Hackers Take Over Unsecured Radio Transmitters, Play Anti-Trump Song (arstechnica.com) 99
Ars Technica is reporting that "a certain model of Low Power FM radio transmitter with known vulnerabilities has been targeted in a new wave of radio-station hacks this week." Hackers have taken advantage of an exploit that was known all the way back in April 2016 to take over terrestrial radio stations and broadcast the YG and Nipsey Hussle song "Fuck Donald Trump." From the report: News of the song's unexpected playback on radio stations began emerging shortly after Trump's inauguration on January 20, and the hack has continued to affect LPFM stations -- a type of smaller-radius radio station that began to roll out after the FCC approved the designation in 2000. Over a dozen stations experienced confirmed hacks in recent weeks, with more unconfirmed reports trickling in across the nation. Thus far, the stations' commonality isn't the states of operation or music formats; it's the transmitter. Specifically, hackers have targeted products in the Barix Exstreamer line, which can decode many audio file formats and send them along for LPFM transmission. As Barix told its products' owners in 2016, Exstreamer devices openly connected to the Internet are incredibly vulnerable to having their remote login passwords discovered and systems compromised. The company recommends using full, 24-character passwords and placing any live Internet connections behind firewalls or VPNs. Reports have yet to connect any dots on why the exploit has apparently focused on the YG and Nipsey Hussle song -- though it is fairly popular, having recently finished in the Top 15 of the Village Voice's 2016 Pazz and Jop music critics' poll. Plus, the uncensored lyrics and topical nature are certainly more likely to catch people's attention, especially when played on stations with formats like oldies, classic rock, and Tejano.
Fairly Popular? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, let me tell you. The Village Voice's "Pazz and Jop" chart is where I go first to see what's trending amongst large swaths of Americans.
In fact, I and everyone in here in the office celebrate the entire catalog of "Nipsey Hussle".
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It's year end list compiled from other music critics year-end top ten lists. It's not their fault that you don't understand the difference between a chart that shows what's trending and a poll that shows what critics thought was best over the past year.
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*WHOOSH* The joke is, nobody reads the "Village Voice". Nobody except a tiny number of out-of-touch, aging New York liberals. It's not 1974 any more.
Re:The Rad Left (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not the "right" doing this. That's why there's the new world "alt-right". These are NOT your honest respectable Republicans we've had for so long. There is not just a left and the right in the US, that's just stereotyping people so yu don't have to think too hard. Donald Trump doesn't fit into that mold, he's not really left or right. He won the vote from people who are scared, not from people who have a long held well thought out political viewpoint, and he exploited that fear. The this happens with most politician's these days from every stripe, it is not unique to The Donald.
When you start splitting the country up into 50% on the one side of the political aisle who are good and honest people and 50% on the other side who are assholes, then you have stopped using your brain and have become a part of the problem. And as long as people continue feeling that way then we'll continue to have abysmal elections where our choices are between staunch bigot from party A versus staunch bigot from party B, and we get stuck again with deciding which is the lesser of two evils.
Why not look at it this way: Everyone is a giant selfish asshole. What makes society work is that we try to hide that base animal nature and pretend to be higher beings. The giant assholes on the left and the right need to learn how to live together or society stops working.
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Have you not paid attention? BOTH sides are bashing each other (although there are indeed more than two sides, they two dominant sides pretend that's all there is). People did not vote for Donald Trump because they thought Hillary had too much negative campaigning.
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The reason there isn't much of a reaction in this case is that people expect hackers to do childish things once they've taken control of something, particularly because they're using other people's property to do so.
That, and, you know, playing something like "Fuck Obama" wouldn't necessarily have been as overtly racist as "Barak the Magic Negro".
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A song denigrating someone because of what they are is different to one denigrating someone because of who they are. Especially if the former has to resort to dated, racist language... I can't believe you need this spelled out for you.
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How do you know this was done by anyone in the US? Oh right, you have no fucking idea but are instantly ready to play politics with any football news item.
I guess we ought to be proud of you not for inventing any bullshit statistics and passing that off as alternate reality, right? Great job kid.
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Aw, I don't want to actually *rape* the guy.
I'll just grab him by the pussy.
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I can't verify this, but (Score:3)
I'm guessing "Nipsey Hussle" took his stage name as a play on the name of the comedian Nipsey Russell [wikipedia.org].
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Agreed. If they have a cause then they are hurting that cause. While trying to shut up a truly despicable person by shutting down free speech they have only given that jerk more ammunition to use as proof that liberals are intolerant thought police.
If Trump was really so awful then why did they wait until AFTER his election to start protesting, which will cause no change whatsoever in the outcome, when they could have been more effective by actually getting out more people to vote BEFORE the election. Pr
Re: It's time to start killing leftards (Score:1)
Didn't stop the right for the past 8 years, did it?
Re: It's time to start killing leftards (Score:1)
It's the one where Spock had a beard, right?
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May I please ask what the leftard obsession with the Trump family's old-world last name is?
Literally millions of Americans alive today had a different spelling or variation on their last name before their families came to this country. Is this supposed to be an insult? Or some kind of snark about his policies against terrorists? I'm genuinely confused, can someone please explain this to me?
I mean yes, you're correct little child, his ancestors were arguably named Drumpf. So fucking what?
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Oh, get off your high horse long enough to smell what you're shovelling out of its rear end...
Remember when Obama was first elected? There was plenty of whining by the right then, and that coagulated into 8 solid years of purposely obstructionist deadlock and "no compromise" bullshit rhetoric.
The response to Trump is no worse. Which is surprising really, considering how the man has reset the scale when it comes to the awfulness of political candidates.
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Remember when Obama was first elected? There was plenty of whining by the right then, and that coagulated into 8 solid years of purposely obstructionist deadlock and "no compromise" bullshit rhetoric.
The response to Trump is no worse. Which is surprising really, considering how the man has reset the scale when it comes to the awfulness of political candidates.
Let's not forget Trump was one of the biggest backers of the "birther" movement, trying to get Obama's birth certificate out.
It's funny now that HIS p
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Exploiting idiots not Barix. (Score:5, Informative)
Honestly if you did not have a VPN tunnel in place you deserve this in spades. Only a complete and utter moron would have something as important as the radio station audio feed to be unprotected.
But after working at several radio stations in my life. 100% of radio station owners are pretty much drooling morons.
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It's like selling doors and then making the buyer go find their own lock...except that doors come without locks.
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Of course. It would be better if the people using it were all experts. But having it secured, as much as possible, by default is better than nothing.
it's not ANTI-Trump (Score:2)
Power to the people! (Score:2)
That will show him, right?
to quote Philip J. Fry .. (Score:2)
I work in radio & TV (Score:3)
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We use metro-ethernet, OC3'S, satellite, and microwave to deliver program feeds to transmitters. I don't know of any professionals who do it over the Internet. I would never do it under any circumstances. I have no sympathy for anyone dumb enough to try it.
These LPFM stations are run out of the back of groceterias and small restaurants. They don't have engineers or professionals. They got their license by mail order and the tower and transmitter out of boxes they might have got on eBay which came with a set of photocopied manuals in Chinese.
If it works when they give it internet connectivity, everybody is happy.
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Low power FM. Short range, low cost broadcasting. Probably no budget for expensive, reliable links. Internet streaming works fine 99.9% of the time and a little downtime can be tolerated because it's so cheap.
The lack of security is inexcusable, but only in so far as the manufacturer didn't bother with it. Can't realistically expect consumers to even know that things like HTTP password login pages are not secure, let alone that they need a VPN.
Hurrah! (Score:1)
The "c" in rap is still silent (Score:1)
And rap still isn't music.