This was the original control for cable TV. And if you bribed the install guy with cash he would set it to give you premium channels you didn't pay for

Comments

• ramble81@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I remember when cable was analog, channels you didn’t pay for were blocked with a frequency filter. let’s say channels 13-60 were 425-475Hz (purely an example) there would be a little device connected to your coax that would filter it out. The thing was though, they did this in the cable box usually in your yard. So all you had to do was go out at night, pop the box open (wasn’t hard) and remove the filter to get free channels.

  Then they moved to digital and all things changed.

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  • jaaake@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    The one in my yard was inside a green plastic dome with a lock connecting the dome to a collar around the base… only the entire thing was connected to the ground with a thin wooden stake. We just lifted the entire covering out of the ground, still locked. Unscrew the filter, free HBO!

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  • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    The filters were installed to unscramble the channels. Not the other way around. We had a filter for Cinemax that we’d put in line as it would get to our cable box in the house.

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    • AtariDump@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Might depend on where you were; I know where I am it filtered the signal out.

      I know this because we didn’t get HBO until there was this random coax filter lying on the ground next to the telephone pole in front of the house.

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• Evilschnuff@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Client side security

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• CubitOom@infosec.pub ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  I would need my grandpa to help me use this remote…I had to help him use the newer ones.

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• ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  All I needed was row three, 2nd from the left.

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  • Pacattack57@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    lol you dirty boy

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    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      I was a little kid. In my neck of the woods 27 was nickelodeon. Lol

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• PaulBunyan@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  If you give the cable guy money for the premium channels then you are still paying for it.

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  • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    If the bribe money is less than what you would have paid for a premium subscription over the lifetime of the product, then you would’ve still come out on top.

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    • somedev@aussie.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      And this is why monetary fines for companies that makes billions of dollars is just considered the cost of doing business.

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  • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    ACKTUALLY

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  • Mickey7@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    wrong. Back then they had no way to track it

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    • PaulBunyan@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      If you pay someone for a pirated stream of a game you’re still paying for it. Doesn’t matter if it’s tracked or not.

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• tehWrapper@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  A copper wire wrapped around a pen, a resistor and a pot could also allow you de scramble some channels.

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