Long Term Effects of Gizmodo CES Prank

theodp noted that someone from Gizmodo brought a TV-B-Gone to CES and used it to turn off a wall of monitors during demos. Funny yes, it earned him a ban for life and may have repercussions to other bloggers struggling to be treated as equals with traditional journalists in the future. But also this might lead to a future with encryption on remotes.

Re:Electrical tape

[tomhath]

Tape and restricting access to the power strips isn't enough, because now this guy is a hero. Others will consider the increased security the next challenge.

Re:Simple really

[Anonymous Coward]

What's funny is Brian Lam's comments over on Valleywag. He's basically saying "What's the problem? We're not really the press so we shouldn't have to act professional." In essence, he's reaffirming many people's stance that many bloggers don't deserve to be treated with respect.

The difference between a blogger and a journalist

[Anonymous Coward]

... Is a 4 year degree from an accredited University and a couple of journalist ethics courses. Sure you can say "well the press is unethical, they dont fact check" don't judge the whole bunch by a couple *and I mean a couple) of bad apples.

Bloggers aren't qualified to report on the subject matters they usually cover. I love political blogs, some schmuck PHP programmer from NYC comments on politics as if he were Tim Russert and then wants to be treated like the press.

Don't devalue the press by comparing them as equals to bloggers. That's like comparing anyone else to your specialized career or degree that you hold. If you were a nobel prize winning physicist would you want to be held as equals to a journalist when it comes to physics? No, so don't equate a guy with laptop to a journalist with a proper degree.

Re:Encryption's going a little too far

[Sen.NullProcPntr]

Yes, the CES created two classes: "press" and "blogger", and yes, members of that underclass acted in a juvenile manner, bad enough to cause a stink that will appear in the "press".

According to CNET's Rafe Needleman [valleywag.com];
Gizmodo attended the event -- and pulled their silly stunt -- with full press credentials, not second-class blogger badges.

Re:Encryption on remotes?

[LoadWB]

Damn... this could tombstone my Casio remote control watch...

Re:Encryption's going a little too far

[DingerX]

Well, according to Gizmodo's Richard Blakeley [craigslist.org], the banned man in question, his Badge is for sale. If you look closely, you can clearly read the word "Blogger".

Re:Business oppertunity for secure links

[Technician]

Encryption is not needed. Replacing the original factory IR receiver with a coax link to the head end (program source cabinet) is the simple solution. Make up cables and route them with the video lines for complete secure control. This is a simple job for a good TV shop to remove the original IR diode and replace it with an optocoupler. This makes monitors and TV's immune to stray IR signals in a room.

The seem to spontaneously launch into the air, gravitating toward the point of RF emission that induced the sports footage vacuum.

If I was a geek (I am), up to no good (I am not) and intent on being discreet in that type of hack, it's easy to remove the IR diode from the remote and with a length of wire, remote it to your MP3 player headphones. Nobody needs to know you did it.

I have modified remotes in the past for another purpose. In a head end in a hotel, a rack of satellite receivers can easily be messed up buy using a full power remote to change the program on one receiver in a rack. I have changed the LED current limiting resistor from a low resistance to several K ohm to make a remote with less than a 6 inch range. It was perfect for changing the channel on just one receiver instead of the entire rack.

Fallout

[Duncan Blackthorne]

I wouldn't at all be surprised if the main fallout from this stupid, purile prank, is that the manufacturer of TV-B-GONE gets in trouble over it.

The importance of CES

[wramsdel]

I work as an applications engineer for a startup chip maker that sees many of its products end up in consumer electronics gear. My company exhibits at CES every year, and I've been involved in the preparations for the event for the last three years. I could talk about the tens of thousands of dollars that we spend, or the thousands of man-hours spent preparing for the show, but that's not particularly interesting or relevant here...many companies spend far more. No, where this cuts to the bone is that I could be (and have been) that guy up there on the stage. I could be (and have been) the guy who pulled all-nighters getting the demo ready for the show. For many companies, image *does* matter, and never more so than when you're a startup trying to articulate to your customers why exactly they should care about your stuff. CES is critically important for this purpose. I'm glad that these guys got some chuckles out of their stunt, but in the end it was an incredibly immature thing to do and bannination from the show is far too lenient a punishment in my opinion.

Re:Encryption on remotes?

[Kadin2048]

It's not funny. It's not even creative. It's a dumb, script-kiddie-esque attack, nothing more.

I didn't have much of an opinion on Gizmodo either way prior to this, but it's pretty clear they're a bunch of puerile dumbasses now.

Maybe next year they'll crawl around and yank the power cord out during somebody's presentation; that would be just as 'funny.'

Re:I hate TV-B-gone

[Dephex Twin]

Nobody should want to be "that guy" in a group of friends who always takes a joke too far or at the totally wrong time. That guy really sucks, and it's a matter of not knowing when and where to bring out the humor. I have friends with a totally inappropriate sense of humor and they have me doubling over with laughter all the time, but they know not to walk up and start with the dead baby jokes while I'm talking to my boss, for example, or talk about a dirty sanchez while I'm on the phone with my mom. You may think those things are funny (I don't know), but if you don't get why some people don't want certain humor at certain times, then you're going to be turning a lot of people away from you over time. The Gizmodo guys may have been funny to me for a while if I knew them, but once they did something like what they did at CES, yeah, I'd say, you guys are being kind of sucky and I probably would be pretty annoyed with them. Just like most of the people at the CES.