WEBVTT - Techstuff Classic: The Max Headroom Incident 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from half 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:13.800 stuff works dot com. Hey there, everyone, this is Jonathan 0:00:13.880 --> 0:00:18.040 Strickland and you're listening to a tech Stuff classic episode 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.160 now on Friday's and today's classic episode is all about 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:26.319 a famous incident that happened in the nineteen eighties, the 0:00:26.520 --> 0:00:32.080 Max Headroom Incident, a moment where a pirate with a 0:00:32.159 --> 0:00:34.239 song in his heart and a rubber mask on his 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:40.640 face interrupted some television broadcast signals and made history. And 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.839 speaking of history, Chuck Bryant, historic podcast giant in his 0:00:45.920 --> 0:00:48.320 own right and co host of Stuff You Should Know 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:51.600 as well as the host of movie Crush, joined me 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:55.520 for this episode to talk all about this interesting moment 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:01.520 in tech history and the the move of signal pirates. 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:04.080 How was that even possible? So I hope you enjoyed 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:07.360 this classic episode of tech Stuff. Chuck. If you were 0:01:07.959 --> 0:01:15.720 in Chicago on November two and you were watching h 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.479 w g N at nine pm because you you want 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:21.760 to check out the news and it's coming up on 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.600 the sports, which I know you're a fan of the sports, 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.640 what happened, Well, that could have happened because I would 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.720 have been sixteen at the time. Yeah, you and I 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.320 are in this age wheelhouse. Yeah, we we actually were alive, 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:38.880 yeah at this time, and we were, we would have 0:01:38.920 --> 0:01:42.959 been aware of at least the entity that appeared instead 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:47.319 of the sports scores um. But yeah, something weird happened 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:51.680 at that moment. There was an interruption in normal service. Yeah, 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.320 what they call it broadcast intrusion, and uh, like all 0:01:55.360 --> 0:01:59.520 classic broadcast intrusions, it started with a little grainy, you know, 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:03.480 static going on, and they're always a little unsettling when 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:05.720 you watch them, even if they're goofy. Yeah, this is 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:08.000 something kind of creepy about it. You know, what's out 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:10.880 of place, and there's something that, especially when it's something 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.640 as ritualistic as the news, you know that follows a 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.640 very specific pattern, and when something goes outside that pattern, 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.720 you know, that upsets our little world balance for a moment. 0:02:22.600 --> 0:02:27.120 So in this case, the there was, like you said, 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:31.320 there was this this disturbance in the horse and a 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:36.880 new picture popped up and replaced the sportscaster, and it 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.440 was a guy in a disturbing rubber mask and that 0:02:40.480 --> 0:02:45.359 mask was of a specific eighties icon, which I think 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.519 a lot of people don't even know who this is anymore. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:51.760 But Max headroom. Yeah, if if you're a child of 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.160 the eighties, Max Max Bedroom loomed large for a while. 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.919 And I know when this intrusion came out, this broadcast intrusion, 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.040 it seemed like about half the people even knew who 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.760 he was trying to imitate, and then the other half 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:08.520 just had no idea. They thought it was just some 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:11.320 weirdo with the mask. Yeah. Well, and part of that 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.760 was because, uh, the quality of the video was not 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.400 exactly super high quality. But on top of that, yeah, 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.840 it's kind of a niche thing, and he was Max 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:25.480 Hedroom was used as sort of a spokes thing, I guess, 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:29.280 a spokesman for a new coke. Sure that that great 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:33.400 move by the Coca Cola company. Yeah, oh man, I 