Talk:Captain Midnight (HBO)
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Stub
I have major major changes to the page.
I believe that it no longer violates Wikipedia's rue on spamming/self promotion because it now focuses on the incident, not Mr. MacDougall.
I have also added new factual material that I have personal knowledge about.
Contents |
[edit] Picture
This article would be much better with a picture of the incident. Does one exist?
- I've put one up. Mike Richardson 07:56, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] More possible changes
Since Wikipedia has standards for bios of living people, suggest we change this entry to focus on the "Captain Midnight Satellite Jamming Incident", not Mr. McDougall.
In particular, I would like to add back most of the text from the 8/06 version that focuses on the incident:
[edit] =
"On the evening of April 27, 1986, at 12:32am HBO's showing of The Falcon and the Snowman film was interrupted by a jamming signal protesting HBO's recent change in scrambling and charging for its satellite signal. John R. MacDougall, also known as Captain Midnight, was identified by an FCC investigation as the perpetrator of this incident and pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor, receiving a suspended sentence and $5,000 fine.
Cable television program distributors, such as HBO, started to use C band domestic satellites in the 1970s for video distribution to cable TV systems across the US as an alternative to mailing tapes or using expensive terrestrial microwave systems. Originally, the technology needed to receive such signals was expensive and unauthorized signal use was not a problem. As equipment costs rapidly decreased, home equipment for C band reception became affordable and unauthorized signal use became an issue - particularly with respect to the terms of CATV programmers' contracts with movie studios.
In the mid-1980s, controversy erupted in the cable programming world as cable program distributors began scrambling their programming and charging fees to home satellite dish owners who accessed the same satellite signals cable operators received and paid for. Many satellite dish owners were forced to purchase descrambling equipment at a cost of hundreds of dollars or paying monthly or annual subscription fees to cable programming providers. Programming costs for home dish owners were often higher than fees paid by cable subscribers, despite dish owners being responsible for owning and servicing their own equipment.
When HBO scrambled its signal, it offered subscriptions to home dish owners for $12.95 per month, which was either equal to or slightly higher than what cable subscribers paid. Dish owners felt they were being asked to pay a price that was designed to be anti-competitive, and it triggered a national movement among dish owners to more strongly regulate the cable industry and force them to stop anti-competitive pricing. While many dish owners called their elected officials, one took a more confrontational approach
MacDougall, a satellite TV dealer in Ocala, Florida, was working at Central Florida Teleport, a company that uplinks services to satellites. He was overseeing the uplink of the movie Pee-wee's Big Adventureon the evening of the incident. At the end of his shift, he swung the dish back in to its storage position, pointing directly upward which happened to be the location of Galaxy 1, the satellite that carries HBO. As a protest against the introduction of high fees and scrambling equipment, he transmitted a signal onto the satellite that overrode HBO's video signal.
The text message that appeared on the sets of HBO subscribers across the Eastern time zone. (The last line was in a smaller font than the earlier lines, a fact that was later very helpful in the technical investigation.):
GOODEVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT $12.95/MONTH? NO WAY! (SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE)
MacDougall chose the name "Captain Midnight" from a movie he had recently seen, On the Air Live with Captain Midnight.
The incidents raised concerns from both video distributors using satellites that their business might be disrupted and satellite owners that the large jamming signals might permanently damage their satellites and require premature replacement at large costs. Investigators of the FCC's Field Operations Bureau identified MacDougall within a week of the incident using what Time magazine (August 4, 1986 issue) called "high-tech, Holmesian detective work".
The investigation proceeded on two parallel tracks: a nationwide "shoeleather" investigation that focusing on following up tips and a technical investigation that searched the US for the equipment used in the incident. The "shoeleather" investigation first identified Central Florida as a likely source of the jamming based on a tip from someone overhearing a telephone call at a group of pay phones in the area. (The person who was overheard was claiming to be the perpetrator, but apparently was just someone MacDougall had talked to.)
The technical investigation identified possible sites that had adequate transmitter power, technically eirp, to cause the jamming and identified the model of character generator used to generate the message - narrowing possible sources to a few sites that had both adequate eirp and the correct character generator. FCC investigators then used a novel "fingerprinting" technique to match the text in a recording of the actual incident to the specific character generator MacDougall had access to.
In making his guilty plea, MacDougall may not have realized that there were legal ambiguities in the law and regulations then in effect about whether he had actually violated the law since Central Florida Teleport had a valid FCC license. He pleaded guilty to a violation of 47 U.S.C. 301 that requires a license to transmit. FCC Rules have since been clarified and 18 U.S.C. 1367 now clearly makes satellite jamming a felony.
In September 1987, the Playboy satellite channel was jammed in a roughly similar way but with text from Scriptures. Thomas Haynie, an employee of the Christian Broadcasting Network, was identified by the FCC as the perpetrator of the incident and was ultimately convicted by a federal jury of violating the new satellite law. He received a suspended sentence based on the Federal Sentencing Guidelines in effect at the time of the incident - which are now different.
New technology allows satellite operators to locate quickly the geographic location of satellite uplink signals and serves as a deterrent to future incidents. This technology was not available at the time of the Captain Midnight and Playboy incidents.
Today, MacDougall owns MacDougall Electronics in Ocala, a satellite dish dealer. The FCC's Field Operations Bureau is now called the Enforcement Bureau."
[edit] Lucky with the timing
$5,000 and a year of probation? If someone were to do that exact thing today, they'd be fined into bankruptcy, tossed in jail, and charged with a form of terrorism. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.206.80.66 (talk) 01:21, 2 March 2007 (UTC).
