DirecTV to Pursue Pirates

Trinity-Infinity writes "This story from CNNfn details DirecTV's & Hughes Electronics' plans to eliminate the piracy of their signals through a direct-mail campaign. Their source for creating their list of who to mail letters to? Searching bootlegging operations the feds have already busted. It is interesting that as many as 1 million people may be pirating, in comparison to DirecTV's 10 million paying customers." Ya know, I really want to pirate DirecTV, but not to get all the channels... just to get a damn FOX affiliate over my dish so I could use my DirecTivo for The Family Guy and That 70s Show. Is that to much to ask? I already pay for HBO and Sci-Fi channel. Anyway, there's definitely going to be a lot more cracking down on pirated dish stuff: they are getting crazy with the protective measures.

Comments

Re:My question is...

[Tackhead]

> > what do you do for a living, dare i ask?
>I write code

Careful where you say that, dude. There are some countries where they put people in jail for doing that sorta shit...

Hmm... we've already got the lyrics to that DeCSS song deemed a circumvention device, on the grounds that a posessor of a brain might understand it and subsequently write code based on it.

I wonder how far the MPAA is from going all the way - deeming "a brain" as a circumvention device, and criminalize posession thereof.

Besides, there's probably no greater threat to the mainstream media industry than people who prefer learning, coding, or reading books than watching movies and TV.

Only brainholders crack software! Brains are circumvention devices! Write your Congressman and demand that he get on-side and endorse the "Anencephalitics' Declaration of Universal Rights" We must Criminalize Encephaly Now!, if for no other reason than to ensure a bright future for all our beloved actors, actresses, directors, newsmakers, congressmen, senators, direct marketers, and of course, for the children!

If it is broadcast thru the airwaves then

[Archfeld]

it is MY SIGNAL to do with AS I PLEASE. This precedent has been to court and stood up in 3 states that I know of. This is the gist of an FCC ruling in the 70's, sorry no real details. I am quit sure the sat. companies disagree but until they can figure out how to get past my cut-out, they can't even burn my HU card out, much less find my address. Maybe they should contact the BSA, and work with them for a more Threatening and Sinister campaign designed to produce results.

Can't be that bad

[truthsearch]

The rates can't be too high and the content can't be too crappy... because otherwise 10 million people wouldn't pay for it. There's always land-line cable. I don't know about you, but I don't (voluntarily) pay for things I don't like.

Re:Can't be that bad

[dachshund]

There's always land-line cable

Yes, there is always land-line cable. And it's a steal, due to the intense competition of all 19 of my local cable companies! This is not to mention the 16 companies providing me with satellite-based TV service. I change my provider every other week, based on their the rates and promotions they're offering. Ain't competition grand?

Re:Just the channels I want

[Anonymous Coward]

Because not enough people would pay for Outdoor Life Network, or other channels with smaller targets. It's a form of Revenue Sharing, the people paying for ESPN are helping support 24 hour Lawn & Gardening.

jerks

[Anonymous Coward]

last time they shut people down during WWF pay-per-view match. what could be worse than that? haven't they done enough?

Re:jerks

[sqlrob]

Waiting till the end of the match?

Will Canada be targetted?

[Anonymous Coward]

DirecTV is an American company. Recently, DirecTV tried to sue a Canadian supplier of programmer for their smart cards used to pirate these signals. The CRTC got involved, and they determined that there are no legal grounds, claiming that DirecTV shoudn't be in Canada in the first place, so they have no legal basis on the lawsuit. So my question is, will DirecTV be targetting Canadian residence?

Re:Will Canada be targetted?

[throx]

what that means is that anyone who receives their signals does so in contravention of the Broadcasting Act, and in particular, s. 32(2).

Doesn't that section only refer to the broadcaster, not the recipient of the signal?

Re:Will Canada be targetted?

[OverDrive33]

I've looked and looked into this, as I do my own DirectTV pirating. To my knowledge, Direct TV can do nothing to canadians who get thier service (besides of course, starting a canadian wing of their company to provide canada with DTV legally.) And I have yet to hear any Canadian being busted for burning just American cards.
On the other hand, the sat. feed is intended for Americans only, and if we can pick it up, I wonder if this is some sort of violation of a CRTC law, because does DTV not OWN that feed?