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.880 remember that well, I remember it with Paine. Yeah, so 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:42.120 living living in Atlanta, the whole Coca Cola New Coke 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:45.760 thing was it definitely strikes close to home. So yeah, 0:03:45.800 --> 0:03:48.880 he um, he was a spokesman for that as well 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.160 as a kind of a fantasy character who appeared on 0:03:51.240 --> 0:03:54.240 lots of other stuff. But generally speaking, if you don't 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:56.600 know who Max Hedroom is first, just go ahead and 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.520 do an image search, because it'll pop right up. Yeah, 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.920 but it's a character that was supposed to look like 0:04:03.080 --> 0:04:06.000 a digital character, right, It was supposed to like a 0:04:06.000 --> 0:04:10.560 computer generated image, and it was kind of a guy 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:14.240 with a long face and weird, kind of ridged hair. 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:19.279 He had always had a dynamic c g I background 0:04:19.320 --> 0:04:21.200 behind him that look like kind of just like Neon 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:24.839 stripes that were constantly twisting and turning in different ways. 0:04:25.440 --> 0:04:28.560 And he would stutter, you have a digital stutter occasionally, 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:33.279 and Uh would be very kind of snarky and sarcastic, 0:04:33.839 --> 0:04:38.359 and ultimately got a television series as well, as you know, 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:40.479 two couple different television series, one of them which was 0:04:40.520 --> 0:04:42.120 like a talk show and one of which was more 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:46.599 of a like an actual fictional story, like an with 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:48.960 an arc. Yeah, that one was pretty good. Actually, the 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.240 original British show, even though it was a lot of 0:04:51.240 --> 0:04:54.479 American actors, was was pretty cool and definitely ahead of 0:04:54.520 --> 0:04:57.360 its time as far as you know. The whole idea 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.839 was that this uh roving reporter was I think Matt 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.720 Frewer played him as a real dude and as Max Headroom, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.159 but he was digitally replaced with this character Max Headroom, 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.000 and at the time it just seemed really odd, But 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:12.600 now when you look back at it and watch it, 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:14.640 it's like, man, the show was kind of ahead of this. Yeah, 0:05:14.640 --> 0:05:18.599 it was really prescient. Yeah it was. It also revealed 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.280 where the name came from. Where Matt Frewer's character, as 0:05:22.279 --> 0:05:25.120 I recall, is waylaid and the last thing he sees 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.120 before he loses consciousness is a sign on a on 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.320 a a wall that's tells what the Max Headroom for. 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:36.320 That wall is pretty clad became the character's name. Uh yeah. 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:40.360 So the person who appeared on this video was wearing 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:44.400 a Max Headroom mask and had this corrugated metal background 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:48.720 sort of emulated the digital look, wore the suit that 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:50.960 Max Headroom more like just a dark suit and tie, 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:54.359 and um yeah, this thing was the metal background. It 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.760 looked like like a garage door. It was just sort 0:05:56.800 --> 0:05:58.880 of spinning in the background. Yeah, it was. It was 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:03.479 on some sort of gimbal or something. That's what I figured. Yeah, 0:06:03.520 --> 0:06:05.800 because you can tell it's swinging back and forth, so 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.800 predictably it can't be held by somebody. You had to 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:12.359 be on some sort of pivot or something, and but 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.159 it's moving backward and forward, so it kind of mimics 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:20.200 that that digital line twisting in the background, and except 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.599 for one part, there's a part where there's a clear 0:06:22.680 --> 0:06:26.960 cut in the video. The video itself was about or 0:06:26.960 --> 0:06:29.159 at least what we've seen is about a minute and 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:32.040 twenty two seconds. Yeah, well, actually, I don't think we differentiated. 