Confused viewers called WTTW nonstop to voice their concerns. WGN technicians suspected an inside job and launched their own investigation, but never found out who hacked their airwaves. The FCC and FBI investigated as well but also came up short. The Sun-Times reported on it with the headline of “2 Channels Interrupted to the Max” while the Tribune ran a story about it entitled “Powerful Video Prankster could become Max Jailroom.” Local TV news ran wild with it as well. In a pre-internet world, the hack quickly became infamous.

In the 1980s, Poland was under the grip of martial law as the Communist government of General Wojciech Jaruzelski attempted to repress the independent Solidarity trade union. In Western Europe our TV screens featured as much coverage of the events as could be gleaned through the Iron Curtain, but Polish state TV remained oblivious and restricted itself to wholesome Communist fare.

In September 1985, TV viewers in the city of Toruń sat down to watch an action adventure film and were treated to an unexpected bonus: the screen had a brief overlay with the messages “Solidarity Toruń: Boycotting the election is our duty,” and “Solidarity Toruń: Enough price hikes, lies, repression”.

The transmission had been made by a group of dissident radio astronomers and scientists who had successfully developed a video transmitter that could synchronise itself with the official broadcast to produce an overlay that would be visible on every set within its limited transmission radius.

This expertise allowed them to create their transmitter capable of overlaying the official broadcasts. The police file on the event shows some of their equipment, including a Sinclair ZX Spectrum home computer from the West that was presumably used to generate the graphics.

There is no surviving recording of the overlay transmission, however a reconstruction has been put on YouTube

TV Solidarity
http://idlewords.com/2007/04/tv_solidarity.htm

The hacker’s errand: Sherlock villain Moriarty suddenly appeared in the Kiev subway
The hacker repeated in real life the popular New Sherlock seen in the TV series last season’s concluding section twist.

Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis Jim Moriarty appeared unexpectedly metro For screens in the Ukrainian capital Kiev.

The hacker attack was a big success in social media, but also attracted concern for the safety of the Kiev Metro.

Source: http://yle.fi/uutiset/hakkeri_asialla_sherlock-pahis_moriarty_ilmestyi_yhtakkia_kiovan_metroihin/8602162