Word: hbo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...attack was swift and startling, the getaway apparently clean. Shortly after midnight one morning last April, a mysterious electronic intruder interrupted a movie on HBO with a transmission of his own. GOOD EVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT, read the message on the screen. $12.95/MONTH? NO WAY! (SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!). The complaint was directed at cable services that scramble their satellite-beamed signals so owners of home dishes can see programs only by buying a decoder and paying a monthly fee. The daring prank captured the nation's fancy but set in motion a high-tech manhunt. Last week, after...
...nabbed by a combination of space-age sleuthing and old-fashioned legwork. Executives at HBO, the Time Inc.-owned cable service, say that within 24 hours after the incident they were confident there was enough information to eventually locate the culprit. But it was up to the FCC to track him down through an elaborate process of elimination. To override HBO's signal, it was determined, the intruder must have had access to a large dish -- at least seven meters in diameter -- equipped with a strong transmitter. That limited the number of possible sources to about 580 commercial "uplink" facilities...
...list was gradually narrowed further. Many facilities, for instance, were relaying legitimate telephone or video signals on the night of the attack. HBO technicians provided one helpful clue. Exactly one week before Captain Midnight's attack, the service's programming had been interrupted briefly with a pattern of color bars. It was apparently the work of the same person; thus it seemed the culprit had access to the facility at the same time on both nights. Another important tip came from an accountant vacationing in Florida who had overheard a revealing conversation about Captain Midnight at a pay phone...
Captain Midnight's much publicized stunt threw a fright into the communications world. If TV programming could be disrupted, industry executives warned, so could the sensitive data transmissions of business, Government and the military. Although HBO and other broadcasters say they have taken precautions to prevent future disruptions, they were gratified by the grounding of Captain Midnight. "This was a great piece of high-tech gumshoeing," marveled Steve Tuttle, vice president of the National Cable Television Association. "Sherlock Holmes would have been proud...
...betrayers. He died young: he was 57 when he succumbed to the lung cancer brought on by a four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, a vice he could not kick even while actually on air reporting the dire effects of smoking. His early death only heightened his romantic aura. HBO's docudrama Murrow, which aired in January, all but shouted that when he died, TV journalism lost its morality, its courage and its soul...