Type of intentional interference with wireless signals
A broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of broadcast signals of radio, television stations, cable television broadcast feeds or satellite signals without permission or licence. Hijacking incidents have involved local TV and radio stations as well as cable and national networks.
Although television, cable, and satellite broadcast signal intrusions tend to receive more media coverage, radio station intrusions are more frequent, as many simply rebroadcast a signal received from another radio station. All that is required is an FM transmitter that can overpower the same frequency as the station being rebroadcast. Other methods that have been used in North America to intrude on legal broadcasts include breaking into the transmitter area and splicing audio directly into the feed.[1]
As a cable television operator connects itself in the signal path between individual stations and the system's subscribers, broadcasters have fallen victim to signal tampering on cable systems on multiple occasions.
On November 26, 1977, an audio message, purporting to come from outer space and conveyed by an individual named 'Vrillon' of the 'Ashtar Galactic Command', was broadcast during an ITN news bulletin on Southern Television in the United Kingdom. The intrusion did not entirely affect the video signal but replaced the program audio with a six-minute speech about the destiny of the human race and a disaster to affect "your world and the beings on other worlds around you". The IBA confirmed that it was the first time such a transmission had been made.
MacDougall's message as seen by HBO viewers, over the SMPTE color bars.
At 12:32 a.m. Eastern Time on April 27, 1986, HBO (Home Box Office) had its satellite signal feed from its operations center on Long Island in Hauppauge, New York interrupted by a man calling himself "Captain Midnight". The interruption occurred during a presentation of The Falcon and the Snowman. The intrusion lasted between 4 and 5 minutes and was seen by viewers along the East Coast. The man, who during the interruption also threatened to hijack the signals of Showtime and The Movie Channel, was later caught and identified as John R. MacDougall of Ocala, Florida. He was prosecuted shortly thereafter. Authorities were tipped off by a man from Wisconsin in a phone booth at a rest area of Interstate 75 in Gainesville, Florida. The man filing the report said that he overheard MacDougall bragging about the incident.
MacDougall's guilt was confirmed by an FCC investigation that showed he was alone at Central Florida Teleport at the time of the incident and a recording of the jamming video showed that the text was created by a character generator at that location. He was charged with transmitting without a radio license in violation of 47 U.S.C.§ 301. MacDougall pled guilty and was fined $5,000 and served a year of probation. Ambiguity about whether the 47 USC 301 charge was applicable since the transmitter had a license resulted in the passage of 18 U.S.C.§ 1367 which made satellite jamming a felony.
MacDougall was able to perform the intrusion while working a second job as a master control operator at a satellite teleport in Florida, where he worked to make ends meet due to declining income from his satellite TV equipment business. He stated that he did it because he was frustrated with HBO's service rates and that it was hurting his business selling satellite dishes (hence his second job at the teleport). The message, placed over SMPTE color bars, broadcast by MacDougall read:
GOODEVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT $12.95/MONTH ? NO WAY ! [SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!]
On the night of November 22, 1987, an unidentified man wearing a Max Headroom mask appeared on the signals of two television stations in Chicago, Illinois. WGN-TV, owned by Tribune Broadcasting, was hijacked first. The intrusion occurred during the sports report on its 9:00 p.m. newscast and lasted about 25 seconds. Next came PBS affiliate WTTW, where the man was seen and heard uttering garbled remarks before dropping his pants, partially exposing his buttocks, and was then spanked with a flyswatter by a woman wearing a French maid costume before normal programming resumed. This second interception occurred at about 11:00 p.m. during an episode of the Doctor Who serial, "Horror of Fang Rock", and lasted almost 90 seconds. None of the individuals responsible for the intrusion have been identified. This incident got the attention of the CBS Evening News the next day and was talked about nationwide. The HBO incident was also mentioned in the same news report.
The Playboy Channel religious message
A broadcast of the movie "Three Daughters" on the Playboy Channel was disrupted with a text-only religious message on Sunday, September 6, 1987.[2] The message read, "Thus sayeth the Lord thy God: Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Repent, the kingdom of Heaven is at hand."[3][4] (from the Bible verses Exodus 20:8 and Matthew 4:17).
