1983: The BBC is HACKED Live On Air | Micro Live | Retro Tech

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1983: The BBC is HACKED Live On Air | Micro Live | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

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Күн бұрын

"Now look, Oz and Yug, just go away! We want to do a demonstration here, go away." - John Coll.
During a live demonstration of how to connect a computer to the British Telecom Gold phone network using an acoustic coupler or modem, Micro Live hosts John Coll and Ian McNaught-Davis get a few uninvited guests, in the shape of hackers Oz and Yug - who are out to prove that, when it comes to computing "Nothing is secure!"
Originally broadcast 2 October, 1983.
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Пікірлер: 146

@djdrwatson 8 ай бұрын

The hackers Oz and Yug were actually quite polite and funny. They could've been very rude and offensive.

@wisteela 8 ай бұрын

Yes, huge respect to them.

@harriehausenman8623 8 ай бұрын

Very good point. The poem *is* actually clever, and the hackers make this segement so much more educational, without doing any harm.

@oninbridders 8 ай бұрын

The days when it was just a bit of fun

@UranusMcVitieFish-yd7oq 8 ай бұрын

For most people hacking (and indeed trolling) is still just fun.

@richardsherman2286 8 ай бұрын

Wow, you are so insightful!

@khaitomretro 8 ай бұрын

I remember watching this live. It's the result of using a 2 character password. So quick to btute force even on old slow networks.

@hiburn8 8 ай бұрын

Actually just one character. The second stroke is the return key.

@khaitomretro 8 ай бұрын

@@hiburn8 Listening on headphones I'm fairly sure I heard two keystrokes fairly close together then a slight pause before the third. That matches up with his two-finger typing style and a two characters plus 'return' sequence. It's possible that by sampling the sounds made by other key presses while he was typing known characters we could work out exactly which keys were pressed.

@hiburn8 8 ай бұрын

@@khaitomretro ah yes, totally possible

@dunebasher1971 Ай бұрын

The password was actually "BBC", as John Coll admitted years later. If you listen carefully, you can hear four keystrokes as he says "the password is THAT" - BBC under "password is" and the return key under "THAT". Legend has it that no actual cleverness was involved in this hack; supposedly a friend of Oz and Yug was one of the audience members, and they heard the password mentioned during rehearsal. There was a phone that allowed dialling out in the green room, so they called Oz and Yug, and the rest is history.

@623-x7b 8 ай бұрын

Back when hacking was for fun instead of scamming people

@willyfeumba 7 ай бұрын

Old fart ^^

@AnthonyChara 8 ай бұрын

Remember this well at the time. John Coll ended up being my next door neighbour in the early 90s - a lovely guy!

@wisteela 7 ай бұрын

And I see he wrote the terminal software.

@WhatALoadOfTosca 8 ай бұрын

Back when you could broadcast your number, username and password live on tv and hope no one noticed ;)

@roahnosh 2 ай бұрын

I love how he's just pressing keys normally unlike in movies where hackers spam their keyboard

@ZacabebOTG 8 ай бұрын

The picture quality here is really nice aside from a few dropouts. The PAL Transform Decoding does a really nice job with the old 2" and 1" recordings (those that were not wiped, that is.)

@MadBiker-vj5qj 8 ай бұрын

Originally invented by Doctor Who fans to restore recordings of old Dr Who IIRC.

@Mechness 8 ай бұрын

@@MadBiker-vj5qjCreated by BBC R&D, but it probably was used for that too.

@PaulTaylor1 8 ай бұрын

@@MadBiker-vj5qjyou're thinking of VidFire, which was created to restore interlaced video from old telecine recordings - and was actually invented by a paedophile lol.

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

BT Gold... oh my word! I used that in the very early '90s to access the fledgling internet at the time. It was largely aimed at businesses rather than domestic users, as it was VERY expensive.

@harriehausenman8623 8 ай бұрын

NTLGOLD is the most precious one 😄

@dronespace 8 ай бұрын

Do you recall how much it cost ?