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.680 There were two videos, two intrusions. The first one was 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:37.800 short and had no audio and was on w g N, 0:06:38.279 --> 0:06:41.039 and then about two hours later they hijacked the PBS 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.400 affiliate and that's where the classic minute and a half, 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:47.880 nearly minute and a half with audio, really strange audio 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.040 comes through. That's right, because that first one, like you said, 0:06:50.080 --> 0:06:52.719 I'm glad you pointed that out, it was silent. It 0:06:52.839 --> 0:06:56.400 was the images from the and the image and the 0:06:56.440 --> 0:06:58.800 audio from w g N was cut, but there was 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:00.960 no audio coming out of the I think there's like 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.360 a buzzing noise that came in through the first intrusion, 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:08.280 and you saw this this figure just sitting there and 0:07:08.360 --> 0:07:11.400 kind of rocking back and forth like left and right, 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:16.600 which is concerning. Yeah, it was definitely like you felt 0:07:16.640 --> 0:07:19.720 like something is really wrong at that moment. And when 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:21.680 it came back, the sportscaster said, you might be wondering 0:07:21.720 --> 0:07:24.440 what just happened. I know, I am uh something along 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:26.640 those lines. But yes, the second one you had the 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.200 audio and it played for the what we what appeared 0:07:30.240 --> 0:07:32.680 to be the length of the video. The first section 0:07:32.760 --> 0:07:37.400 had uh, the guy just saying odd things and they 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:40.720 were all very Chicago specific. Well, and and sort of 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.960 slamming w g N because he slammed the Chuck swart 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:50.120 Sky Yeah as a freaking liberal. Yeah that one think 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.280 he is a sportscaster for w g N. Yeah. And 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.240 uh he also talked about the Greatest World Newspaper Nerds 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:00.000 something like that. But w g N stands for World 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:04.480 Old's Greatest Newspaper. That. Yeah, So it turned out that 0:08:04.480 --> 0:08:08.760 that little know, the great the great World Newspaper Nerds 0:08:08.840 --> 0:08:12.920 or whatever however worded it, that was a reference back 0:08:12.960 --> 0:08:16.040 to w g N. So it's very clearly intended for 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.840 w g N. And the first attack wasn't as effective 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:22.920 as as they had hoped because, uh, like I said, 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:25.760 there was no audio. And also the folks at w 0:08:25.880 --> 0:08:28.280 g N, once they figured out something was going on, 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:32.240 very quickly changed the frequency transmitters. So they said, we'll 0:08:32.280 --> 0:08:35.440 just hit PBS, I guess, yeah, yeah, which is interesting. 0:08:35.480 --> 0:08:37.640 We'll talk more about how that kind of helps us 0:08:37.760 --> 0:08:41.240 know a little more about the attackers. Because here's the 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:47.439 other thing. To this day, there there's no the public 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.959 has no idea who did this. Yeah. I think that's 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:52.240 why this story has lingered, and it's so cool is 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:55.600 because anytime you have an unsolved mystery, even if it's uh, 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.880 just sort of an odd broadcast intrusion like this, people 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.000 are going to be obsessed with it. Um. We've a 0:09:01.000 --> 0:09:04.760 lot of the information from that I did research on 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.840 came from a motherboard kind of the mother of all articles, 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:12.200 some great research yea Chris middle who wrote this. Yeah, 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:13.920 the article, if you want to look for it, is 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:18.000 the Mystery of the Creepiest Television Hack. And I agree 0:09:18.040 --> 0:09:21.360 this article is fantastic. It really lays out not just 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:25.400 the incident, but also other things that had happened beforehand 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.120 that kind of laid the groundwork for this, as well 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.680 as just a discussion, although a brief one, about the 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.840 hacker culture that existed at that time and how that 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:42.599 kind of lends itself to people who maybe are cleverer 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:46.040 than is good for them or could be very way 0:09:46.040 --> 0:09:48.240 to say. Yeah, because as it turns out, the f 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:51.839 c C here in the United States does not take 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:57.640 kindly to folks intruding upon established airways. No, it's it's 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.960 a big no no, especially with bare butt, which I 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:04.000 think you said. Once the camera cuts, we didn't continue there. