Boffins fix dead satellite using 'dirty hack' in space

Give those hackers a beer or 19...

"the on button is in space and there is no way to reach it! "

TFC to the designer of that little piece of brilliance; maybe it was 'stylistically and artistically correct' to put an on/off switch with no failsafe somewhere slightly inaccessible... I'm sure Apple would!

Yay for the hackers who are always the ones to fix problems in the end!

Beer! And plenty of it!

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Speaking as someone who lived in Darmstadt during my student years, I am surprised to hear that there are such awesome boffins working in Germany.

Thumbs up, du prima Kumpel!

In real engineering...

...there's no such word as "Karnt"

Fuc*king lovely jubbly! RESULT!!!

Hackers

... in SPAAAAAACCCEEEE!

Seriously, though. Very cool. I wonder if they used SSH? ;)

Galactically shite

"A loss of any of the quartet can be enough to invalidate the data from the others"

Awesome system they designed there

In space..

Noone can hear you scream, "Why the fuck won't you boot up"

The ESA Goonshow (Nightshift Edition) - apologies to Spike, Python, Tarentino et al

Under the erratic glow from the wind-powered monitor screens, everything looks like a 1980's disco in Zagreb with a candle in a shoebox for a strobelight. Two nightshift operators are surfing Anonymous Ethiopia and Justin Beiber's Facebook page respectively.

Goon 1 - "Apparently Anon have just declared open season on Oxfam. They're claiming some child trafficking and arms money laundering deal where Oxfam have been trading Land Cruisers for AK47s, kids and soap.

Goon 2 - "Everyone knows Anon is a CIA funded op. Looks like someone is getting burned. Toyota was the spooks company car of choice and like they say, "We don't forgive. "We don't forget". <Both LOL>

Goon 2 - But What the fuck do Oxfam want with AK47's? …

Goon 1 - It doesn't say, perhaps it's a smoke screen for the 4x4s. You know, with the number of arms shipments these days what's one more container of small arms? But a ship load of brand new Land Cruisers, well. That's bound to get some Somali pirates' attention.

<Short silence while Goon 2 ignores the fact that non of the above made any sense>

Goon 2 - It says here Beiber has brought out a new shade of nail varnish. I'm guessing that last batch was contaminated when the last round of HARRP instigated Pacific Rim earthquakes disrupted the varnish response frequency. It's like the Recco avalanche detectors only for mini-skirted jail bait.

<Sound of a Submarine Klaxxon accompanies a barely visible red icon on the large plasma that says Defcon 1>

Goon 1 - <High pitched Harry Secombe silly voice> "The satellite is down!"

Goon 2 - <Rimmer - Red Dwarf voice> "Aliens." "Aliens or a virus, it's always Aliens or a virus"

Goon 1 - "The last time you said that it was 'cause you couldn't get a GPS signal in the basement…

Goon 2 - "Aliens or virus or Anonymous…or Lulzsec. Or the NSA"

Goon 1 - "You left out MI6, GCHQ and CESG"

Goon 2 - "No I didn't. That lot are too busy watching Nigella box-sets and dribbling down their OTP sheets." <Breathless Nigella voice> "Dust the semtex over the cupcakes for a surprise he won't forget. Cherries are optional" <Sexy cherry filled pout mime to imaginary camera>

Still Goon 2 - "That's it! I just need to modify the cupcake recipe so my GPS will work in basements."

Goon 1 - "You're so full of it…

Goon 2 - "No seriously. It's dependant on cake decorations from China of course, particularly those little silver ball things." "It's the high heavy metal content that makes it possible for AWACs to track al-Qaeda in bunkers" ..."God knows what will be possible with Japanese baking products."

Goon 1 - "I quite like those ball things. I feel like a pinball wizard, pushing them around with my tongue" <starts singing> "How do you think he does it?"

Goon 2 - "What the fuck were we talking about?"

<…Long pause..>

Goon 1 - "The SAMBA satellite service is down!"

Goon 2 - "But GIMP, ToR and BACKTRACK are OK? Right, fire-up the Quattro and launch db_autopwn via the ToR end-point over Haiwai. There'll be no HARRP interference as the Bilderburg group are having their Bang-a-Hulu Con there this weekend.

Goon 1 - "2 sessions but it's waiting to finish. I think it's hung"

Goon 2 - HD Moore, another CIA stooge! Fuck it, switch to the GIMP!"

Goon 1 - <Dead Parrot Sketch Palin voice> But the Gimp's sleeping. He's dormant!"

Goon 2 - <DedZed> "Well then, I guess your just going to have to wake him now aren't you?"

<The GIMP process had been suspended after the photo manipulation of Bin Laden's "assassination" debacle.>

Goon 1 - <Dr Frankenstein - Gene Wilder Version> "It's alive!"

Goon 2 - "Great, now bring up those CCTV images of Dominique Strauss-Kahn"

Goon 1 - "The one's where he's buggering the maid or the… other ones?"

Goon 2 - <Ominously> "The other ones"

<Uncensored images of DSK mounting a hog-tied Justin Beiber while a pig in a maid's outfit looks on appear on the plasma screen>

Goon 2 - Right, add in Bin Laden and Obama then add it to Fox News' hacked tweet account.

Goon 1 - Done! How's this going to help again?

Goon 2 - The resulting surge of internet traffic will start a net one-way electron-flow causing the earth's polarity to flip.

Goon 1 - Right, and how's that going to help.

Goon 2 - <sigh> It won't, but we'll blame the resulting DDoS on Lulzsec.

Goon 1 - "Riiight… and SAMBA?"

Goon 2 - oh yeah, I nearly forgot. Use the GIMP's backdoor to tunnel a session across to the SAMBA satellite.

Goon 1 - "and then?"

Goon 2 - "upload GreaseMonkey and use the 'request some more print toner' script. Samba is configured to shutdown when no-one is printing."

Blessed...

Blessed are the geek, for they shall inherit the earth..... and some of the bits orbiting it.

Paris, I’ve always admired the obit of some of her bits.

I know what the "hack" was

They simply got some of the pissed off Icelandic elves to Chuck a rock at it. That or they coughed up some $$$ to the USAF to go take a whack at it with the X-37B.