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We interrupt this program to warn you of the zombie apocalypse

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Bob Cook, Feb 12, 2013.

  1. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    Hackers break into a Great Falls, Mont., television station and announce that bodies are rising from the dead:

    http://www.mediaite.com/tv/local-montana-station-breaks-into-programming-with-emergency-zombie-apocalypse-alert/

    Two Marquette, Mich., TV stations got hacked into broadcasting that warning as well.

    http://miningjournal.net/page/content.detail/id/584397/TV-s-Emergency-Alert-System-hacked.html?nav=5006

    This reminds me of the greatest hack of all time: in 1987, someone committed a "broadcast signal intrusion" to break into WGN-TV and WTTW-TV in Chicago to air some creepy Max Headroom knockoff. (clip may not be safe for work, given the spanking at the end.) Those responsible have never been found.

     
  2. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    I always enjoyed when they hijacked the signal of JImmy Carter's speech to the nation to do a commercial for Luke Fuch's Car Lot.

     
  3. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    Ah...Marquette, my hometown. I love it! LOL
     
  4. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    In both Montana and the UP, I presume the locals have enough firepower on hand to handle the relatively limited number of dead in the area. At least my cousin with the house full o' taxidermy does.
     
  5. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    That was a criminally underrated movie.
     
  6. BitterYoungMatador2

    BitterYoungMatador2 Well-Known Member

    You put a fire hose on nuns?
    Yeah, and we whopped dey asses too!
     
  7. printit

    printit Member

    I had never heard of this Headroom hacking. I spent too much time today researching it. Wow. A couple of theories online, including one on Reddit, but nothing really solid. Probably someone still out there pretty proud of this. Well played to them, I say.
     
  8. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    My buddy from college works for WNMU-TV and here is what he posted on my facebook:

    "The default password for the admin account was never changed (and I'm guessing that's what happened at other stations as well). However, to the engineers at our station, this is all new technology to them. These are guys who have been here 20-30 years who probably still prefer the old ways to the new. We've never had an EAS that you can access via internet. The company that installed the device last year basically came in and was here for a few hours, set up the basics, and left. Never did they bother to say "Hey, you should change the default password" while they were here, so yeah, it got overlooked. With a lot of technology at the station becoming more online accessible, we've had other companies come in and install stuff (behind secure firewalls or private networks, which this one was NOT) and setup user accounts while they were here and train us on the equipment. This one, not so much.

    The company that makes this device put the user manual with the default login/password online available to the public. Not only did they have the default admin account available in the user manual, but the default password for root access to the physical box itself was also in the instruction manual. We had an NMU IT guy helping us with all this yesterday morning and within minutes he found the manual on their website and accessed all this stuff just from reading the manual. For something as important as the EAS system, you would think they wouldn't make that available to everyone. At least put it behind some secure access so only member stations can download it or something.

    Anyways, good lesson for the folks here, and I'm glad the prank was only zombies and not some message of a more serious matter being broadcast. I'm sure if that happened, many of the folks who found this funny and congratulating the prankster wouldn't have the same reaction."
     
  9. Armchair_QB

    Armchair_QB Well-Known Member

    What could be more serious than zombies? That's a big fucking deal.
     
  10. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    My UP relatives are surmising that with all the pasty white skin and slow movement this time of year, who the hell could tell if there were zombies?
     
  11. spikechiquet

    spikechiquet Well-Known Member

    Ha! Fantastic!
     
  12. Football_Bat

    Football_Bat Well-Known Member

    That this didn't happen in Glendive instead is a minor upset.
     
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