Thomas Haynie, an employee of the Christian Broadcasting Network, was convicted of satellite piracy in connection with the incident.[3] Haynie, who pleaded his innocence,[4] was the first person convicted under a new federal law which had made satellite hacking a felony following the Captain Midnight incident.[5]
According to investigators, it was the religious content of the transmission and the type of equipment used that drew them to CBN. The jamming signal left behind subtle technical clues that were captured on a VHS recording made at the Playboy Channel's uplink at the time of the event – like finding "fingerprints" in the video. After investigators were confident that they identified the brand of transmitter and character generator from the video, they concluded that CBN was the culprit. Haynie, of Virginia Beach, Virginia, was on duty at his job as an uplink engineer at the time of the jamming.[6]
CBN maintained that the FCC's case was entirely circumstantial since there were no witnesses and the signal could not be traced to a point of origin. During the investigation, experts on both sides attempted to recreate the incident with CBN's equipment. According to CBN spokesman Dino McCann, they were unsuccessful.[7] Furthermore, CBN asserted that there was not enough power for Haynie to jam Playboy's signal[7] but during the trial, government witnesses said the CBN station was capable of interfering with satellite transmissions.[8]
After initially being deadlocked,[2] the jury eventually sided with the prosecution and convicted Haynie on two of six counts. (Haynie was acquitted of similar charges of interfering with the American Exxxtasy channel;[3] a recording of the event was of such poor quality that it was unusable.) Haynie received three years of probation, a $1,000 fine, and 150 hours of community service.[8]
On February 11, 2013, Great Falls, Montana, CBS affiliate KRTV had their Emergency Alert System hijacked with an audible message warning viewers that "the bodies of the dead are rising from their graves and attacking the living."[9][10] Later the same night in Marquette, Michigan, and the early morning hours in La Crosse, Wisconsin, the same type of hijacking and reference to a "zombie invasion" was made over the EAS systems of CBS affiliate WKBT-DT, ABC affiliate WBUP and PBS member station WNMU during primetime programming.[11][12] Shortly afterward, PBS affiliate KENW of Portales, New Mexico, was struck with a similar hacking incident, repeating similar information regarding zombies;[13] however, this led to the arrest of the hacker of the four television stations.[14]
"Telewizja Solidarność" (TV Solidarity)
In September 1985, four astronomers at Poland's University of Toruń (Zygmunt Turło, Leszek Zaleski, Piotr Łukaszewski, and Jan Hanasz) used a ZX Spectrum home computer, a synchronizing circuit, and a transmitter to superimpose messages in support of the labor movement Solidarność (Solidarity) over state-run television broadcasts in Toruń, including an episode of 07 zgłoś się. The messages read "Dość podwyżek cen, kłamstw I represji. Solidarność Toruń" ("Enough price increases, lies, and repressions. Solidarity Toruń") and "Bojkot wyborów naszym obowiązkiem." ("It is our duty to boycott the election", referring to the Sejm elections of 1985) with the Solidarity logo.[15] The four men were eventually discovered and were charged with "possession of an unlicensed radio transmitter and publication of materials that could cause public unrest". At their sentencing, the judge noted their prize-winning work in the Polish scientific community and gave each of them probation and a fine of the equivalent of US$100 each (or 3,000,000 old złoty, 300 PLN in today's currency).[16]
Soviet pirate broadcasting
The broadcast signal intrusion was a common practice in the Soviet Union during the 1970s and 1980s due to the absence of and high demand for any non-government broadcasting.[17] As early as 1966, there was a report of an incident in the city of Kaluga where an 18-year-old had broadcast a hoax announcement that nuclear war had broken out with the United States.[18]
In the mid-1970s so many pirates were operating around the city of Arkhangelsk, especially at night, that local people were urged to telephone reports of violators to a special number.[17]
Hijackers using call signs such as "Cucumber", "Radio Millimeter", "Green Goat", "Fortune", and others, would overpower the signal on relay stations for wired radio networks to transmit their programming, or transmit into wired radio networks during gaps in regular programming.[17] Even though the incidents appear to have been fairly common according to reports from the BBC,[17] most were not publicly acknowledged for policy reasons. Reports in newspapers typically referred to the hijackers as "radio hooligans broadcasting drivel, rudeness, vulgarity, uncensored expressions, and trashy music".[17] State news organizations also spread propaganda against such pirate broadcasters, claiming that they had interfered with a state frequency used by Aeroflot, "preventing a doctor in an air ambulance from transmitting information about a patient".[17]
2002 Falun Gong hijackings
