Posted on 03/27/2014 11:11:36 PM PDT by Ray76
A family claims they are being terrorized by their cable box. For more than a week, personal and harassing messages are showing up on their TVs.
Meeks said it started more than a week ago — “he” or someone has taken control of her AT&T cable box and typing messages on two of her TVs.
The family showed us a few. One wrote: ‘ISEEYOUHAHA’. Others even threatened to hurt Alana’s 9-year-old granddaughter, Aniya.
“He wants to do more than hurt her,” said Meeks. “He wants to have sex with her. Pervert.”
Some were quick to judge. However, an officer who stopped by saw it himself, according to a police report.
FOX59 cameras were rolling when it happened again. Whoever was typing knew we were there, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at fox59.com ...
There have always been pranksters but this one sounds downright sick.
“It’s astonishing. It’s spooky because there aren’t a lot of ways you can get into someone’s cable box,” said Fred Cate, research director for the Indiana University Center for Applied Cybersecurity. “The most common ways would be using a remote control, an infrared device, but that’s line of sight. You usually have to be in the room or within a close distance and clear vision to the box you’re changing the channel on or doing the typing on."Um, what? If the cable box is running software and on the network, the hacker doesn't need "line of sight."
Someone has cameras or has activated the cameras built into their computers and tv. Probably some bored 12 y/o boy who deserves to be fully prosecuted when discovered. Meanwhile stop using those tvs.
Aren’t a lot of these boxen running open source Linux? Linux is as hackproof as it is administered to be. If it is a box where everything merrily runs as root, expect issues.
Is the NSA into cable boxes now? ... :-) ...
Sick is right, but I have always heard that the technology exists, where people can peer at you through your TV set, and you would never know it. I wonder if there really is something to that?
The TV would need an image camera to do that. I doubt it unless one’s built into the cable box.
I wonder if they have an x-box Kinect
Back in the pioneer days of TV, it was done by shining a moving point light of constant intensity at the scene being televised and then picking up the reflected light with a stationary photo-eye. The image was reconstructed with a similar moving point light, except modulated by the signal from the photo-eye.
Except to the extent one could perform such a moving spot scan, there would not be any way to visualize what is standing in front of the CRT or flat-screen by means of using a stationary photo-eye. It might be able to pick up something shadowy and vague and infer whether a person is there or not. It couldn’t see the features of the person or determine how he is dressed, etc.
Pretty freaky stuff. I imagine the vulnerability that’s allowing access will be found out soon enough. Hopefully that will lead to an arrest. Whoever is doing this deserves to be prosecuted fully. Terrorizing that little girl is beyond contemptible.
I just googled some information on it, between posts. BTW, I am retired, so I can stay up late, and it is almost mid night here on the left coast, so what is your excuse for being up so late? :-)
A Kinect has a camera and some image recognition smarts in it.
No job right now, though I do interview tomorrow.
Good Luck.
That really is sick. Back when even pranksters were decent, they’d say they were a ghost or something like that.
Thanks. I’m heading to the sack in about 5 min.
Could be. IDK.
What I do know is that line-of-sight access likely isn’t required to do what is being claimed.
Probably. Someone who cut into the cable could launch a man in the middle attack on the signal. It isn’t told here exactly how the offensive text appears, whether it is superimposed on the video signal or what.
Well, praise Jesus and my prayers for your interview. Best to you and yours.
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