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.840 That's when it got really weird because there's a camera 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:10.640 cut and then you see the mask is off, but 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:12.319 the guy has his head out of frame and is 0:10:12.320 --> 0:10:15.360 just sort of holding the mask. He has pants down, 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:19.040 showing his his bear Fannie, and then yeah from profile 0:10:19.080 --> 0:10:22.040 and then a lady on the right, uh, and it 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.640 looks like some sort of Old West like Antiochley type. 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:27.720 Garb spanked him with a fly swatter on his butt, 0:10:27.760 --> 0:10:32.360 although spanks is really being generous. She's very slowly and 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.600 lightly tapping him on the bottom with the flyswater, so 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:38.200 to the point where you're you're thinking, like, I guess 0:10:38.200 --> 0:10:41.440 that's supposed to represent spanking. Uh, doesn't look like any 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:43.600 spanking I ever received as a kid. And I got 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:47.160 you anyway, That's pretty much where the video cut off, 0:10:47.240 --> 0:10:50.079 and then it went right back into Doctor Who and 0:10:50.320 --> 0:10:53.000 which is really funny to see the transition. Yeah, yeah, 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.319 he died of an electric shock. Yeah, you've got to 0:10:56.320 --> 0:10:58.800 watch the whole incident on YouTube if you haven't already, 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.400 and in case you're cure areous, that episode is we're 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.720 talking classic Doctor Who obviously back in seven. This is 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.640 not the reboot. Uh, it was the Horror of fang Rock. 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:10.920 So if that's your favorite episode, I'm sorry that was 0:11:10.960 --> 0:11:16.080 interrupted back. So yeah, and like we said, the the 0:11:16.120 --> 0:11:20.040 audio really showed that that the public television station wasn't 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.320 the intended target. It was the It was a target 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:27.319 of opportunity after the first attempt failed. And uh, and 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:30.480 we'll talk more about the technology behind that and why 0:11:30.559 --> 0:11:33.280 they had to switch from one to the other. Um, 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:37.280 it turns out it was largely a practical issue, at 0:11:37.360 --> 0:11:41.080 least as far as I can determine. And it was. 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:46.160 There were also references within the little Weird diet tribe 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.120 the guy made to Coca Cola because he said catch 0:11:49.200 --> 0:11:50.840 the waves and he had a new coat can that 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:54.360 he threw down the ground. Yeah, and also a reference 0:11:54.400 --> 0:11:59.400 to the cult cartoon Clutch Cargo. Yeah, he hummed the 0:11:59.400 --> 0:12:04.120 theme Clutch Cargo. If you've ever seen the movie Pulp Fiction, Um, 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:10.120 the scene with young Bruce Willis back in the nineteen seventies, 0:12:10.160 --> 0:12:14.600 I guess with Christopher Walkin as his guardian. He's watching 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.400 Clutch Cargo on TV. There that with the mouth's cut out. 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:22.640 O'Brien has also used that same comedic effect using the 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:26.040 live action in order. Because what what the whole point 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.800 was was it was an idea of of reducing the 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.640 cost of animation big time. Because there was no animation. 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:34.720 You had to picture, yeah, still picture, and then you 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.200 would superimpose live actors mouths on top of it. And 0:12:38.240 --> 0:12:42.440 if that sounds creepy and disturbing to you, you you're 0:12:42.480 --> 0:12:45.120 on the right track. It was not the only cartoon 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.800 to do this. There were a few others. Um, thank 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:53.320 you Cambria Productions for who and uh yeah, so he 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:56.319 hummed like the whole Clutch Cargo theme and made references 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:00.400 to actual episodes of Clutch Cargo. Uh so it was 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:03.720 certainly someone with an odd sense of humor who did this. Now, 0:13:03.760 --> 0:13:06.160 there was no other message, right, there was no. It 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.720 wasn't like a political thing, this very stream of consciousness 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:13.000 kind of weird. He holds up, I guess what we 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:16.439 can cleanly describe