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.
Wrong again. Read slowly, now. If someone broadcasts electromagnetic energy into the fabric of space, it is public property, period. I don't care if you call it commercial or not. The reason this is so is because I have no say so as to whether or not I recieve it. The signal falls on me whether I like it or not. To believe that I don't I have a right to do whatever I wish with it is just plain stupid. I suppose you believe it is possible for someone to own the air just because they make noises in it and have greased a few palms in Washington. Call it commercial all you want. If it's broadcast at everyone, it belongs to everyone.
Become a customer and you can watch all you want. Don't like the law? Quit whining and do something to get it changed.
Posting photos on the internet is not the same activity as decoding and watching a signal. If you have camera that takes nude photos through clothes and you look at those photos in the privacy of your own home, there is absolutely nothing at all stopping you. I personally would not do it, nor would I condone it. But it is not at all the same thing as receiveing a televsion braodcast. Posting on the internet is akin to re-broadcasting. Also, light reflected off someone's body is a circumstance beyond that person's control. It is not the same thing as DTV's intentional, but not unavoidable, action of broadcasting.
I appreciate our civil discussion and have concluded that we're just not going to agree on this, my friend.
Regards, Glenn
Yes, actually you are. If you care so deeply about these laws, do something to get them changed. If you are, great. If not, you're just another blowhard.
Who says I'm not
Soon it will be possible for anyone with a PDA/camera or cell-phone/camera combination to monitor people around them using face and speaker ID software. This will make it impossible for people like Whitey Bulger or Lon Horiouchi, to pick two provocative examples, to walk around without being detected.
Is it a crime to shout "Lon Horiouchi!" in a crowded gun show.
My opinon is that the more that people can snoop, the more they will snoop on government officials. No more anonymity. Some IR cameras could have unmasked the Elian raiders. I think this is a good thing.
No, it's not. We wear clothes to block the "visible" spectrum. One could make a case that failure to wear clothing that blocks IR is just as irresponsible as going naked.
My point is that the law only deals with a tiny percentage of lawbreaking. Society exists because most people follow, for the most part, the spirit of the law. Reading another person's broadcast when they have taken steps to prevent it is just a dirty, scummy thing to do. It marks a person as having an infantile sense of ethics.
Even if it were "legal" in the sense of being unenforceable.
If sound logic does not address the legal and moral reality of a signal floating around in the free air, what would you propose we use? A system wherein monied interest buys influence to deprive people of their right? That's the system we have. Legal does not equal moral. No one has the right to claim ownership of something they beam out into space on the public airwaves. By doing so, they are claiming ownership of said public airwaves. THAT is immoral.
I appreciate our civil discussion and have concluded that we're just not going to agree on this, my friend.
I appreciate the discussion as well, even though I get a bit heated in the process. I do not watch DTV, nor do I care to. But I am personally trying to get these sort of laws changed. Unfortunately, once they are in place, they are almost impossible to repeal due to support from persons like yourself. Alas, it does seem we will never agree.
Wrong. Believing you have a right to own the public airwaves and jail people who play with radio reception is a disgusting crime against humanity. Slobbering after and defending such dirtbag criminals is the pinhead thing to do. It marks a moron serf who has been programmed to believe anything he is told. I suppose you would have thought King George's stamp act was cool. After all, it was the law, you know.
My understanding of the case presented on this thread is that actual designs were copied and sold. If this is what the case is about, then it's common theft.
As for the Stamp Act, if the Americans had been represented in Parliament, then yes, I would say it was lawful.
One of the key tests of any law is whether it offends common sensibilities. Common people may be annoyed by having to pay for TV content, but I haven't seen any mass protest movement. The reason is that ordinary people can see that the content would disappear if everyone could bypass payment. Ethics is not difficult. Even children can do it.
.mucs elitnafni uoy ,srallod noillim a em ewo uoY .stsop detpyrcne ym rof gnigrahc trats ot dediced ev'I
Gee, I wonder where all that TV and radio content I watched and listened to when I was a child studying ethics came from.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.