Posted on 02/12/2003 12:23:33 PM PST by RCW2001
LOS ANGELES Feb. 12 —
A federal grand jury has indicted 17 people who authorities say hacked into satellite television transmissions, causing millions of dollars in losses to DirecTV and Dish Network, the U.S. Attorney's office said.
Six of the defendants were charged with violating the anti-encryption provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The other charges involved conspiracy or manufacturing a device for the purpose of stealing satellite signals. All three counts carry a maximum prison sentence of five years.
The indictments were returned last month and unsealed Tuesday.
Ten defendants already have agreed to plead guilty, authorities said, including a 43-year-old West Los Angeles man who has acknowledged causing $14.8 million in losses to satellite TV companies.
The investigation was aimed at people who develop software and hardware devices that crack the scrambled signals designed to limit satellite TV services to paying customers. DirecTV, for instances, uses "smart cards" as part of their set-top boxes that descramble satellite signals.
The defendants named Tuesday are charged with thwarting that security, often meeting in secret online chat rooms to exchange data and techniques and using such nicknames as "FreeTV," authorities said.
The defendants range in age from 19 to 52. Most live in California, although some are from Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas, Indiana, Florida and Ohio.
"This case demonstrates our commitment to identifying and prosecuting sophisticated computer hackers who steal the intellectual property of others for their own economic benefit," U.S. Attorney Debra Yang said.
Actually, I did mention amplification. I said the following: Go ahead and try to watch DBS with the dish inside. You won't without an amplifier.
To which you replied: You better tell that to a few of my friends AND my boss since we do exactly that at work cause we are laugh at you right now doing what YOU say we can't
So, are you or are you not watching DBS (stands for Direct Broadcast Satellite) with the dish and LNBs inside. Yes or no?
What you know about encryption could apperently fit in a thimble. Even the most garden-variety SSH packet flow is secure against anyone with "resources" short of the NSA's.
Any commercial venture that fails to use strong encryption gets what it deserves.
Laws that criminalize cracking lame encryption criminalize behavior that can only be detected by intrusive means. That's the downside: Are you ready to make your PC an open book to be inspected by anyone with a claim that their encrypted content might have been cracked on your PC?
Do you have specific knowledge that the DSS signals are not encrypted?
Perhaps you should read the rules YOU agreed to when you registered on this board.
I have no idea what you thought so I have no idea if you have apologized. Calling someone a thief on this board is character defamation. A tactic used extensively by the left when they want to squelch free speech. If you cannot engage in friendly dialog, at least abide by your own words.
I think that selling thousands of devices capable of breaking "lame" encryption is hardly exempt from being called criminal behavior.
Now if someone in the privacy of their home breaks DSS codes and doesn't sell or distribute anything, I'd hardly think that worthy of criminal prosecution, even though I'd call the person a thief.
THIS is what YOU said ... and it is wrong. YOU said NOTHING about amplification. AND says ...oh you were talking about channel 6 and I was talking about channel 7 is disengenuos
You just said the following, "THIS is what YOU said ... and it is wrong. YOU said NOTHING about amplification.
I previously said the following: "Go ahead and try to watch DBS with the dish inside. You won't without an amplifier."
Please do try to read and comprehend before commenting again.
Here is your post ....
**************************
Sorry for poking my head in... :-) Satelite TV is routed INVOLUNTARILY into your house No, not really. DBS signals won't even penetrate glass. Once Broadcast (the internet is not a broadcast signal in this regard) the satelite companies are demanding that you not analyze the product they have broadcast. I don't think they mind if you analyze the signal; they just get kind touchy when you decode and use it (watch and listen) without paying them... :-) 136 posted on 02/12/2003 3:42 PM PST by RoughDobermann [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 134 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]
Now show me where the word or even tyhe implication of amplification is in this post.
I said to HODAR, not you, "Unless you're sitting outside typing, no it is not. DBS signals won't even pass through glass." when he claimed that DBS signals were penetrating his body.
To which you replied, "WRONG AGAIN ... now please tell this 25 year ... advanced degreed electrical engineer ... who has worked with these signal for a multitude of years that I am wrong."
To which I replied, " May want to get a refund on that degree... Besides the fact that I've already proven that many of your previous "Wrong again" statements were inaccurate... Go ahead and try to watch DBS with the dish inside." You won't without an amplifier.
Does that clear it up for you?
Ah, but would your criminalize this? That's the problem. Your garage is probably a crime according to the EPA. Leftover pesticides, old motor old (heavy metals in that, too), etc. So you'd have no problem if someone dimed you out to the EPA, right? It's the law, after all. And what is more precious than our environment?
Laws against cracking lame encryption are even more insideous. Cracks can be e-mailed, or even verbally communicated. Should those thoughts and communications become crimes? Even truly evil thoughts, like stories about paedophilia, do not constitute a crime until real children are used to create pornography.
It's not that people here are sympathetic to pirates. We just value the security of our documents and effects over the the possible unpunished theft of a TV broadcast, especially when the vendor has the option to secure his product at little or no extra cost.
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