as a marital aid. Yes, at one 0:13:16.480 --> 0:13:19.240 point and throws that on the ground and um, it's 0:13:19.320 --> 0:13:22.840 just once the fly swatting comes in, it's just obvious 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:25.720 that they're kind of free forming. Although it was not live, 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:27.959 which is important to know. This is at a video 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.040 tape that they made. Yeah, yeah, and it was because 0:13:30.040 --> 0:13:33.680 I mean, in order to do a live intrusion would 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.840 require essentially a studio and you'd have to have some 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.000 sort of linked to a transmitter that also had line 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.120 of sight to the same antenna as whatever target you 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.360 were you're aiming at, So that would have been an 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:51.120 astoundingly complicated. This is definitely a little easier to pull off. 0:13:51.160 --> 0:13:55.600 So you know, now that we know that this, they've 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:58.800 they've never been found. They're likely never to be found. 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.200 I mean, it's always possible that someone could come forward 0:14:02.600 --> 0:14:04.840 and say, all right, well here's how it actually happened. 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.120 I'm the guy who did this. Would I'm surprised that 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:10.040 hasn't happened by now because the statute of limitations is 0:14:10.120 --> 0:14:12.199 up from yeah, it's way up, so you can't get 0:14:12.240 --> 0:14:16.200 in trouble and it's um I think they would, unless 0:14:16.200 --> 0:14:17.840 they just think it's better left as a mystery. They 0:14:17.840 --> 0:14:21.000 would live in like especially nowadays with the Internet like 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.200 it is, it would blow up, you know, it would 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:27.200 be right. It could possibly be the fact that I mean, 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:29.720 you know, of course we're just projecting here, but it 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:33.280 could possibly be that they are no longer terribly proud 0:14:33.320 --> 0:14:35.520 of what they did, and or that they've moved on 0:14:35.600 --> 0:14:38.640 in their lives. Yeah, there's there's a significant amount of 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:40.560 time since then, and they might have thought, you know, 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.560 I'm not going to brag about something I did when 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:45.640 I was younger and dumber, especially now that I'm the 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:50.120 CEO of ABC. Right, that might end up, By the way, 0:14:50.160 --> 0:14:52.480 we do not actually mean that the CEO of ABC 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:55.440 or Didny Disney affiliates are involved, of course, of course. 0:14:56.280 --> 0:14:59.520 But the other interesting thing is that this was not 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:05.080 the first time that um A A an intrusion had 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.440 happened in in broadcast history. The first one, if you 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:12.520 want to go back, actually didn't happen in the United States. 0:15:12.520 --> 0:15:16.800 It happened back in UH the UK in nineteen seventies seven, 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:22.280 and that was when a hoaxer interrupted a Southern television 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:26.680 broadcast by UH inserting audio. It didn't change the video. 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:28.720 So this was kind of the opposite of what had 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:32.520 happened the first time with the Max Hedroum incident. But 0:15:32.760 --> 0:15:36.280 it was an audio stream that came in and carried 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:40.160 a message from the alien villain. Uh, and this is 0:15:40.160 --> 0:15:43.400 in the like I said, in the UK, So obviously 0:15:43.880 --> 0:15:47.480 the alien had an English accent. I guess that's only 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.920 you know, fair like, if you're going to interrupt someone's program, 0:15:51.000 --> 0:15:53.080 you want to make sure you're speaking in the dialect, 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:57.640 you know, right, Yeah, suddenly they spoke like like with 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.480 a French accent. I mean that would just be adding 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:04.920 insult in But anyway, so it was a message that 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.680 essentially said that humans should prepare themselves for the worst 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.600 because you know, destruction is a common Yeah, that's great. 