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

@@dronespace - Oh dear, I had a feeling someone might ask me that! LOL! I had it for about a year, before dedicated ISPs started to pop up in the UK (Demon, Compuserve, AOL etc), and I migrated over to Delphi (a US company) located in Camden Lock, London. After more than thirty years, I can't be accurate, but I *think* it was somewhere between a hundred to two hundred quid a month, which was eye-watering at the time. As I said, it was mainly aimed at businesses and educational establishments rather than domestic users, and ran as a rolling contract I seem to recall. I can certainly remember being (financially) relieved when I moved away from it as the recession of the time really started to bite. Hope that helps. 🙂

@dronespace 8 ай бұрын

@@analogueman123456787 blimey that was expensive!

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

@@dronespace - LOL!! Yeah, looking back, it was. But I was young... and stupid! 😄

@Mrjacharles 8 ай бұрын

80s was just a different world ... wish I had been alive to see it.

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

It was... I remember it well. A decade of change (both good and bad) that helped mould the world we now live in.

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

@@azrael6285 - In some ways.

@TheStevenWhiting 8 ай бұрын

@@azrael6285East Germany would disagree with you on that.

@wisteela 8 ай бұрын

I did, and it was awesome.

@TheSpecialCostumeShop 8 ай бұрын

I remember the 80s it was the future

@wisteela 8 ай бұрын

I love everything about this. Great to see an extended version.

@201081hero 8 ай бұрын

How deliciously retro - I love it!

@dronespace 8 ай бұрын

❤

@justinklenk 8 ай бұрын

I was half expecting him to get Rick Rolled.

@anonUK 8 ай бұрын

This was 4 years before the song was released.

@justinklenk 8 ай бұрын

Damn you both, and your _facts..._

@entarctica 8 ай бұрын

In a sense, he was! The “hacker’s song” would have been clearly recognized in ’83 as kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fr6JqrNntbS9gnU.html - another earworm that was “of the past” then in a way that produced a similar effect.

@justinklenk 8 ай бұрын

@@entarctica Ah, but of course...

@thebadgamer1967 8 ай бұрын

More 99 luftballons

@harrisonmorrow7172 8 ай бұрын

1980s Britain is such a beautiful aesthetic. Interesting to see RGB and remembering the 1988 BBC logo. CRT was such an incredible technology. I would kill for a little TV they have now. Does anyone know what this would have been filmed on to permit the great quality now?

@luaking84 8 ай бұрын

I believe it was called Potato.

@dfpguitar 8 ай бұрын

I'm not an expert but Sony Betacam came out in 1982 so it was probably that as the BBC have always been early adopters. Before that they probably used celluloid.

@thedave7760 8 ай бұрын

Massive studio cameras the size of refrigerators using tubes to make the pictures, worth as much as a posh sports car and 2 inch video recorders the size of a cortina but worth as much as a house.

@SkeletonSyskey 8 ай бұрын

As it was BBC in 1983, I would guess ampex quadruplex videotape.

@lukedavis436 8 ай бұрын

I happen to have a 1980s television it's an old Amstrad unit

@AndyKing1963 8 ай бұрын

RIP John Coll & Ian McNaught-Davis

@thomasdalton1508 8 ай бұрын

I love that the computer expert types by pecking at the keyboard with two fingers. That's even more of a culture shock than polite and humorous trolls!

@Bozebo 2 күн бұрын

Not as much a shock as knowing that the same folk who were "experts" then are now the technical directors in almost every company and govt department because they "have the experience"...

@thomasdalton1508 2 күн бұрын

@@Bozebo That was more than 40 years ago. They'll have retired long ago. The days of someone being appointed Head of Technology because they used to use the computer at their old job are long behind us. I think you may be showing your own age!

@Greenpoloboy3 8 ай бұрын

I have to admit, I do love those old corded phones.

@olliedann 8 ай бұрын

Is this the first ever 'steam snipe'?

@Urko2005 8 ай бұрын

I was a member of Micronet 800, fun times.

@harriehausenman8623 8 ай бұрын

This is *pure* [NTL]GOLD !! 😆

@cbwavy 5 ай бұрын

0:20 That acoustic coupler with the micro text message device was incredibly futuristic for this time. Does anyone know the make and model?

