.@CONSTRUXNUNCHUX : The Max Headroom Incident

I know our little stunt of hacking toonsshow.com didn't go over well with the joy-less, draconian owners Brian and Jack. In summation of saying "too bad" I have to present this as not an intrusion of your privacy but a badge of honor to hang above the box of tissues you used to alleviate the pain of construxnunchux stealing your information. OK, personal attacks aside, hacks are fun (when they don't happen to you) and before the Internet was sharing cats and porn with the world one of the most famous (and unexplained) hacks happened in 1987.


Simply called "The Max Headroom Incident" an unknown person successfully hacked WGN's 9 o'clock news during Bear's highlights.The screen went black for 15 seconds and this guy appears jumping around frantically, and then, as quick as he appeared, he was gone. The broadcast came back and the news anchor Dan Roan laughed it off by saying "If you're wondering what you just saw ... so am I."



Knowing that hijacking the signal actually was possible, the unknown hacker hit another Chicago station WTTW at 11:15pm during a Dr. Who episode. This signal intrusion lasted a whole 90 seconds and was exponentially more disturbing that the first. 

The signal was determined to have been broadcast through "very high-powered" microwave signals from an unknown Chicago location. There were no television engineers at the Sear's Tower (where the TV signal originates from) at the time and it happened so quickly it could not be stopped.  This signal highjack is still unsolved to this day. In 1987, before internet, before the big-brother post 9/11 government, someone with a little ingenuity successfully pirated a major television broadcast to show thousands of people his brand of crazy. I've seen this dozens of times and I still don't know what other purpose driving this other than "he could".