On February 16, 2002, television signals in the Chinese city of Anshan were briefly hijacked by members of the Falun Gong religious movement in order to clarify the events of the Tiananmen Square self-immolation incident of the previous year. On March 5, 2002, further intrusions took place on cable television channels in the cities of Changchun and Songyuan, protesting persecution by the Chinese government. Different sources vary as to the length of the intrusion, with figures cited including 10 minutes, 50 minutes or even as long as four hours. In September of the same year, 15 people were convicted of roles in the incident and were given prison terms of up to 20 years. On September 9, Falun Gong followers again disrupted broadcasting, this time targeting nationwide satellite broadcasting. By 2010, several of those involved had reportedly died in prison.[19][20][21][22]
On the morning of Wednesday, May 17, 2006, the signal of Babylon, New York, FM radio station WBAB was hijacked for about 90 seconds[24] while the signal jammers broadcast the song "Nigger Hatin' Me" by 1960s-era white supremacistcountry singer Johnny Rebel.[25] Roger Luce, the station's morning host, said at the time, "Whatever that was - it was very racist... 22 years at this radio station - I've never seen anything like this."[26]
The next morning, it made the front page on Newsday with the headline "JACKED FM". The station's new general manager, John Shea, said, "I've only been here a week and we get hijacked."[27] Former program director John Olsen said, "This was not some child's prank, this was a federal offense."[24][28]
On February 26, 2022, the hacker group Anonymous, as part of the cyber war declared to Russia, hacked several pro-Kremlin TV channels (Channel One Russia, Russia-1 and others), broadcasting a poem written by the singer Monatik about the Russo-Ukrainian war with its footage and Ukrainian music.[31]
On May 9, 2022, during Russia's Victory Day parade in Moscow, Russian TV listings were hacked to display information about Russia's war crimes, and to protest Russia's invasion of Ukraine using various messages. The names of every TV station were changed to blood is on your hands and other phrases used in the TV listings included television and the authorities are lying and your hands are covered in blood from the deaths of thousands of Ukrainians and their children.[32]
On June 5, 2023, Russian radio stations in regions bordering Ukraine were hacked, broadcasting a fake radio address claiming to be from Putin, declaring martial law, a nationwide military mobilization, and for residents to evacuate deeper into Russia.
[33]
Other incidents
Television signal intrusions
In 1971, several television stations in Manila complained of unauthorized broadcasts of pornographic films–known in local vernacular as "bomba" films–being aired on their channels at midnight after the stations' sign-off.[34]
On July 26, 1980, Fred Barber, then-vice president and general manager for WSB-TV in Atlanta, Georgia, told The Atlanta Constitution that he fired two longtime master control operators from the station after they purposely replaced two seconds of a Georgia Forestry Commission commercial during a break of The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show with a still-photo of a naked woman appearing on screen. Barber said that the two fired operators were known to be responsible for signing the station off the air and back on the air, and replied that the nighttime operator at the time was apparently in a habit of leaving random pieces on tape. At the time of the incident, one of the station's morning employees failed to notice the video and it mistakenly aired on broadcast.[35]
On November 10, 1982, an overnight broadcast of the movie The Green Slime on then-new WVAH-TV in Charleston, West Virginia were replaced by 30 seconds of a pornographic movie taped off of the Escapade Channel. Manager Gary Dreispul replied that the station's technician mistakenly hit a patch panel and walked away before looking at the on-air monitor. He realized the porn in fear before running back to the panel and pressed the button to go dark. Dreispul stated that the technician was suspended pending the investigation and called the incident a "very bad and careless mistake".[36]
During the second inning from Game 1 of the 1988 World Series (known for Kirk Gibson's famous walk-off Home Run) on October 15, 1988, an unidentified technician from NBC affiliate WMGT-TV in Macon, Georgia, was fired after the station's on-air feed replaced 10 seconds of the World Series with a black-and-white pornographic film during its broadcast.[37][38] The hijack made statewide headlines and the station's manager, L.A. Sturdivant, revealed a statement saying that it was triggered as an accident, not deliberately planned, and was being "treated as a serious matter."[39] After three days of investigating, Sturdivant replied that it was most likely that the technician who was fired from the studio accidentally flipped the wrong switch on a master control panel which literally triggers the World Series broadcast on NBC's KU-Band signal to be switched over to the C-Band satellite signal which carries the X-rated material that was relayed into the broadcast. Despite happening most likely at the station's studio, the station's control panel wiring were rerouted during investigation. Officials also left off with other theories that can be involved in the incident. One of which is a videotape that was bought into the studio and being watched by the technician, and the other being deliberate sabotage from an outside prankster that was directly similar to WSB-TV's interruption in 1980, but Sturdivant replied that the hijack was still likely caused by the wrong switch.[40]