@twocvbloke 8 ай бұрын

Back when "hackers" (to use the modernised definition, versus the original, which was quite different) were just doing things that were actually hilarious, unlike today where they're just utterly malicious with nothing but nasty intent...

@Sierra-Whisky 8 ай бұрын

I refuse to call those nasty badguys hackers. They should be called crackers. To me, hackers are the ones who know how to manipulate things (not necessarily computer related) so that it can be used in a way it wasn't originally designed for. This isn't necessarily done by exploiting weaknesses but it's mostly a display of curiosity, knowledge, playfulness and skills. (in random order 😉) These hackers use their skills for the good, so the world can be a better place for us all. Unfortunately the term hackers became contaminated over the years :(

@cattysplat 8 ай бұрын

When there is money to be made, suddenly criminals and hustlers are everywhere.

@SevenOfNine-7 8 ай бұрын

There is more processing power in a smart watch now than there is on that whole table. Probably a thousand times over.

@tvlkn9130 28 күн бұрын

Insane really how quickly tech advanced.

@billywashburn1648 8 ай бұрын

That telephone number on the back wall - gives me flashbacks to Saturday mornings and "Swap Shop".

@haralamc 8 ай бұрын

Dialing in using packet switching, bro got the og surfshark

@TheKievKen 6 ай бұрын

Imagine plugging your nice brand-new super-expensive shiny and clean acoustic coupler into a rancid early 1980s New York phone booth phone! I Probably reeked of piss for months afterwards.

@autoredox Ай бұрын

*casually invents live chat*

@olivere5497 8 ай бұрын

Have the culprits ever come forward?

@SamHodkin23 8 ай бұрын

Wikipedia says that a couple of computer guests were in the green room during the programme and heard the password over a live microphone. They phoned up a friendly hacker, who did the hacking itself.

@bexhillbob 8 ай бұрын

No, not officially.

@thesmithersy 8 ай бұрын

Some chaps called Oz and Yug I think

@JonCianci12 8 ай бұрын

Is this the earliest recorded stream snipe?

@richardrussell7082 8 ай бұрын

The telephone number on the back wall was later used by Swap Shop.

@dunebasher1971 Ай бұрын

Swap Shop ended over a year before this went out :) And the phone number was the same for all BBC television programmes, and had been since the mid-70s.

@MrDastardly 8 ай бұрын

Super retro hackers!! 👏👏👏

@fortyfour1654 8 ай бұрын

Nice Owl Symbology Aunty! - wink -

@honesto4696 8 ай бұрын

My eye kept going to Sarah Jane Smith's stuffed toy, Oliver Owl!

@cbwavy 5 ай бұрын

BBC, please do a deep dive into what happened here!

@macronencer 8 ай бұрын

I remember this happening. Haha!

@Raketenclub 8 ай бұрын

nice one :)

@markorollo. 8 ай бұрын

other than those scenes from the film Wargames where he hacks into a military computer i had no idea we had a kind of internety thing in those days.

@krashd 8 ай бұрын

The internet goes as far back as the late 60's but like GPS it wasn't available to the public until much later, around 1979, and even then it would still be cumbersome and niche until 1991 when the launch of the World Wide Web made it easy to use by just about anyone.

@markorollo. 8 ай бұрын

@@krashd that's what I always get mixed up, the world wide web with the internet, makes more sense now 😁

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

@@krashd - Indeed the WWW popped up in 1991 (Wiki will tell you that much), but in reality, it really wasn't that accessible until the mid-nineties, coinciding with the release of Windows 95 and usable browsers. Until then, internet access was a text-based thing with numerous little programs to get things done (whois, gophers etc) In a way, I kind-of miss those simpler days - zero regulation, few big corporations, and a global platform that the arse-holes of society had yet to discover.

@Squant 8 ай бұрын

@@analogueman123456787 They've always been here. We merely switched from the obnoxious variety to the pathetically ignorant.

@analogueman123456787 8 ай бұрын

@@Squant - Ignorance is universal, and no crime. Being a deliberate arse-hole from behind the anonymity of the smart-phone or computer is another matter altogether imho.

