1: his brother in the video. Yeah, he says that because

863
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:31,239
Speaker 1: he he shows a glove and he says, uh, this

864
00:48:31,280 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: one is dirty. My brother is wearing the other one. Yeah,

865
00:48:34,520 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 1: he apparently. He says this is from his reddit. He said, Uh,

866
00:48:39,200 --> 00:48:42,320
Speaker 1: he liked to tell dirty jokes. The dirty jokes were funny,

867
00:48:42,320 --> 00:48:44,440
Speaker 1: at least to me. Is a thirteen year old and

868
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:47,480
Speaker 1: a woman dressed up as Antioakley swatting someone's bare butt

869
00:48:47,520 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: with a fly swatter is a perfect reflection of his

870
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:54,879
Speaker 1: sense of humor. Uh. It was usually childish and sexually deviant. Yeah.

871
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:58,080
Speaker 1: And he talked about how he had kind of a

872
00:48:58,200 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: verbal tick that instead of saying uh, when he was

873
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 1: trying to think of something he'd say, oh, and that

874
00:49:04,920 --> 00:49:08,640
Speaker 1: if you listen to the video, there's some there's a yeah,

875
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:11,800
Speaker 1: there's a lot of him kind of making oh noises

876
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:15,400
Speaker 1: between when he's saying things. So it does kind of

877
00:49:15,440 --> 00:49:17,440
Speaker 1: come across as someone who's trying to think of the

878
00:49:17,480 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: next thing to say. Like, it didn't feel like it

879
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: certainly does not feel that the Max Headroom incident was

880
00:49:22,480 --> 00:49:25,440
Speaker 1: terribly scripted, Like I think it was a lot off

881
00:49:25,480 --> 00:49:31,560
Speaker 1: the cup unless. Yeah. So the the other brother, Kay,

882
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:38,160
Speaker 1: was Jay's caretaker h and also was possibly the theory

883
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,440
Speaker 1: seems to be that k was the one working the camera,

884
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:44,320
Speaker 1: that Ja was the one on camera, and that Kay's

885
00:49:44,560 --> 00:49:48,840
Speaker 1: girlfriend was the one with the fly swatter, and again

886
00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,880
Speaker 1: all of this ends up being circumstantial evidence. He said that,

887
00:49:52,040 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: as Poche said, as a thirteen year old, he went

888
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:59,439
Speaker 1: to this apartment that was just filled with equipment. Yeah,

889
00:49:59,560 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 1: he says, the there was nothing, you know, no normal

890
00:50:02,480 --> 00:50:05,160
Speaker 1: decorations except like a rainbow kite or something in there.

891
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: Everything else was electronic equipment, and that they were the

892
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: people they were talking about something but not explicitly talking about,

893
00:50:14,080 --> 00:50:16,360
Speaker 1: just saying that something big was gonna happen and that

894
00:50:16,480 --> 00:50:19,840
Speaker 1: he should definitely make sure to be watching channel nine

895
00:50:20,400 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 1: at nine pm, uh like w g N at nine pm,

896
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:25,759
Speaker 1: so he could see the big thing that was going

897
00:50:25,840 --> 00:50:28,879
Speaker 1: to happen, and that he claims he didn't even put

898
00:50:28,960 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 1: two and two together, like he saw the incident go

899
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:33,880
Speaker 1: down and knew that something big was going to happen,

900
00:50:34,400 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: which does seem a little hinky to me, but he

901
00:50:36,560 --> 00:50:39,080
Speaker 1: says years later as when it all kind of connected

902
00:50:39,120 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 1: for me, it seems a little weird. That does seem

903
00:50:42,200 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: a little weird to me too, but he said. He

904
00:50:44,160 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: does go on to defend himself a bit and say,

905
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:50,360
Speaker 1: you know that there were I heard a dozen things

906
00:50:50,400 --> 00:50:52,400
Speaker 1: from them a day that we're just sort of weird

907
00:50:52,440 --> 00:50:55,399
Speaker 1: and out there, and it wouldn't register as anything big

908
00:50:55,440 --> 00:50:57,239
Speaker 1: to me with they said, you know, we're gonna do

909
00:50:57,239 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: something big watch the TV tonight. So in other words,

910
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:01,960
Speaker 1: they were a bunch of big talkers. But it's happened

911
00:51:02,760 --> 00:51:05,040
Speaker 1: as a kid, he's trying to fit in. He you know,

912
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 1: it sounds like he was kind of nervous hanging around

913
00:51:06,600 --> 00:51:09,959
Speaker 1: this crowd, eager to please exactly. Yeah, well, at any rate,

914
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,120
Speaker 1: he's the one who on Reddit just laid out the

915
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:17,439
Speaker 1: situation and explained what he thought had happened based upon

916
00:51:17,480 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 1: circumstantial evidence. Again, he never witnessed any of this himself,

917
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: according to his account, and it kind of blew up

918
00:51:23,200 --> 00:51:24,920
Speaker 1: on Reddit, didn't it? I did? It did? And he

919
00:51:25,400 --> 00:51:28,520
Speaker 1: gave specific updates, and in fact, he was interviewed heavily

920
00:51:28,560 --> 00:51:32,560
Speaker 1: for the Motherboard article and he explained that he tried

921
00:51:32,600 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: to get in touch with j and k Um through

922
00:51:35,760 --> 00:51:39,160
Speaker 1: multiple media, like he knows where they are still. Yep.