On February 10, 1999, four seconds of a pornographic movie were interrupted during a repeat broadcast of The Simpsons episode "Lisa's Rival" on KFXK-TV in Longview, Texas. The station's manager, Mark McCay, reported to the Associated Press that quick reactions from station employees immediately ended the hijack by inserting a 20-second promotional ad for the station and resuming the Simpsons episode. After several minutes, a character generator scroll appeared on-screen apologizing to the viewers and promising an investigation. The unidentified technician who was responsible for viewing the tape was later fired 40 minutes after the incident.[41]
On January 4, 2000, a broadcast of the children's television series Teletubbies on GMA Network in the Philippines was replaced by a still photo of actress Rosanna Roces for several seconds. The photo shows one of Roces's breasts exposed, prompting a warning from the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB). GMA officials stated that the incident was accidental, and was caused by an errant employee who pressed a button whilst helping repair a computer.[42]
On January 3, 2007, in Australia, during a broadcast of an episode of the Canadian television series Mayday (known in Australia as Air Crash Investigation) on the Seven Network, an audio signal unexpectedly started playing, clearly saying in an American accent, "Jesus Christ, help us all, Lord." This same voice message continued to repeat itself over and over during the show for a total of six minutes. A spokesman for Seven later denied that the transmission was a prank or a security breach and claimed that the repeated line was part of the original broadcast and said, "Jesus Christ, one of the Nazarenes", although there is hardly any similarity between the two phrases. A subsequent investigation by independent researchers revealed that the invading transmission was actually from a videotaped news broadcast of a civilian truck being ambushed in the Iraq War on September 20, 2005. It remains unknown whether or not this was an intentional act of television piracy or a genuine glitch of some sort.[43][44]
On March 12, 2007, during a 9 p.m. airing of an Ion Life rebroadcast of a Tom Brokaw-hosted NBC special, State of U.S. Health Care, on Phoenix, Arizona, TV station KPPX-TV, a station employee inserted about 30 seconds of a pornographic film into the broadcast, prompting telephone calls to local news media outlets and the local cable provider, Cox Communications.[45] Parent company Ion Media Networks conducted a rigorous investigation into what they called "an intolerable act of human sabotage", and shortly thereafter, announced that the employee found to be responsible had been fired, threatening further legal action.[46]
On June 17, 2007, an intrusion incident occurred on Czech Television's Sunday morning program Panorama, which shows panoramic shots of Prague and various locations across the country, especially mountain resorts. One of the cameras, located in Černý Důl in the Giant Mountains, had been tampered with on-site and its video stream was replaced with the hackers' own, which contained CGI of a small nuclear explosion in the local landscape, ending in white noise.[47] The broadcast looked authentic enough; the only clue for the viewers was the Web address of the artist group Ztohoven, which had already performed several reality hacking incidents before. Czech Television considered legal action against the group, and tourism workers in the area expressed outrage (since the program serves to promote tourism in the areas shown).[48]
Screenshot of the July 13, 2007, WJLA-TV incident.
On July 13, 2007, a grainy photo of a man and woman interrupted Washington, D.C., ABC affiliate WJLA-TV's digital or HD signal. The picture was not transmitted over the analog signal, however. The incident was deemed a genuine signal intrusion by various websites but has since been confirmed to be the result of an older HDTV encoder malfunctioning in the early morning hours and going undetected. Station management stated that the image was from an advertisement for The Oprah Winfrey Show.[49] A similar incident took place in the Cincinnati Metropolitan Area on March 24, 2016, when a grainy photo of a singer performing interrupted a Comcast headend multiple times. The incident was reported as an unexpected trigger to its Trilithic EASyPLUS Emergency Alert System encoder/decoder while activating a Required Weekly Test. Officials from its executive customer relations department said that one of its video encoders experienced a technical malfunction without incident.[50]
In March 2017, intruders broadcast pornographic content for approximately 15 minutes on Touba TV, an Islamic TV channel in Senegal run by the Mouride Sufi order. In a statement, the channel's management "unreservedly condemn[ed] this criminal act which seems to be sabotage and a satanic trick".[51]
On October 8, 2022, during the Mahsa Amini protests in Iran, the state-run TV channel Islamic Republic TV was hacked by a group going by the name of "Adalat Ali". The screen briefly showed a man in a mask, before switching to a black screen containing Supreme LeaderAli Khamenei engulfed in CGI flames with a target on his forehead, pictures of four women recently killed in the protests and the audio message "Women, life, freedom" on repeat. The hack lasted 12 seconds, before cutting back to a bewildered TV presenter.[52]
