Tomorrow’s World: How the BBC was hacked live on air
When people think of TV stations being hacked, they’re often thinking of events akin to the Max Headroom incident of 1987.
The still-unnerving sight of a guy in a plastic mask bearing the likeness of the satirical newscaster hijacking the signals of two Chicago TV channels cast a bigger shadow than anyone could have expected, with the idea of the signal being hijacked of a television station becoming a pretty common fixture of cyberpunk storytelling in the decades afterwards. However, what was arguably the first example of a TV broadcast becoming hacked while running live was simultaneously a lot more literal and a lot more charming.
Four years before a guy in a creepy plastic mask had his bare ass spanked with a fly swatter on live TV (yeah, go back and watch the Max Headroom incident if you haven’t, it’s wild), a far more sensible hijacking of live TV happened on the other side of the Atlantic. Fittingly enough, it happened on the BBC during a limited series called Micro Live. As personal computers were first making their way into the average family home, Micro Live was aired as part of the BBC’s Computer Literacy Project, a set of programs teaching people how to use them best.
In the very first episode of Micro Live, Ian McNaught-Davis and John Coll were demonstrating how to use a very early form of email. On air, the dynamic duo logged into their BT Gold account (with typos and all), with the intention of composing an email live on air. Then, something that no one expected happened. The presenters put in the password to the Gold account and found they were locked out of the account.
What’s more, whoever had hacked their account had left a little message for the presenters and all the viewers at home to see.
How badly was the BBC hacked?
Honestly? It could have gone a lot worse. The message the hackers left was actually pretty charming, with the message on screen reading as follows:
“I hope your Television PROGRAMME runs
as smoothly as my PROGRAM worked out
your passwords! Nothing is secure!”
Making the most of their time in the spotlight, the hackers followed this up with a song! Here are the lyrics in their Sondheim-besting full.
Hackers’ Song.
“Put another password in,
Bomb it out and try again,
Try to get past logging in,
we’re Hacking, Hacking, Hacking.
Try his first wife’s maiden name,
This is more than just a game,
It’s real fun, but just the same,
It’s Hacking, Hacking, Hacking.”
The NutCracker
( Hackers’ UK )
No matter how much the team must have been panicking behind the scenes, Davis and Coll take it in their stride, laughing genially about it and reading out the message in full. When the hackers give their names as “Oz and Yug”, Coll rather charmingly responds, “Now look, Oz and Yug, just go away! We want to do a demonstration here, go away,” all while laughing the whole time.
Now, this wasn’t really the case of hacking that Oz and Yug were claiming it was. It turns out that some scallywag in the green room had overheard the show’s producers telling Coll and Davis the password before going live, had called a hacker friend of theirs and thought they’d have a little fun at Auntie’s expense.
See? Not all hacking has to be dystopian and revolutionary; it can be warm and oddly comforting, too!