@stephenhumphrey7935 8 ай бұрын

I found this video very offensive. How dare the hackers not use any swear words. And why did they not insult his mum?? Disgrace. 😡😡

@PoshLifeforME 8 ай бұрын

I just want to play 'Shades' when I see this..

@theefishlippedone Күн бұрын

Brilliant

@karsh001 8 ай бұрын

Golden! 😂

@harriehausenman8623 8 ай бұрын

NTLGOLDen, that is 😄

@JamieMurphy25 8 ай бұрын

This is long before Windows, MacOS, ChromeOS and Linux systems dominated the scene.

@jabezhane 8 ай бұрын

I think I read somewhere that Bill Gates saw a bunch of networked BBC Bs installed somewhere in the UK and was quite surprised how well it all worked. Networking at the domestic home and school level that didnt cost a small fortune. Back in 1986 our were all networked at school. My friend and I managed to get hold of the manual as the teacher had left it out one lunchtime. We had a field day with all the commands. Much fun was had.

@hazy33 7 ай бұрын

@@jabezhaneEchonet iirc 🙂

@davidbisping5000 8 ай бұрын

I was told the hack was done by Jez San?

@rovingenglishman 8 ай бұрын

What?! I worked for him at Argonaut hah

@MadBiker-vj5qj 8 ай бұрын

How to deal with numpty interviewers lesson one: Mike tried to sidetrack the conversation a couple of times, but the B.T. guy was having none of it, and just went straight on with giving the presentation that he was there to give. Superb.

@tonythetyger99 8 ай бұрын

Cyberpunk!

@cosmicwartoad2587 2 ай бұрын

it was planned in advance

@dunebasher1971 Ай бұрын

No it wasn't.

@grahamnichols1416 8 ай бұрын

Assoon as they mentioned BT we knew it was doomed to fail.

@robertdewar1752 8 ай бұрын

TV gold. They don't make shoes like this anymore - shame.

@Keithbarber 8 ай бұрын

Typo alert Shows not shoes

@bletheringfool 8 ай бұрын

They never made shoes like that

@MadBiker-vj5qj 8 ай бұрын

Yeah, much more comfortable.

@sharpvidtube 8 ай бұрын

DM's were cheap back then, the price now is crazy.

@BarryVP12 8 ай бұрын

I must say that the shoes are not to my liking. I watched the clip and my feet feel no warmer.

@squarecircle5522 8 ай бұрын

Were they searching for porn.

@sarahjrandomnumbers 8 ай бұрын

*HACK THE PLANET!*

@jean-lucpicard5510 8 ай бұрын

Think this could have been set up.

@dunebasher1971 Ай бұрын

No it wasn't.

@sprint955st 8 ай бұрын

I remember watching this the first time round, and thinking then it was faked, and even more so now I am 100% convinced this was faked. Its just so BBC ‘nice’. Why would he read out the digits he was using as the telephone number, the PIN, etc. what a load of nonsense

@DavidGloverAoki 8 ай бұрын

It certainly was real, the participants - both the presenters, the audience, and even the hackers themselves, have been interviewed about it many times. It must be very sad being so cynical about absolutely everything.

@sprint955st 8 ай бұрын

@@DavidGloverAoki Were you there? Doubt it so so you are only repeating what you read about it. Do you know me? No. What gives you the right to make such a sweeping statement about me and my views? Want me to make up my mind about you and post it freely? I have an opinion on one subject….you make personal comments. Says more about you than me.

@bexhillbob 8 ай бұрын

@@sprint955st It wasn't faked.

@sprint955st 8 ай бұрын

@@blapmass Absolutely. That’s the word I was looking for. ‘Ooh, hacking, that’s an exciting topic related to computers that people have started hearing about! We must have some hacking!’

@You-tw4zs 8 ай бұрын

By the amount of characters he typed for the password (4) it was probably just an early brute force attack. If you were going to stage a hack you would have thought they'd do something more than print a song without a tune. It seems too off the cuff to be staged.