On February 1, 2009, a second Comcast headend, in Tucson, Arizona, replaced NBC affiliate KVOA's signal with graphic footage from the pornographic video Wild Cherries 5 in portions of Arizona for 28 seconds, interrupting Super Bowl XLIII between the Arizona Cardinals and the Pittsburgh Steelers during the fourth quarter. Comcast claimed "Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act. We are conducting a thorough investigation to determine who was behind this." KVOA also announced that it will be investigating the incident.[55][56] On February 4, 2011, 38-year-old former Cox Cable employee Frank Tanori Gonzalez of Marana was arrested by the FBI and local police about the case.[57] Later that October, Gonzalez pleaded guilty for two counts of computer tampering and was sentenced to three years of probation, as well as a $1,000 fine to the Arizona attorney general's anti-racketeering fund.[58]
In the morning hours of March 16, 2010, Raleigh area Time Warner Cable's transmission from both Kids and Kids Preschool On Demand channels in the Research Triangle counties of Johnston, Wake, Wayne, and Wilson in North Carolina (including the cities of Raleigh and Goldsboro) was replaced by Playboy TV for approximately two hours, while other TWC cable systems in the area outside the four counties only revealed a black screen. An executive from TWC reported to CBS (now NBC) station WRAL replied that it "was a technical malfunction that caused the wrong previews to be shown" on their kids' on-demand channels.[59]
On April 20, 2012, three minutes of a gay pornographic film was broadcast during a morning news show on the Channel Zero-owned independent station CHCH-DT in Hamilton, Ontario, for Shaw Cable viewers. The night before, a cable was cut; while it was being fixed on the morning of the incident, the adult programming was spliced into CHCH's feed.[60][61]
On March 11, 2016, private satellite dish owners in Israel watching HaAh HaGadol (the Israeli version of Big Brother) on Channel 2 had their show interrupted by propaganda videos from Hamas. The disruption lasted a little over three and a half minutes.[63]
Radio signal intrusions
The BBC's radio broadcast of a musical program on October 14, 1941, was interrupted by Nazi Germans shouting false statements to Britons on "how much money Winston Churchill has been paid by Germans," and saying that "the Germans have being swindled and was led up the garden path and sold to America."[64] The voice led to a target of "Harassing Harry", a counterpart of Russia's "Ivan the Terrible" who heckles German broadcasters becoming a welcome diversion to British broadcasting. The wavering intensity of the voice often gave a similar quality voice of Donald Duck which led some listeners to name him "Von Donald." Later, the heckler began interspersing comments between British news bulletins from the BBC. Some of the hecklings include the voice telling listeners to wait for the following day in the headline on the Germans keeping up their pressure on Ukraine, and the voice saying that a big offensive swept over Northern France has been shot down.[65]
The Federal Bureau of Investigation made major headlines on November 24, 1943, after a 90-second interruption of a Nazi man speaking rapidly over a CBS Radio program only on WOKO-AM in Albany, New York. The FBI later stated that the interruption was reported as a mistake in telephone transmission "or possibly from an enemy broadcast" and reported that there is no "direct allegation" of the latter.[66]
In April 2016, multiple radio stations in the United States were hacked in order to broadcast an explicit podcast about the furry fandom. The hackers targeted individual Barix audio streaming devices that were findable on the search engine Shodan, logged into them, and locked out the owners while airing the podcast.[67][68][69]
On November 10, 2017, intruders broadcast ISIS propaganda for 30 minutes on the Malmö station of Swedish radio network Mix Megapol. A spokesperson for Bauer Media Group, Mix Megapol's owners, stated that "somebody interfered with our frequency using a pirate transmitter" and that they would contact the Swedish Post and Telecom Authority.[70][71]
^ ab"Jury Tries Again on Messages Put in Porn Films". Los Angeles Times. United Press International. September 24, 1990. p. 10. ISSN0458-3035. Archived from the original on March 26, 2020. Retrieved March 26, 2020. A federal judge today ordered deadlocked jurors to resume deliberations in the case of a Christian Broadcasting Network technician accused of interrupting soft-porn movies with religious messages.
^ abc"Porn-Film Message Suspect Is Convicted". Los Angeles Times. September 25, 1990. p. 17. ISSN0458-3035. Archived from the original on March 26, 2020. Retrieved March 26, 2020. [Haynie] was convicted on one felony count of interfering with the operation of a satellite and a misdemeanor count of violating a radio license, both for the interruption of the Playboy Channel. He was acquitted of similar piracy charges regarding interruptions on the American Exxxtasy Channel.
^Gutmann, Ethan (December 6, 2010). "Into Thin Airwaves". The Weekly Standard. Archived from the original on January 5, 2012. Retrieved January 1, 2012.
^ abcRoe, Tom (May 19, 2006). "WBAB radio signal hijacked". free103point9 Newsroom / Transmission Art News. Galen Joseph-Hunter. Archived from the original on March 7, 2020. Retrieved May 16, 2020.
^Malone, Michael (March 21, 2007). "KPPX Sacks Porn Prankster". Broadcasting & Cable. Archived from the original on September 25, 2012. Retrieved September 12, 2017.
