27 April 1986: Captain Midnight Hijacks HBO's Satellite

["Fergie" <fergdawg () netzero net>]

Damn, I love a great hack. And this one ranks right up there. ;-)

Some of us old-timers remember this well, I'm sure.

Via Wikipedia.

[snip]

Controversy erupted in the cable programming world in the mid-1980s as cable operators began scrambling their 
programming and charging fees to home satellite dish owners who accessed the same satellite signals cable operators 
received. Many satellite dish owners were forced to purchase descrambling equipment at a cost of hundreds of dollars in 
addition to paying monthly or annual subscription fees to cable programming providers. Programming costs for home dish 
owners were often higher than fees paid by cable subscribers, despite dish owners being responsible for owning and 
servicing their own equipment.

When HBO scrambled its signal, it offered subscriptions to home dish owners for $12.95 per month, which was either 
equal to or slightly higher than what cable subscribers paid. Dish owners felt they were being asked to pay a price 
that was designed to be anti-competitive, and it triggered a national movement among dish owners to more strongly 
regulate the cable industry and force them to stop anti-competitive pricing.

While some dish owners called their elected officials, others took a more direct approach to send a message to the 
large industry.

On the evening of April 27, 1986 at 12:32am John R. MacDougall, a satellite TV dealer in Ocala, Florida was working at 
Central Florida Teleport, a company that uplinks services to satellites. He was overseeing the uplink of the movie 
Pee-wee's Big Adventure. At the end of his shift he swung the dish back in to its storage position pointing directly 
upward which happened to be the location of Galaxy 1, the satellite that carries HBO. As a protest against the 
introduction of high fees and scrambling equipment he transmitted a signal onto the satellite which overrode HBO's 
airing of The Falcon and the Snowman.

[snip]

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Box_Office#Captain_Midnight_Attacks

- ferg


--
"Fergie", a.k.a. Paul Ferguson
 Engineering Architecture for the Internet
 fergdawg () netzero net or fergdawg () sbcglobal net
 ferg's tech blog: http://fergdawg.blogspot.com/


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