Re:Will Canada be targetted?

[ct]

Even if they try, precedence has already been established in the Quebec Superior Court that DirecTV's signal is "public domain".

DirecTV signal is public domain in Canada

"On Tuesday, May 29, 2001 The Honourable Judge Mr. Pierre Tessier of the Québec Superior Court dismissed the Crowns appeal in the case of Al Gregory who was acquitted by Mr. Justice Sanfacon of the Quebec Provincial Court last year under section 9 (1) C of the RC Act. Mr. Justice Pierre Tessier completely understood the issues in this appeal and stated very clearly that as DirecTV® are not a "lawful Distributor" in Canada and should not be broadcasting here, that Signal was in the "PUBLIC DOMAIN"".

Re:Justifiying Piracy??

[Have Blue]

The point is that there is no marginal increase in the production cost of the system for the system operators due to one more person decoding the signal correctly, rather than just letting the signal pass directly through their body.

You're looking at it from the wrong direction. Suppose nobody payed for DirectTV?

I just don't think that I have a requirement to not decode this freely-published transmission just because DirecTV said so.

It's not freely published, it's published for the use of their subscribers. I bet you could remotely read the electromagnetic fields of coaxial cable with the right equipment, does that make stealing cable OK? What about looking at someone's magazine with a telescope? At some point there is a line where "it is freely available" can no longer be reasonably believed, and I think that by altering the hardware which you purchased and signed a contract governing the use of you have crossed pretty far into the unreasonable side (not to mention tht said equipment was illegal resold, which is what the major pirates were arrested for in the first place- RTFA). If you built a DirecTV receiver from scratch, more power to you.

If you ignore the amount of technology needed, it is possible to remotely obtain any information from any place. Would you object to my use of a laser to eavesdrop on your house? Your vibrating windows are visible from my property.

Re:i know it's been said before, but...

[Muad'Dave]

...last time i checked, it has never been illegal to intercept a signal that is being delivered to your property.

Then you've been out of the loop for 15 years! Thanks to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, it is very much illegal for you to receive a signal 'not intended for your receipt'. This law was ramrodded by the cellular phone industry so that radio enthusiasts with scanners wouldn't be able to listen to your wife ask you to buy bread and milk on the way home.

"nobody" pays

[fishbowl]

Almost everybody I know who watches TV has
some kind of cracked system for it. My problem
with this is that *I* can't make myself pay
for something that I know is widely available for free, so I basically do without TV.

If the situation were that everybody really and
truly paid, instead of the "H-Card/PC" situation
I see everywhere, I might be able to justify
subscribing.

This is one case where widespread "piracy" has caused me to evaluate a service as not being worth paying for! (If all my neighbors get the
service for free and take it for granted, I do
not wish to be a chump and pay for it.)

If I paid for satellite tv, I would definitely become the only person I know, and I know plenty,
who pays.

Re:"nobody" pays

[grapeape]

That is the most pathetic statement regarding piracy that i have ever read. I guess you dont work for a living either since seeing all those folks in the welfare line makes it too difficult to justify working when all those people are getting it for free....

Re:"nobody" pays

[fishbowl]

Au contraire. I do work for a living and I pay so that welfare office can exist.

Are you such a socialist that you can't understand why I won't subscribe to directTV or
whatever until they fix their business model?

It is as if you are accusing me of pirating. I am NOT pirating, nor am I supporting the directTV system that seems to encourage it.

The dish folks benefit from their idiom being saturated into the marketplace. How popular would they seem if only paying subscribers had the service? I think their marketability will suffer greatly if they ever truly stop the piracy. Hard crypto with true accountability between the subscriber and the service provider would do the trick, but do the broadcasters have the balls to really black out that many boxes? I think they allow the piracy to continue because it supports the advertising metrics, and the half-measures they take against it do nothing except focus attention on the broadcasters' victim status.

Because I don't like the business model the broadcasters use AT ALL, I don't support it.
You summarize my opinion as "pathetic" but you seem to have missed the point -- I do without TV.
That seems to be unamerican or something.

I repeat my pathetic observation: In my experience, FAR more than one out of ten satellite TV users are getting their service for free. If you went around telling people you're thinking of paying for it, you'd receive a lot of blank stares, as if it's such a foreign concept as to be beyond reason!