0:16:10.800 --> 0:16:13.640 That's what a broadcast intrusion should be, some creepy warning, 0:16:13.760 --> 0:16:16.640 not just a random series of images that disturb you 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:18.560 for things that you can't quite put your finger on, 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:23.360 although that is more disturbing. Almost. Yeah. Then six we 0:16:23.400 --> 0:16:25.960 get the first one in the United States. Uh. And 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:29.080 this was an inside job deal. This was happened on 0:16:29.120 --> 0:16:33.200 April at twelve thirty two am and it involved the 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:37.800 East Coast feed of HBO. And Uh, what happened was 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:40.640 the HBO was showing a movie called The Falcon and 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:45.560 the Snowman Classic. You know it certainly could not be 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:50.240 helped by approximately four minutes of footage missing because they've 0:16:50.280 --> 0:16:52.960 been replaced by a series of colored bars that say 0:16:52.960 --> 0:16:57.920 good evening, HBO from Captain Midnight twelve a month, no 0:16:58.080 --> 0:17:01.720 Way Showtime movie Channel Beware. Yeah, that had a clear 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:06.200 motive and and and actually ironically the um the guy 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:09.240 was caught. His name was John R. McDougall, and he 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:13.000 was an employee of Central Florida Teleport And he used 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.800 what do he use? He the was it the text 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.560 that he used? He? Yeah, so the text generators that 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.320 the companies used in order to put an overlay on 0:17:22.359 --> 0:17:24.960 top of a screen. So like like the actual words 0:17:25.000 --> 0:17:28.280 that were being used there, Well, they're very particular. And 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:31.879 by measuring things like the height of the the font, 0:17:32.040 --> 0:17:35.680 the how far uh the middle bar of an e 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:39.560 is according to the other sides, how close together those 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.080 words are, investigators were able to narrow it down to 0:17:43.119 --> 0:17:48.600 a specific machine. Yeah, it's pretty fingerprint up there. Yeah. Yeah, 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.000 this is like incredible forensics, right. It's sort of like 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.760 if someone gets hold of a typewritten sheet of paper 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.000 and is able to determine the model of typewriter that 0:17:57.040 --> 0:17:59.600 was used to actually make this but in this case 0:17:59.600 --> 0:18:03.080 it got even more specific, because these machines aren't everywhere, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.720 and that's what led them to track down McDougall, who, uh, 0:18:07.880 --> 0:18:12.240 who had just decided that the recent hike in prices 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:16.439 for a monthly subscription to HBO were unconscionable and he 0:18:16.480 --> 0:18:18.639 had to make it known. So, yeah, he had a 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.400 side job selling satellite dish service. Yeah, so he thought 0:18:22.480 --> 0:18:26.840 that would nick his business some. And so he eventually 0:18:26.840 --> 0:18:29.720 was caught and pled guilty, paid a five thousand dollar fine, 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.080 and served just one year probation. And it was that 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:36.919 incident that led I believe Congress to make it a 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:41.760 federal violation to a broad Yeah, it was a felony 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.160 all of a sudden. Yeah, because they suddenly said, wait, 0:18:44.200 --> 0:18:47.040 now that people can actually do this, now great, this 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.120 was someone, like we said, an inside job. They had 0:18:49.200 --> 0:18:52.600 access to a satellite. What what he actually did was 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:57.600 he pointed the satellite of Central Florida Teleport at the 0:18:57.800 --> 0:19:02.560 HBO satellite. So easy, chuck, you and I we wouldn't 0:19:02.560 --> 0:19:06.000 even know where the heck that satellite is. So even 0:19:06.000 --> 0:19:09.240 if we had the equipment and everything else, we'd just 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:11.400 beat it. Well, the sky is a lot bigger than 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:14.679 I had taken into account. And uh, you know, of 0:19:14.720 --> 0:19:16.600 course we'd have to be someplace where we could actually 0:19:16.600 --> 0:19:18.399 get a good clear view of the sky because if 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:21.840 they're building in the way or something. But uh, yeah, 0:19:21.880 --> 0:19:24.520 so he he was a good example of that. And 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:29.800 then September, so this is just before the the incident 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:34.880 with the Max Hedgerm incident, Thomas Hainey hijacked a signal 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.480 at on the Playboy channel. I think I remember hearing 0:19:37.520 --> 0:19:39.960 about this one. Yeah, it was one where it was 0:19:40.240 --> 0:19:43.639 sending in religious messages essentially saying repent and and you 0:19:43.680 --> 0:19:47.200 know you are, uh, discard your wicked ways, that kind 0:19:47.200 --> 0:19:50.240 of thing, right, And it's no surprise because he actually 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:52.960 worked for the Christian Broadcast Network. Yeah, so again he 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:55.680 had a job. Yeah, he had access to the equipment 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:58.919 necessary and the knowledge necessary to be able to do this. