What happens when an old satellite is no longer in use but can still broadcast? Hacker shenanigans, that's what.
from a Canadian satellite known as Anik F1R, launched to support Canadian broadcasters in 2005 and designed for 15 years of use. The satellite's coverage extends below the US southern border and out to Hawaii and the easternmost part of Russia. The satellite will move to its graveyard orbit soon, and nearly all other services that use it have already migrated to a new satellite.
Koscher and his colleagues from the Shadytel telecommunications and embedded device hacking group broadcast a livestream from another security conference, ToorCon San Diego, in October. At ShmooCon last week, he explained the tools they used to turn an unidentified commercial uplink facility into a command center for broadcasting from the satellite.