Unless THAT changes, I can't even support the system, not as a subscriber nor as an investor.

newbie question: sat systems in USA a'la Astra?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a question, coming from a typical EU sat TV experience:

Back at home, all I had to do was to buy a sat receiver, an 80cm dish, a small motor and the 'converter' (whatever that was called, which goes into the dish's focus point), and I was able to get hundreds of channels:

• High quality stuff, like German-Austrian-Swiss 3sat
• programs in all kind of languages, from Finnish to Turkish (not that I speak those, but between English, German, French, Italian and Spanish, I had some choice of multi-lingual programming :-P)
• best of all: I did not have to subscribe to any service, no monthly fee etc.

I don't want to start a flame-war: I just want a similar service here in the USA while I am here. How can I get it?

Or is it so that, in a similar fashion as for cellphones in the USA, I have to pay even for things which are (or should be) paid for already by someone else?

thanks for any detailed help.

PS: what I mean with the cellphone comparison is:

• I don't see why I should pay for TV movies interrupted by many commercials: I either pay by watching the commercials, or I don't want to see them inbetween movies. Not both.
• Likewise, I don't want to pay for someone else's phone calls: if someone wants to call my phone, I don't see why I should be paying for it (as if I were asked to pay for incoming calls on my home phone, d'oh)

PPS: I don't want to mess with sat dishes larger than 1m for that, nor to spend more than $300 total for the whole rig (as I'd do in EU).

Re:newbie question: sat systems in USA a'la Astra?

[bluGill]

Because the phone system is different, and overall better in the US.

Or to put it anouther way, why in eurpoe do I have to pay to call my nextdoor neighbor, I already have paid for the phone.

for land line phones my neighbors are a free call. For a cell phone I pay for airtime. They don't charge for incoming calls, they charge airtime. doesn't matter what direction. Every cell phone I know of gives you either one free incomgin minute, or you call them on wrong numbers and they won't charge you for them. So wrong numbers are not a problem.

I'd do it too

[quartz]

I'd pirate Directv too, but I don't have a ship and I can't sail. And I don't have a TV. No really, this "pirate" business is starting to get on my nerves. Why the hell they're calling US pirates? They're the ones who rip us off with high rates, crappy content, bad customer support and questionable service...

Re:I'd do it too

[Pope Slackman]

1) Pirating TV signal that is subscription based is considered a form of Theft.

I think that's bullshit.
If a signal is being broadcast onto my property (without my consent, I should add), I should have every right to recieve it and process it any way I like.

Even if that means doing something a corporation doesn't like.

C-X C-S
(FWIW, I don't do any unsanctioned decoding of DTV, but I think we need to take the corporate influence out of government. The problem now days is not seperation of church and state, but seperation of business and state.)

Re:I'd do it too

[Pope Slackman]

If DTV owns the cards, then they certainly reserve the right to send anything they want to them, including signals that will 'contaminate' non-subscribed cards.

Oh, I have no problem with ECMs, better encryption, etc.
I say more power to 'em,
they have the right to drop any sort of signals
they like through their transmitters, and if the broadcasters can defeat the unsanctioned decoding, let them!

I just don't think it should be /illegal/ to decode a signal.

C-X C-S

Re:I'd do it too

[IronChef]

I just don't think it should be /illegal/ to decode a signal.

I'll take it further: it should not be illegal to manipulate data in the privacy of my own home. Period.

Re:I'd do it too

[plague3106]

Companies are so big that 'dollar votes' are insignificant.

Re:I'd do it too

[shepd]

>There is this amazing other concept that if no one buys a product, that product will either improve, or die.

Thanks for proving that copyright violation, whereby you don't buy the product, is a correct method of fighting a company.

What were your other two points again?

Defeating this is simple

[Travoltus]

All 100,000 people whose information was found during those raids, should ALL fight it in court.

If DirecTV is stupid enough to sue/prosecute ALL 100,000 people, then they deserve to be run into bankruptcy by all those legal feesx100,000.

Moreover, there aren't enough courts and there aren't enough jail cells to hold a sudden influx of 100,000 people.

This will also cause a TREMENDOUS uproar among the American public.

More likely, DirecTV will decide to pick a few random users, and go after them. Squash one pirate and make an example of him/her, and scare everyone else into compliance.

