back to article Hamas hacks Israeli TV sat channel to broadcast pics of Gaza wounded

Gaza leaders Hamas took over an Israeli satellite channel for few minutes on Monday to broadcast pictures of Gaza wounded. Viewers who tuned into Israeli Channel 10 reported seeing images of people wounded from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza as well as propaganda messages promising more rocket strikes on Israel from Hamas' …

  1. Christian Berger

    There are multiple plausible ways to do this

    And since ElReg doen't go into the details, I think it's fair to give an overview.

    The traditional way is to have a second, but considerably stronger uplink. You'd need to be at least about 10 times stronger, which is hard to do. In the olden days of analogue feeds to the uplink, you could even do this to the feed, which is much easier.

    Then today many uplinks are fed via the Internet. RTMP can probably be spoofed with some effort.

    The most plausible way might be an attack against the Playout Centre. TV-stations today, particularly small satellite ones, don't have people starting tape cassettes or reading continuity announcements any more. Instead it's all just files on disks which are automatically played and put on the air. There are commercial Playout Centres for doing this. Much content will still be shipped to it on tape, but commercials and similar fast changing material is simply uploaded via FTP. Now if you get access to that FTP server, it's trivial to swap out files. If you get the correct length, it'll play seamlessly just as if it was intended that way. If you don't, you might get some hickups.

    Getting the FTP password might be done via malware or via an intern at the station.

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: There are multiple plausible ways to do this

      or you could fly up to the unguarded satellite and put your DVD in the tray.

      Just saying, there are easier ways.

      1. Shrimpling

        Re: There are multiple plausible ways to do this

        I think we would have noticed a space launch from Gaza

    2. tmTM

      Or

      There was no hack.

      because any Israeli watching that broadcast would probably think:

      "Bomb them back to the stone age"

      Instant public support for a ground incursion into Gaza.

  2. Mark 85
    Unhappy

    They (and really everyone else) don't get it

    IT WON'T CHANGE A DAMN THING!!!!! This is propaganda BS by Hamas. It would be the same (only reversed) if the Israelis did it. Both sides will cheer the other sides casualties. Just like certain populations cheered the Twin Towers falling. Then we cheered when we invaded Afghanistan to (attempt) to take out the Taliban and Al-Queda.

    Sun Yat Sen and Machiavelli understood about "knowing your enemy better than your friends" and the value of propaganda and when to use it. In many ways, firing rockets and bombing each other's civilians doesn't change anything. The Germans bombed Britain and the British resolve went to new levels. The Allies bombed Germany and ditto.

    And we, in the States, haven't learned that lesson either. History just keeps repeating itself.

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: They (and really everyone else) don't get it

      I always cheer both sides, it's a fantastic conflict and long may it continue.

      1. samlebon2306

        Re: They (and really everyone else) don't get it

        If you enjoy the show, why don't you go there and watch it live? Or maybe you are a coward.

    2. FrankAlphaXII

      Re: They (and really everyone else) don't get it

      I think they understand full well that propaganda isn't very effective against a determined adversary. This, like most of Hamas' propaganda plays to the Arab echo chamber because they know full well that Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya will pick it up and run with it. Israelis won't care and it won't stop them.

      I say cut off Israel and cut off the PA. None of them deserve our backing as both sides have repeatedly demonstrated they aren't willing to bargain in good faith. Let them suck China in and continue to kill each other.

      1. ian 22

        Re: They (and really everyone else) don't get it

        Hamas will agree to a truce only after they've killed enough Palestinians.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They (and really everyone else) don't get it

        Implying that we "support" PA in any meaningful capacity like we support Israel.

  3. FrankAlphaXII

    Interesting

    Kind of reminds me of the Max Headroom incident in Chicago during the 80's. Its really bizarre, check out the Reddit AmA about it, because the guy who wrote that is pretty sure he knows who it was. If you were active at all in the Phreaking or BBS community in Chicago, then you may know as well.

    There's an article On wikipedia and the reddit Am(almost)A here

  4. ratfox

    "extended stay in shelters.”

    The thing is, Israelis hardly need to stay in shelters. Whatever rockets the Hama's is throwing at them has a miserable effect. If you live in Israel, you have orders of magnitude more chance to die of cancer, in a car accident, or of old age than from terrorist attacks.

    When they threaten Israel, Hamas really underscore how much they are powerless.

    1. Arnold Lieberman

      Re: "extended stay in shelters.”

      @ratfox. I used to think they were too stupid to understand that they can't win that way but now I realise they just don't give a shit about the lives of their own people. Funny how it takes an Arab news site to report that Egypt is is also trying to deal with Hamas.

      http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/07/13/Egypt-thwarts-Sinai-rocket-attack-at-Israel-.html

    2. James Micallef Silver badge

      Re: "extended stay in shelters.”

      "When they threaten Israel, Hamas really underscore how much they are powerless"

      Which is exactly why the only way Palestinians will get anywhere is by non-violent resistance Ghandi style. Currently Israel has the luxury of the excuse that they are protecting themselves from a deadly enemy who wants them dead, while at the same time they are so much stronger than this enemy that their casualties are minimal, they take land from Palestinians at will, bulldoze their houses, build walls around etc, all can be doen in the name of their own security.

