Captan Midnight

[AcWxRadar]

I find it interesting that on a forum renowned for a no-hacker policy, Captain Midnight is so celebrated.
If a ham had done what he did, the FCC would have stripped him of his license for life (I believe).

As for being able to interrupt the programming by transmitting an overriding signal to the satellite, that might be impressive ... if done from home.
However, when you realize he had command of the commercial equipment designed for that very purpose, not so much!

.....
.....
.....

So, in conclusion, if Captain Midnight is such a hero to so many, shall I change my avatar?
Perhaps add an eye patch to my lizard picture?
And instead of clinging to a screen or walking down a twig, should he be proudly perched on a skull 'n crossbones?

Pick a side. -

Nawh!

I know that we all agree that we don't want to support illegal activities like piracy and theft. However, at the time that Captain Midnight performed his escapade, I don't think that there was any really specific law to cover what he did. I bet they had a hard time prosecuting him for the event because, at the time, there probably wasn't any rules of law to cover precisely what he did other than sabotage and libel or slander related items or possibly transmitting without a license (since he transmitted something not approved under the FCC license issued to the company) etc.

That is probably why he got off so easily in his overall punishment, but I am sure that he regrets his actions because it probably marked him for life and has dogged him in his career ever since.

I don't think that any of us really consider it a heroic act of defiance or him as a hero, it's just a unique episode in history that stands out because it was so peculiar. I am sure it wasn't humorous to the parties involved at the time, but looking back, it does make us giggle and draw a slightly devious smile. Like I stated, we all have that romanticism revolving around the perfect crime. That little "deviant" devil in our hearts just want the bad guy to get away with something. Such as D.B. Cooper or the Barefoot Bandit or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or the Jesse James Gang etc. We're not bad and we don't really believe in what they did or how they did it.

We would disagree with them in our minds and our hearts, but there is a part of us that likes it too.

RADAR

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

When he did what he did there was no such thing as piracy. Captain Midnight tried standing up for all of us home satellite users. His message and the way he did it was unorthodox but it sent a message on behalf of dish users all over.

Times have changed over the years and I wouldn't like to see anyone pull the same stunt again. But for the time it happened many of us appreciated him standing up for all of us.

Sent from my iPad using The SatelliteGuys app!

 

[pendragon]

Midnight's action of commandeering resources he did not own in a manner he was not authorized to perform, was in some ways an act of piracy and in others barely distinguishable from hacking. His actions denied the rights of the those who were conducting lawful business to the benefit to the general public. This was an illegal act and he was not prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Denying a person's or business' rights merely because one does not agree with them is a scary proposition, and was/is not "standing up for all of us home satellite users". Most of us accept laws and realities we would not choose on our own because the alternative is chaos and anarchy. History teaches there are rare situations where illegal acts are justified. Midnight merely believed the fees charged to satellite dish owners were too high, in spite of the facts that dish owners were getting a better product than they would on cable and their access was more costly to service. This hardly seems to meet a significant moral standard.

 

[televisionarchives]

I have lots of video talking about this. Some of it's from Denver and I believe I have some video of a very young Charlie Ergen . Many of the C-band dish owners felt cheated but it's like everything else. The Big Ugly Dish was purchased by a few at first. Many couldn't afford them. As the prices dropped more bought the dish when the saw that HBO and other stations were in the clear. HBO saw the numbers as well and did something about it. It was a cat and mouse game for awhile with HBO finding another way to scramble the signal and the the companies coming out again with a way to hack it. I have got to get some of my old friends videos on youtube. It's lot of the old C-band stuff from the 1980's . And it's fun to look at.

 

[coinmaster32]

Hbo was never free in the way some people think of it.

In 1975, with the use of satellites, HBO begin broadcasting to cable head ends using satellites.

No one or very few people had a large enough dish for c-band back then.

Instead of a satellite scrambling method, HBO just kept its signal in the clear to make it easier on Head ends, however cable companies still had programming contracts with HBO, that were not free in any way. Customers who had cable TV still had to pay for HBO.

It was not until the very early 80s after satellite TV technology started to become cheaper due to demand picking up, did prices lower enough for consumers to afford systems.

Also technology made it possible for a 10 to 12 foot dish to pickup the signal instead of a 16 foot+ dish due to early LNA's being very week and needing a large reflector to gather enough signal.

C-Band satellite TV started becoming popular in 1980/1981 and thousands of people were hopping on the bandwagon, by the Mid 80s hundreds of thousands of people had Satellite TV systems up and going.

HBO saw this as a major loss of profit because almost a million people were viewing its signal free of charge, something that cable TV consumers had to pay for.

If more people switched from cable to Dish, then even more people would be viewing HBO's signal for free, and cable headends would loose money, and so would HBO.

So, HBO and "skinemax" started to charge home satellite owners for the programming, and others followed suit.

Thus scrambled TV was born, however it was no where near as scrambled as it is today, there used to be tons of channels ITC.

Of course, if one pays for something, one tries to learn how to get it for free, and thus the VC-2 Hack was born. There was a lot more hackers then you think, due to the fact the dealers for the equipment, instead of explaining that its morally wrong and illegal, told consumers that it was not hacking, but "testing", and also a fun and exciting thing to do, to try and decode a scrambled encryption.

But getting back on subject, If HBO continued to have it's signal in the clear, I think that would of killed the company, all premium movie channel companies for that matter.

 

[Diamond Jim]

I did not know that this was going to cause this much disagreement and bickering. It was intended to mark a special ocasion in satellite history and bring back some memories of the old days. Scott or Tony, I hereby request that this thread be closed or deleted.

 

[Mr Tony]

as you wish

thread closed