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Thomas Shaddack October 28, 2009 11:01 2 Thumb-ups
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Mass media broadcast hijacks

There are some cameras in local mountains, panning across the landscapes. One local TV channel shows them in the morning, showing weather in different areas. In June 2007, Czech guerrilla artists from the Ztohoven group climbed to one of the installations, connected wires from one of the cameras to a portable player, and fed the direct-to-TV broadcast with an altered version of the video, showing a nuclear blast and a mushroom cloud growing in the background.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ztohoven (name meaning either concatenated "Out of it" or, phonetically, "a hundred shits")
(I know somebody who maybe knows somebody so does not fall under "Personal experiences" specs.)
Video here:
News item showing the camera here:

More such incidents happened in other countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_signal_intrusion
The technology can be as simple as gaining physical access and reconnecting cables, or may require directional transmitters.

Even satellites can be hijacked. Old US Navy communication satellites are commonly used to relay radio traffic of third parties.
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2009/04/fleetcom

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Comments

Jack Malinowski October 28, 2009 15:18 Flag

Nice point Delphine:
I imagine as much work would go into the heist as blame shifting so that the network didn't have to take responsibility for the 'action.'

Thomas Shaddack October 28, 2009 12:46 Flag

With sufficiently professional broadcasts, the difference between the original and the injected news may be significantly diminished, leading to the people not being able to distinguish between real and fake information. (Like if they were now. *cough*)

A person able to immitate other people's voices may wreak quite a havoc into a radio transmission, impersonating a newscaster or a figure of authority.

Another use in voice immitation is for e.g. CB or police transceivers, impersonating people with an authority and injecting commands (or at least causing confusion).

Delphine October 28, 2009 12:36 Flag

If accessing broadcasts is so "easy", hundreds of attacks directed simultaneously on such breaches could allow a group to take over the entire global information network and broacast fake news or videos to control opinions and minds... A group of dissidents or anarchists could, for example, broadcast images that would make people join their cause or that would discredit governments.

I think that would be very interesting!

But of course, what would also be interesting is to see, how such a group would prepare a global attack. I am sure it would require months - if not years - of preparation to be ready. Taking the control of the news channels, radio waves and the internet at the same time would be like the apocalypse of the Industrialised World...

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