923
00:51:39,360 --> 00:51:42,520
Speaker 1: He sent them Facebook messages, he sent an email, and

924
00:51:42,560 --> 00:51:46,760
Speaker 1: he sent them actual snail mail and didn't get any response.

925
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,920
Speaker 1: And he says, I'm taking that as a indication that

926
00:51:49,960 --> 00:51:52,759
Speaker 1: they don't want to talk about this, and so out

927
00:51:52,800 --> 00:51:55,479
Speaker 1: of respect for their privacy, I'm dropping it. And so

928
00:51:55,840 --> 00:51:59,239
Speaker 1: he never revealed the identities of the people. No, he

929
00:51:59,280 --> 00:52:01,799
Speaker 1: did have other well on the Reddit the said they

930
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:04,799
Speaker 1: were around that same scene back then, and it sort

931
00:52:04,840 --> 00:52:06,919
Speaker 1: of checks out. The guy had a similar ability short

932
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:09,839
Speaker 1: of shortened squatty and um, so he had a little

933
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:13,759
Speaker 1: bit of support. But it's all circumstantial and conjecture. You know,

934
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,799
Speaker 1: there's obviously no proof, no smoking gun, right, so we

935
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:19,759
Speaker 1: may never know for sure who did this. We'll have

936
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: someone will have to come forward. This the only way. Yeah,

937
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:25,120
Speaker 1: but it's one of those mysteries that is really interesting

938
00:52:25,160 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 1: to read about. To to and the fact that it

939
00:52:28,400 --> 00:52:30,920
Speaker 1: it's still you know, you can you can watch the video.

940
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:34,520
Speaker 1: You can actually see what happened. It's kind of cool

941
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:36,760
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of these these weird moments

942
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: you just have second or third hand accounts and you

943
00:52:39,200 --> 00:52:41,960
Speaker 1: can't you can't really experience it for yourself. You have

944
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,719
Speaker 1: to think, oh, what would it have been like? But

945
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:45,799
Speaker 1: now you can actually see. Yeah, it's a pretty neat,

946
00:52:45,800 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 1: little time capsule experience, especially if you grew up in

947
00:52:48,800 --> 00:52:50,759
Speaker 1: the eighties, right, And if you don't know who Max

948
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:52,600
Speaker 1: Headroom is, then maybe you should do some research on

949
00:52:52,640 --> 00:52:55,520
Speaker 1: that first and then watch the video to understand how

950
00:52:55,560 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: weird this was. That b B show, I'm telling you,

951
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:00,760
Speaker 1: is pretty good. People should watch that. Yeah, totally, guys.

952
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,200
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this classic episode of Tech Stuff.

953
00:53:03,239 --> 00:53:05,960
Speaker 1: Big thanks once again to Chuck Bryant for agreeing to

954
00:53:05,960 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: be on it. It was a lot of fun to

955
00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:11,840
Speaker 1: explore this story, one that I had heard about, I

956
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:16,560
Speaker 1: had seen the videos. I found them a little unsettling, honestly.

957
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: Uh and other people just find them funny. It all

958
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: depends on your your sense of humor, I guess. But

959
00:53:22,600 --> 00:53:24,640
Speaker 1: it was really interesting to take a deeper dive and

960
00:53:24,640 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: really learned the the story behind it as much as

961
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:33,160
Speaker 1: we do know, and how it was even possible. And uh, guys,

962
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 1: if you're thinking about trying to pirate various signals out there,

963
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,520
Speaker 1: first of all, you're gonna need a pretty powerful transmitter.

964
00:53:40,719 --> 00:53:45,320
Speaker 1: Second of all, don't don't you know, don't don't be dumb,

965
00:53:45,960 --> 00:53:48,360
Speaker 1: as Josh Clark, the other co host of Stuff You

966
00:53:48,400 --> 00:53:51,120
Speaker 1: Should Know, would say. And I hope you guys enjoyed it.

967
00:53:51,160 --> 00:53:53,600
Speaker 1: If you guys have any suggestions for future episodes of

968
00:53:53,600 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, send me an email. The addresses tech stuff

969
00:53:56,280 --> 00:53:59,600
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com, or you can draw

970
00:53:59,640 --> 00:54:01,680
Speaker 1: me a lot on Facebook or Twitter. The handle of

971
00:54:01,760 --> 00:54:04,960
Speaker 1: both of those is text Stuff h s W. Follow

972
00:54:05,040 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: us on Instagram and I will talk to you again

973
00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:17,600
Speaker 1: really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics,

974
00:54:17,640 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 1: because it how stuff works dot com