Re:i know it's been said before, but...

[AlphaOne]

IANAL, but I remember a precedent being set where someone using a C-band dish was sued by HBO for illegally descrambling their signal and the judge stated that if HBO didn't want this person to descramble the signal they should not deliver it to his property.

Anyone else remember this?

Also, if I recall correctly, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 says you're not allowed to receive a signal not intended for your receipt if you have a reasonable expectation of privacy. Since DirecTV is blanket-beaming this to essentially the entire hemisphere, there's no expectation of privacy.

Why they can't

[Mordac]

I know this since working for their competitor a few years ago.

They don't control the channels they offer as much as who they buy the channels from. Say they setup a deal with Disney, Disney now says you must require everyone of get ESPN and Disney Channel or no Disney at all. The same with Viacom channels (or whoever owns them now.)

Dishnetwork had a deal called dish pix, $10 10 channels. BUT you couldn't get MTV, Vh1, and a lot of others since their required bundling didn't allow them to be a low tier package. But you could get other "lesser" niche based channels. But those started disappearing as they were being bought out by bigger companies and being tied to other channels.

Discovery was the best at not having requirements, but they may have changed now (with about 20 channels in their lineup)

It all comes down to the provider; DirecTV, DISH Network, and Time Warner are locked down to the channels they offer with others.

They are even restricted by the providers competitors. So if the mid package has A&E, A&E's competitor must be in that package as well.

Now if you go and get yourself a BUD (big ugly dish) you may be able to find a provider who sells more channels ala carte, but they usually have a fee for changing your schedule. They make their money off of fee's and have more options that way.

PPV is actually becoming the preferred solutions for long events. You can sign up to watch a week long cricket match already. I'd think in another couple years you'll probably pick and choose events. But the price will probably be higher (like $20 for the entire Tour.)

Re:Why they can't

[marcop]

My father has a setup through Dish Network where he pays something like $199/year for 10 channels from a pick of the top 50 channel package. He can add additional channels for about $2 per month. AFAIK, there are no bundeling restrictions.

Re:They have legal recourse?

[Dyolf Knip]

But as someone kindly pointed out, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 apparently makes it illegal to 'receive a signal not intended for your receipt'. Did it not occur to our fine upstanding legislators (snicker) that such a law would be extremely unenforcable? Imagine making it illegal to own an un-government-licensed radio receiver. No way would they be able to track down everyone tuned in. All you can do is go after the people who sell them, and still most of them will slip through your grasp.

the cycle of piracy.....

[4n0nym0u$ C0w4rd]

ha our triple-super-duper-protection device will foil you!!!

Oh yeah, the Z34Vfds3 shreds your protection HAR HAR HAR!!!

ahh-haa!! quadruple-super-dee-duper protection device 4943jffj$, try to stop this!!!!!

Oh jeez, it took 25 minutes for my pet chimpanzee to figure out a work-arround with his model: sld2383D slide ruler....but my parrot had to help him, so I guess you made progress

hmmmm, let's get them arrested. HAHAHA.

Jeez, you got two of us, out of 3 million....good job.

now repeat from the beginning accept change the letter/numbers of the devices arround and add a few dee-dupers.....Piracy will continue no matter what, accept it and concentrate on making your products better, nothing has worked yet and nothing ever will.

PC

[dsmey]

One guy I know pirates this service by putting a cheap PC inbetween their satellite and their DirectTV receiver, thus eliminating the "shutdown" signal they occasionally send out to cancel the pirates' signal. When the PC locks up due to the signal, all you have to do is reboot the PC. I don't know how it works, but it does.

Re:PC

[mistered]

It's called emulation. Basically, there's a microcontroller in the smartcard that receives control messages from the satellite receiver set-top, and acts on those messages to enable or disable channels that you have access to. This microcontroller can be remotely reprogrammed, which is how DirecTV disables pirated cards (by reprogramming it with useless code).

What you do with an emulation setup is get an old PC, and emulate the operation of the microcontroller (an 8051) in the PC. That way, if the code gets reprogrammed, you don't have a useless card, just a PC to reboot.

There's some background information on emulation at canadahu.com.