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:01.840 It's not something that the uh, the average person would 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:05.040 be able to do. And again it was the character generator, 0:20:05.119 --> 0:20:08.639 the the font generator that kind of led the way. 0:20:08.680 --> 0:20:11.399 It was the main piece of evidence that was leveled 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.239 against him. Um. I remember that Pat Robertson was very 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:17.640 upset when the verdict was handled handed down. He said 0:20:17.640 --> 0:20:20.879 that there wasn't enough evidence to um to say that 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:23.800 Haney was in fact the person who who did this. Well, 0:20:23.880 --> 0:20:27.040 he was convicted, but um, I think just got probation. 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:30.080 And the first guy, McDougall, is interesting. What he got 0:20:30.119 --> 0:20:33.960 convicted for was operating without a license even though he 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:35.840 had a license. So that was a bit of a 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.479 hinky ruling. I think they just had to convict him 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:39.760 of something because I don't know if the law was 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:41.960 in place at that point. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:44.800 it's kind of like that deal where you realize this 0:20:44.840 --> 0:20:47.280 is someone that we need to punish, but we don't 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:50.520 have a law that covers the crime, and we haven't 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:52.439 defined it as a crime, but we know that this 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:55.280 is something people really shouldn't be able to do, so 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.639 we have to somehow justify it. Um. Yeah. And as 0:20:58.680 --> 0:21:03.120 it turns out, the it every nation, uh, in some 0:21:03.160 --> 0:21:07.720 way or another, ends up regulating the electromagnetic spectrum, but 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:10.360 it changes from one place to the other. Sure there's 0:21:10.359 --> 0:21:14.200 only so much room, right, yeah, exactly. So electromatic spectrum 0:21:14.280 --> 0:21:17.040 goes all the way from radio waves, which can a 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.560 radio wave can be kilometers long, right, and then you 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:22.119 go all the way to the other side to like 0:21:22.240 --> 0:21:26.280 gamma rays we're talking about on the nanoscale and everything 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.720 in between. That's the electromagnetic spectrum. Visible light is part 0:21:29.720 --> 0:21:32.840 of that. You know, visible light is on the short side, 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.720 but radio waves and microwaves are on the longer side. 0:21:36.320 --> 0:21:39.800 And uh not all those radio waves. You know, we 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.159 can't just all use the same ones, because then we 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:46.720 would have interference. Right if if the television and your 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.120 phone used the same frequencies, then you would have interference 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:52.240 between the two, and that would be terrible. Nothing would 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:55.600 be usable, a crunch if there's too much activity on 0:21:55.600 --> 0:21:58.679 one frequency. Yeah, that's that's if you've got everyone just 0:21:58.800 --> 0:22:01.440 using you know what they're supposed to. Let's say everyone 0:22:01.560 --> 0:22:05.919 in the cellular network has they're all on their phones 0:22:06.000 --> 0:22:08.280 that we've seen this happen in the life events they're 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:12.879 post nine eleven New York couldn't. Yeah, or even just 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:15.399 going to a big event like any like c e 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.000 S or any large event like that, you suddenly can't 0:22:18.000 --> 0:22:21.160 get access to anything. That's where you've got more demand 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:24.440 for data transmission than there is capacity. Yeah, I've tried 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:27.800 to get a signal at Comic Con before and ye, no, no, 0:22:27.920 --> 0:22:29.640 the same thing is true a dragon con and that's 0:22:29.680 --> 0:22:33.760 a like a third the size of Comic Con. But yeah, 0:22:33.840 --> 0:22:37.600 it's It's also true that there are wavelengths within the 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:41.399 electromagnetic spectrum that are really good for carrying data and 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:46.000 some that aren't. So the government has divided up the 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.440 electromannetic spectrum and saying these are the sections that can 0:22:49.480 --> 0:22:52.600 be used for specific purposes. So a large part of 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:55.800