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There are various groups that think all hardware tinkerers are pirates. When you buy something like this its good to pay for it with cash so you don't end up being sued later.

For example see the problems people got into buying similar equipment in the past: http://www.directvdefense.org/newsarch.shtml

You're pissed at Tivo and don't want to pay them on principle, but you're a DirecTV customer? I'm trying to imagine the set of priorities that makes those decisions reasonable. Or perhaps you're not aware that DirecTV is one of the most evil companies currently in existence.

See http://www.directvdefense.org/ for details.

http://www.directvdefense.org -- why I will NEVER be a DirecTV customer

The **AA suing people is no different than what DirecTV has been doing for a few years.

The "problem" with these lawsuits is that it will cost you more to defend them than to settle.

Additionally, both the **AA and DirecTV typically sue you civilly where your guilt or innocence is based on a "preponderance of the evidence", not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is, if their heavy-handed attorneys can make some jury full of idiots think it's 51% likely you did it, then you lose. You get no court appointed attorney and you don't get to plead the 5th ammendment without any negative inference. These **AA attorneys have these cases cookie-cuttered/boiler-plated out and don't care whether you are guilty or innocent. They care about billable hours and whether they think there is enough evidence for them to win.

And when you lose under the DMCA, you lose big time. You not only risk hefty fines, but attorney fees that are often in the tens of thousands. Look at the PACER reports of those people who try and fight these corporations in court -- the defendent typically has one attorney while the plaintiff often has four to six attorneys on their side. Is it NO WONDER nearly everyone settles, even if they are innocent?

So learn from the mistakes of those poor slobs, many who were innocent, but settled anyways.

BE ANONYMOUS.

Because if you get sued by one of the above, you always lose.

If you are gonna do anything that even remotely has the risk of you getting targeted for a lawsuit by one of these big corporations that could care less if 10% of the people they sue are innocent, make sure there is NO WAY it can get tracked back to you.

Look! Right behind you! There's the point! You missed it!

Do you really think this tactic isn't being applied to innocent people?

http://www.directvdefense.org/

No, although it is pricey.

By extortion, I mean that they are suing owners of certain programmable PC smart cards that can be used to hack a DTV receiver box to pirate the signal.

They are doing this with no regard to the actual use of the card. They've sued actual pirates, they've sued loyal customers who have always paid for their service and they've sued people who have never used DTV service at all, paid or pirated.

The card in question is perfectly legal and has numerous legitimate uses. Ownership or use is not a crime in any jurisdiction in the world (as far as I know), but DTV will sue anyone whose name/address they can find who has purchased one.

They start with a demand for money that is slightly less than the cost of defending against the lawsuit, with a promise that the "damages" they'll seek will be much more if it goes to court. That's pure extortion and I don't know why the FCC/FTC are letting them get away with it.

Read this site for more information about it

There is no way I would ever sign up for this. They SUE THEIR CUSTOMERS! They are an evil company. If you read the link, you'll agree with me.
I am posting Anonymous because they scare the living crap out of me, and I don't want to anger them any more than I did for owning a smartcard reader. I can't afford to fork over money to them, and I don't want to have to defend myself in court.

I call "Bogus" on PanIP even before the patent review is over because if you really felt your patent is good, you'll go after the big fish. Go after Amazon.com or Buy.com for $50,000,000 instead of tiny companies for $5,000. PanIP probably wasn't expecting the little guys to group together.

The EFF is adding to their history of being a group defense for technological innovation in free speech areas. For example, Chilling Effects helps anyone dealing with a C&D letter. Their DirectTV fight helped protect individuals who couldn't afford to do anything but settle, given DirectTV's threats, even when innocent.

The EFF is small enough (come on everyone, buy coffee instead of TripleTallLattes for 2 weeks and DONATE to the EFF) and doing so much already that they're not going to choose patents just because the patent-holder is suing. They're choosing patents where the EFF thinks prior art exists or the patent isn't novel and the patent is hurting free speech and the right to technological innovation.

Even if there isn't prior art per se, a patent can still be far too obvious yet be granted. On this topic, I like this essay on telling good patents from bad:

"But I have found a common thread in many of the bad patents which could be a litmus test for telling the bad from the good. Patent law, as we know, requires inventions to be novel and not obvious to one skilled in the art.

But the patent office has taken too liberal a definition of novel. They are granting patents when the problem is novel, and the filer is the first to try to solve it. As such their answer to the new question is novel. The better patents are ones that solve older problems.

Amazon was one of the earliest internet shopping operations. So of course they were among the first to look hard at the UI for that style of shopping, and thus were first to file an invention called one-click-buy. But one-click-buy was really just an obvious answer to a new problem. The same applies to XOR cursors, browser plug-ins, and streaming audio and video

...While it would not solve every problem, I think if patent examiners asked, "How long has somebody been trying to solve the problem this invention solves?" and held off patents when the problem was novel, or at least applied more scrutiny, we would have a lot less problem with the patent system.... many of the bad patents (notably the bad software patents) that are causing trouble these days fail my test -- they were not very clever solutions to novel problems, not novel solutions to hard problems.

