A more likely explanation for the lack of attribution is that the pranksters grew up and are more than a little embarrassed about their adolescent exploits. I know that I would probably not fess up to some of the nonsense I got up to phreaking/hacking in junior high and high school despite the statue of limitations passing long, long ago.

Could also be that they revel in the mystery.

Why would you be embarrassed of being awesome?

> Could also be that they revel in the mystery.

This makes more sense.

There are still many professions where illegally broadcasting your ass being slapped by a flyswatter to the city of Chicago would be enough to cause real professional issues. Even if it was 30 years ago.

Very few well-paying professions are as informal and laissez faire as tech. In fact, lots of pretty poorly paying professions have strict conduct expectations.

Even just a spouse or friend group with a different sense of humor would be a deterrent.

Again, there are lots of social groups that don't think it's funny to illegally broadcast your ass being slapped by a flyswatter to the city of Chicago.

The Headroom prank interrupted TV people (presumably) wanted to watch, made broadcast engineers scramble, and may have even gotten a few woken up in the middle of the night. I won't even speculate as to what kind of pains-in-the-ass it almost certainly caused throughout the network and at the FCC going forward.

You really cannot see the asshole quotient here?

Pranks should be between friends, not unsuspecting strangers.

Yet you feel it is somehow contributing to the world to intentionally create shitty days at work and not give a shit about people trying to enjoy what they're watching?

> I think we're just two people that would hate each other in real life and leave it at that

Yeah, I generally don't like people who think it is ok to take their entertainment in the form of making others miserable.

The part you're failing to understand is that from my perspective you are the person making the world a worse place. I understand why you don't like me, but you don't seem to understand why some people don't like you. Anyway, like I said before, we're not going to find common ground.

> you don't seem to understand why some people don't like you.

Dude, I don't even like me, so I get why people don't. Most of them I do not begrudge. My problem with you specifically is that what you don't like is that I refuse to say it is ok to mess with people you don't know for fun.

You can have the last word if you want. I'm done.

Though of course most people do share it, probably even you. It is a mystery to me why you seem to be saying that no one should care at all about the people negatively affected by this. An argument for the funnieness of it, or the art of it, outweighing that would be understandable, but you don't even go there, it's just apparently not even worth consideration and I'm a bad person for considering it.

I am not trying to force my values on anyone. I am making no call to action whatsoever. The things these people did were already illegal. All I'm doing is defending the idea that yes, indeed, the people who did this have cause to be embarrassed by it. It would seem that you do not agree and do not think anyone should feel embarrassed. Why this disagreement between us is a source of so much vitriol from you I do not understand if, as you say, you truly do not care.

[0] notable Banksy works come to mind as counter examples, and I would not not say that they were being a bit of an asshole. Sometimes you may need to be an asshole to make your point though.

[0] However, it is not unknown for soldiers, even one's with PTSD, to have an overall fond recollection of their time in the war either, so it's not clear that means anything.

You need more joy in your life if you see this as an asshole move.

> You need more joy in your life if you see this as an asshole move.

Everybody seems to think I'm joyless because I think people need to be more considerate of the negative externalities of fucking pranks. No wonder the world is going to shit.