97-9 RDS Hacked

[purpledevil]

Apparently, Radio One's KBXX-FM (97-9 The Box) RDS display was hacked yesterday evening. KHOU has the story, it was brought to the attention of Radio One management and was then removed from the display. An investigation is ongoing to find out who the culprit is.

http://www.khou.com/story/news/loca...ion-investigating-song-display-hack/30728299/

 

[frankberry]

This has happened to other stations. In most cases, the stations failed to reset the manufacturer-provided passwords on their RDS equipment.
Passwords should be changed regularly. Every time a station employee leaves (for whatever reason), the password should be changed.

 

[johndavis]

I remember someone got into the RDS at a NPR station in Flint, MI to display this message about Terry Gross:
http://www.goodlolz.com/?p=3027#.VbajNflVi70

Gross had a sense of humor about it and tweeted something to the effect that "It's not the size, it's the frequency" afterwards.

 

[Anonymouse]

It's also important for stations who use Internet to broadcast to the transmitter site to change their stream password regularly. If someone got into that the results could be even worse for the station involved, depending on what's played by the hacker. There are plenty of apps to stream right from a computer or mobile device with no extra equipment.

 

[JoeFM1]

It's also important for stations who use Internet to broadcast to the transmitter site to change their stream password regularly. If someone got into that the results could be even worse for the station involved, depending on what's played by the hacker. There are plenty of apps to stream right from a computer or mobile device with no extra equipment.

Interesting comment Mouse. Back in 1984 somebody did that with Stereo 104 KXYL Brownwood. They sent their audio from studio to the tower using very low power FM In the140s or150s. At midnight the stationwent silent but the transmitter stayed on all night. Some kids would send their own low signal out which a receiver in the shack picked up and broadcast all over west Texas.

 

[Anonymouse]

I guess, in theory, this can happen to any translator which picks up another station off-air, or any station with an analog STL. You will need a semi-powerful transmitter and to be near the site though, to interfeer with the STL or originating station, and remember that your signal can be tracked by their engineers.
I wonder why this station didn't stop the hacks. Maybe they didn't know about it?

 

[jras20]

I noticed this weekend their RDS is off.