There is a link (pops) off of the main article to the DirecTV Defense website that has a rundown of DirecTV's machinations. Included as part of the awareness package is a list of uses for smart cards, including IDs, storage of cryptographic keys, secure memory storage...etc.

>The same goes for dual VCR's which were opposed when initially
>marketed, but couldn't be suppressed because although they could be
>used to do wrong, they can also be used to do right: and the courts
>can't allow the device to be suppressed just for this reason,
>otherwise they'd be able to suppress knives and all sorts of things
>that have dangerous uses.

What you need to watch out for is the "illegal civil lawsuit" ala DirecTV. You may be able to buy things with dual purposes, but a big company can sue your ass with the only evidence of wrongdoing being an alleged purchase. And you have no choice but to pay money: either to your laywer or the plaintiff's lawyer. Your only defense is never letting them find out who you are.

So go ahead and download/use stuff like PlayFair or smartcard programmers. Just make 100% sure there's no way it can ever be traced back to you. What does that mean? Download stuff like PlayFair at "Internet Cafes" across proxy servers, and buy stuff like smartcard programmers "cash & carry" or using money orders sent to post office boxes rented under a fake name.

"Big money eats up little money."

>"...While I don't agree with the extortion tactics, let's at least be clear on this. Buying legitimate smartcard writers has never been an issue. DirecTV sends the extortion letters to people who have specifically purchased specialty smartcard readers whose design intent is to program DirecTV cards (i.e. Mikobu, etc). You're in no danger of receiving a threat letter if you purchase, say, a SDLogic writer, because it's not designed to work with DirecTV cards (but it can be made to with a flash upgrade...)"

Not true, but DirecTV would like you to believe that.

DirecTV has sent out many of these "extortion" letters to people who have merely purchased Netsignia 210 smartcard programmers because they bought them from a place DirecTV claims marketed the devices to DSS pirates. It's all about money and DirecTV will sue anyone they think they have a chance of winning a case against, or at least make it cheaper to settle than fight.

Additionally, DirecTV is taking a "sue them all and let God sort them out" approach where they do NO investigation prior to the filing of the suit. Only if someone decides to fight it do they take a look if they can find any evidence beyond a busted company's purchase order.

DirecTV Defense
DTVLawsuits
FreedomFight
Lakeshore Law DirecTV FAQ
Overhauser Law Offices
WUMarkus DirecTV Legal Forums
EFF Coordinates Fight Against DirecTV

>"...These antics stem from lawsuits here. I, for one, will be switching to DirecTV if they don't get this figured out."

Switch to DirecTV and instead of the stations you watch getting sued, YOU could get sued... for $3,500.00 and on up...

EFF Coordinates Fight Against DirecTV
DirecTV Defense
DirecTV Sues Anyone Who Bought Smartcard Reader?
FreedomFight.CA
DTVLawsuits
Lakeshore Law's DirecTV FAQ
Overhauser Law
WUMarkus' DirecTV Legal Info

Look for the MPAA to use the DMCA to sue anyone who disables the "anti-copy" circuit.

Or even worse than that, look for them to illegally sue anyone who purchases anything, like a soldering iron, that could be used to disable it.

Don't believe me? Look at how (1) (2) DirecTV is warping the DMCA in its own image. Sueing people for merely purchasing a smartcard reader!

Only 22,000+ people sued so far!

Ignorance can be used as a defense in certain cases, such as the case the OP mentioned. You cannot claim ignorance of something that is considered common knowledge (like speed limits, where a "reasonable person" would be expected to check for signs before traveling at an excessive rate of speed). To go back to the OP's case, if his girlfriend downloaded a file from a cooking site named "cookingrecipes.zip" and it contained illegal data, her argument of ignorance would stand up in court (other things like her level of epertise with computers, which could be demonstrated by her education level, e.g. she has a culinary arts degree, rather than a CS degree). However, if she downloaded said file from Lotso-warez.ru, the ignorance thing probably would not work. This whole thing is MOOT however, since they don't care if your argument will stand up in court or not, they just care whether or not you can afford to defend yourself. See DirecTV and the RIAA extorting their customers to pay thousands or else be sued.

The short answer is to switch to DirecTV. The need for IR blasters goes away instantly...

Well, that only solves the Tivo problem if I'm willing to get one of the DirectTivos (or whatever they got rebranded to). The DirectTivos are really nice, but I've already got one that I've paid for a lifetime subscription on. And I'm still left with problems with my existing VCR, or the little TV in my bedroom (for which it seems silly to attach a dedicated receiver given how rarely I use it). To say nothing of the problems if I decide to try and hook a computer up to the input stream. I'm also concerned about supporting any company willing to sue the innocent along with the guilty in a sort of legal carpet-bombing.

DirecTV calls all of these "smart cards readers" pirate devices. DirecTV Defense

4. Sue Tim Berners-Lee for creating a copyright-circumvention tool

I can almost see someone trying #4. But I just can't think of anyone who would sue people for creating circumvention devices?

People who intercept DirectTV's satellite signal are breaking the law. However, DirecTV's cease and desist letter campaign does not distinguish the legitimate users from the thieves.