Grounding Captain Midnight

By Richard Zoglin

The attack was swift and startling, the getaway apparently clean. Shortly after midnight one morning last April, a mysterious electronic intruder interrupted a movie on HBO with a transmission of his own. GOOD EVENING HBO FROM CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT, read the message on the screen. $12.95/MONTH? NO WAY! (SHOWTIME/MOVIE CHANNEL BEWARE!). The complaint was directed at cable services that scramble their satellite-beamed signals so owners of home dishes can see programs only by buying a decoder and paying a monthly fee. The daring prank captured the nation's fancy but set in motion a high-tech manhunt. Last week, after a three-month investigation, Captain Midnight was unmasked.

He turned out to be John MacDougall, 25, a part-time engineer at a satellite transmission facility in Ocala, Fla., and owner of a home-dish dealership whose business had been hurt by scrambling. MacDougall pleaded guilty to the unauthorized transmission of an interfering signal. If a plea- bargain arrangement is accepted, he will be fined $5,000 and sentenced to one year of probation. In a statement, MacDougall said he took the action to "focus public attention on a problem that affects millions of Americans." But he acknowledged, "In retrospect, I realize the means I used may not have been the best."

He was nabbed by a combination of space-age sleuthing and old-fashioned legwork. Executives at HBO, the Time Inc.-owned cable service, say that within 24 hours after the incident they were confident there was enough information to eventually locate the culprit. But it was up to the FCC to track him down through an elaborate process of elimination. To override HBO's signal, it was determined, the intruder must have had access to a large dish -- at least seven meters in diameter -- equipped with a strong transmitter. That limited the number of possible sources to about 580 commercial "uplink" facilities. Next, after studying tapes of Captain Midnight's message, investigators pinpointed the make and model of the character generator used; only about 100 sites had that piece of equipment.

The list was gradually narrowed further. Many facilities, for instance, were relaying legitimate telephone or video signals on the night of the attack. HBO technicians provided one helpful clue. Exactly one week before Captain Midnight's attack, the service's programming had been interrupted briefly with a pattern of color bars. It was apparently the work of the same person; thus it seemed the culprit had access to the facility at the same time on both nights. Another important tip came from an accountant vacationing in Florida who had overheard a revealing conversation about Captain Midnight at a pay phone. He took down the caller's license-plate number and gave it to the authorities. The auto was linked to MacDougall.

Captain Midnight's much publicized stunt threw a fright into the communications world. If TV programming could be disrupted, industry executives warned, so could the sensitive data transmissions of business, Government and the military. Although HBO and other broadcasters say they have taken precautions to prevent future disruptions, they were gratified by the grounding of Captain Midnight. "This was a great piece of high-tech gumshoeing," marveled Steve Tuttle, vice president of the National Cable Television Association. "Sherlock Holmes would have been proud."

With reporting by Jerome Cramer/Washington, with other bureaus