      If Palestinians use a non-violent strategy, Israel will no longer have any excuse for what is a blatant land grab. It's a long-haul strategy and a tough one to keep to after all the violence there, but the only one that has a chance of succeeding. Hamas can never win a physical fight vs a far stronger Israel.

      1. John Savard

        Non-violent Resistace

        Well, it might be that most Palestinians realize this already, and this is why there are no suicide bombers from the West Bank any more. Although the wall helped. But look at how Coptic Christians have been treated in Egypt: there is an ingrained tendency to look on non-Muslims with contempt, along with other factors, that make it almost inevitable that terrorist groups will find recruits.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "extended stay in shelters.”

        "Non violent means" ...because West Bank and Abbas are brilliant examples of what (relatively) "peaceful" means can achieve when dealing with Israel.

        1. James Micallef Silver badge

          Re: "extended stay in shelters.”

          West Bank limited non-violent means has at least raised the relevant issues in Western Europe and even some parts of US are waking up to the fact that their tax dollars are subsidising an Israeli land-grab.

          But as I said, it's a long process. Gandhi returned to India in 1915 and was leading Indian National Congress in 1921. India did not become independent till 1947. Unfortunately neither Abbas nor anyone else in Palestine is of Gandhi's calibre as a leader.

        2. JEDIDIAH
          Linux

          Re: "extended stay in shelters.”

          It really doesn't take much to improve upon the mess that Hamas has managed to create. The simple fact that the Israelis aren't retaliating against the West Bank is a massive improvement and validation for the Abbas approach.

          The Gaza leadership might as well cut out the middle man and execute their own citizens directly. At least that would be more honest.

        3. Thorne

          Re: "extended stay in shelters.”

          ""Non violent means" ...because West Bank and Abbas are brilliant examples of what (relatively) "peaceful" means can achieve when dealing with Israel."

          Pretty sure non violent means excludes kidnapping and murdering children......

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Uggly

    There is nothing as uggly as a civil war based on religion.

    1. Throatwobbler Mangrove

      Re: Uggly

      ...and this is nothing like a civil war based on religion.

      1. john devoy

        Re: Uggly

        True, it's an illegal occupation interspersed with offers of peace talks, which inevitably end with the Israelis building more illegal encampments, then wondering why the people they are killing are being rude to them.

        1. Arnold Lieberman

          Re: Uggly

          Remind me, how many Israelis are there living in Gaza?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Uggly

            How many Israelis living in Gaza? Ugly joke, grow up.

            1. Arnold Lieberman

              Re: Uggly

              Brave coward, you didn't answer the very serious question, because you know the answer.

              16% of the population of Israel are muslim. Again, I will ask what percentage of the population of Gaza is Jewish? What percentage Christian/Druze etc.?

              Time to wake up from your simplistic stupor where the goodies (Arabs) fight the baddies (Israelis) - it's a lot more complex.

              Try not deal with your cognitive dissonance once you've watched this video:

              http://www.algemeiner.com/2014/07/13/egyptian-tv-announcer-calls-for-destruction-of-hamas-al-ahram-columnist-thanks-netanyahu-video/

              1. Thorne

                Re: Uggly

                "Time to wake up from your simplistic stupor where the goodies (Arabs) fight the baddies (Israelis) - it's a lot more complex."

                Or a lot simpler

                One group of people have an invisible friend that lives in the sky (goodies) fights another group of people with an invisible friend in the sky (baddies)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Uggly

      If religion is your conclusion to this conflict then your knowledge about this is laughable. Typical of the west. Initiate conflict, fund, fuel the conflict, exclusively support one side of the conflict, blame religion of the opposing side.

      1. Sir Runcible Spoon

        Re: Uggly

        "Typical of the west"

        If you want to lump everyone under the same label and then treat them all as one thing, eventually everyone in that group that doesn't match your label eventually will.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It will be unending

    Only the weak suffer.

  7. john devoy

    Arnold: Isn't part of the problem that the Jews believe they have a divine right to certain lands because god said they could have them? A flimsy reasoning if ever there was one.

    1. Arnold Lieberman

      @John Devoy

      Not sure where you're going with this line of thought. Please explain, would you rather the Jews jumped in the sea, vacating all the land to whoever wants to fill the gap? Or perhaps Hamas should be allowed to honour its charter and kill them before they jump?

      My point, if I need to make it again is that it seems to be perfectly acceptable for Gazans to ethnically cleanse their land of Jews and others, which has happened yet Israel is attacked for being an apartheid state. I know it's not deemed appropriate to quote Wikipedia round these parts, but this snippet may give you a clue:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel

      "Most of the Arabs living in East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed, were offered Israeli citizenship, but most have refused, not wanting to recognize Israel's claim to sovereignty. They became permanent residents instead.[12] They have the right to apply for citizenship, are entitled to municipal services, and have municipal voting rights.[13]"

      Do you think Hamas would reciprocate should they have been in the same position?

      How about this, from further down:

      Israel Defense Forces: Arab Generals in the IDF include Major General Hussain Fares, commander of Israel's border police, and Major General Yosef Mishlav, head of the Home Front Command and current Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.[citation needed] Both are members of the Druze community. Other high-ranking officers in the IDF include Lieutenant Colonel Amos Yarkoni (born Abd el-Majid Hidr/ عبد الماجد حيدر) from the Bedouin community, a legendary officer in the Israel Defense Forces and one of six Israeli Arabs to have received the IDF's third highest decoration, the Medal of Distinguished Service.

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