Jamming of MBC Masr during broadcasts of El-Bernameg (February-March 2014)
What happened
On Friday 7 March 2014 the signal of MBC Masr was jammed while it was broadcasting El-Bernameg, the satirical programme presented by Bassem Youssef, which the Saudi-owned network had begun carrying in February after the Egyptian channel CBC suspended it. During the episode the screen froze and then blacked out for minutes at a time. The network's spokesman, Mazen Hayek, said MBC's satellite carrier had identified small satellite transmitters in two locations in Cairo as the cause, but that it was not possible to identify who was behind the jamming or exactly where it emanated from; he called it a form of terrorism. MBC's own statement said the disruption on its Egyptian affiliate also affected other channels and was reported from many places around the Arab world. Gulf News reports that the disruption ran for over an hour, that it was the second consecutive week in which the programme was jammed, and that when the recorded episode was rerun early on the Saturday it was jammed again; it records the Nilesat operator describing the jamming as deliberate without identifying a source.
The only record in the batch where the affected broadcaster explicitly declines to attribute, and it is recorded unattributed. Two facts on the record pull in opposite directions on the mechanism, and neither is discarded: MBC's carrier identified small transmitters at two Cairo locations, which is a local, downlink-side picture, while MBC's own statement says the disruption was reported from many spots around the Arab world, which is a footprint-wide, uplink-side picture. Neither source resolves it, so the sub-technique mapping is carried at low confidence with the contradiction stated. The timing is the strongest evidence of intent: the same programme, two consecutive weeks, and again on the rerun.
Attack vector
Interference from small satellite transmitters at two locations in Cairo, timed to the transmission and to the rerun of one programme on one channel, and repeated across consecutive weeks.
Operational impact
Over an hour of frozen and blacked-out transmission during a scheduled programme, repeated on the rerun the following morning and on the previous week's episode, with knock-on effects reported on other channels and in other countries.
Affected segments
link, user
Disclosed
2014-03-08
SPARTA techniques evidenced
Each row is a technique this record evidences, with the reasoning and the source that attests to it.
What relationship, confidence, and evidence mean on the rows below
- Relationship
What kind of link this is between the technique and the target.
Mitigates: the target actively prevents, detects, or recovers from the technique.
Addresses: the target governs the technique or is relevant to it, without interdicting it. Most governance and policy obligations sit here.
Triggers obligation: the technique occurring is what triggers the duty the target imposes.
Relates to: related to the technique, but the target neither interdicts nor governs it. Used sparingly.
- Confidence
How strongly the source supports this mapping, not how severe the technique is.
High: the source supports the mapping squarely.
Moderate: supported, with a qualification such as a cross-tactic reading that stays operationally sound.
Low: the source reaches the technique only in part.
- Evidence
How close to the source text the mapping was made.
Direct: a verbatim excerpt of the cited source was read against the technique, and the rationale argues from that excerpt.
Derived: the mapping follows from the source's scope or structure, with no on-point excerpt addressing the technique.
Inferred: reached by composition through another framework, or by domain reasoning the source does not support on its face.
The broadcaster's spokesman states that the signal was deliberately jammed and that the satellite carrier identified transmitters as the cause; the satellite operator separately characterises the jamming as deliberate. Intentional radio-frequency interference with a broadcast, reversible and repeated on schedule. SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident at EX-0016.02.
The only mechanism description on the record is small satellite transmitters at two locations in Cairo, and small local transmitters affecting reception in an area is EX-0016.02's case. Confidence is LOW because MBC's own statement contradicts the local reading: the disruption was reported from many spots around the Arab world, which no downlink jammer at two Cairo sites could produce. The mapping is carried at low confidence rather than dropped because it is the only mechanism any source describes and because SPARTA's bibliography places this incident here. An editor should decide whether to keep it or move to EX-0016.01.
Two transmitter sites identified by the satellite carrier, operating outside any authorised ground architecture and cued to a programme schedule. That matches IA-0008.01's transportable-or-fixed transmitting facility. Derived: the equipment is characterised only as 'small satellite transmitters', no operator is identified, and the tactic is denial rather than initial access. SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident at IA-0008.01.
The programme continued to be transmitted while the picture froze and blacked out for minutes at a time over more than an hour. Temporary impairment of the use of a service, not its elimination, which is IMP-0002 rather than IMP-0003.
Considered and not mapped
These techniques were considered for this record because a source, a related record or SPARTA's own catalogue pointed at them. Each was read against what the sources say and not mapped. The reason is given in full.
SPARTA's bibliography cites this incident here. The channel was not taken off air: it kept transmitting through the interference, with the picture freezing and blacking out intermittently. Under this batch's rule that is IMP-0002.
Considered because the jamming recurred on the same programme across weeks and on the rerun, implying the jammer knew MBC Masr's carriage and schedule. No source describes any scanning or enumeration, and the programme's slot was public, so the mapping would rest on inference alone.
Sources
The published accounts this record rests on. The tier is SafeMode Space's own assessment of the source, and the reason for it is given beside it. What the tiers mean and how they are assigned: the source tiers.
A source is listed when a mapped technique rests on it, or when it disputes the account. One the curators read but neither cited nor recorded as disputing the record is not listed, so an absence here means neither is true rather than that nobody looked.
Tier 2: Wire report quoting the broadcaster's named spokesman directly; used because the SPARTA-cited copy of the same wire story could not be retrieved.
Tier 3: Regional newspaper report; used only to corroborate the duration, the repeat on the rerun and the Nilesat operator's characterisation.
Every source SafeMode Space reproduces, and on what terms: sources and attribution.