There's also a DirecTV emulator for linux called Pitou, as mentioned previously on Slashdot. That one's pretty neat, since it's based on an existing 8052 simulator called ucsim, and it allows you to use a descrambling card across TCP/IP. Pitou's home page is on sourceforge.

Re:Family Guy

[EvlG]

The last episode just wasn't that good IMO, so it is easy to see why its not getting the ratings.

I really enjoyed the porn director story of the first 2 episodes, but #3 just didn't do it for me.

I hope the later episodes of the season improve.

Re:But how...

[nanojath]

If they had probable cause they wouldn't be doing the mailing campaign; they would just bring the hammer down.

There's no reason to believe this is any different from the BSA mailings featured a while ago: They're fishing. No crime in sending a nasty letter, no legal fees or protracted court battle. I suspect the direct mail piece will essentially say: we know you're up to something, ya no-good dirty pirate, but if you go ahead and subscribe to our service right away we won't bother to investigate you...

If, as the article suggests, they've had patchy success prosecuting the big middlemen operations, how the hell likely are they to succeed in running down the a million diffuse and unfederated end-users? Far as I know class action suits only go one way, and this ain't it, meaning they'd have to prosecute each user individually, and what are they likely to get? A back bill for a few years' service at best? Tell me it could come even close to covering the staggering legal fees.

They're just beating the bushes, hoping to scare some people into subscribing. Note that in the final analysis, they don't gain anything if a pirate simply gives up on stealing the signal. They either need to get retroactive compensation or get them to sign up.

Take a look at the stock graph in the article: that's your whole story. Just trying to prop up sagging revenue. The real question is... just how did they get those lists of names? If they were part of a separate case, under what jurisdiction were those names released to DirecTeeVee?

Re:Family Guy

[cybermage]

I have a bad feeling that it's not putting out the ratings Fox wants, nor is it getting the ratings it deserves.

The show is great. The problem is that Fox treats it like some kind of bastard step-child. The best way to kill a show is to move it around the schedule and make it disappear for months at a time. Rabid fans will follow it, but the bulk of the viewers, ones who settle into a routine viewing schedule, will give up on it, or assume it has been cancelled.

Who really cares?

[Ratteau]

I can understand the "just the channels I want" argument, but it has been addressed elsewhere. If the time comes when it is available, you will probably have to pay a premium for them because you are breaking up a package offered by the studios to the broadcasting companies. (see other posts above for more).

Overall, though, comperable packages are still cheaper than cable (about $10/month cheaper here). Most times, you can get a deal for a free dish and receiver in exchange for a year contract. I have had DirecTV for 2 years now and I must say that I am extremely satisfied with their service and pricing. Time Warner Cable (as most cable companies), treats their customers as a commodity. They think that they are the only game in town. They didnt ask me why I was discontinuing my service, but it sure didnt stop them from calling me once a month for the next year; and they still send me snailmail.

In order for DirecTV/UBS/etc to be able to break the cable monopoly, they need to be supported. Personally, I dont think very highly of people pirating DirecTV because it really does harm them in more ways than just their revenue stream. Once their user base reaches a number that the camble companies are unable to ignore, you will start to see competition in the market. Until then, DirecTV is still cheaper, more reliable, and has more package options.

Choices

[Teflon Coating]

I think the reason why so many people pirate tv is because there are no choices. You have to buy this package or another package, you can't get the 4 tv stations you want. I've been switching back and forth from cable to dish because of better prices for each. I myself don't pirate, but to many people it is probably very tempting. Like in order to get the 4 stations i wanted (TechTV, TLC, Discovery, and MTV2) i had to buy the package of 50 stations from dish. I probably never watched any of those for more than 30 minutes. The reason i got the dish was because at the time i bought it, they said after one year you could pick 10 stations and only pay for those. Well after a year of using the service, i called up and it's no longer avalible. If people could pick the stations they want, i think the number of pirates would go way down.

Arrrggghhh!

[Gehenna_Gehenna]

Overheard on the New England coast

Direct TV: Avast ye scurvy channel surfer.. Stand an deliver , your money or your life

Victim: Sorry, I was looking for DirecTv customer service..

Direct Tv: And Ye have found it, ya miserable land-lubber! Now .. would you be interested in upgrading your service or will ya be spendin' the night in Davy Jonse' locker?

Victim: Screw this, I'm going back to cable.

Direct Tv: Threaten me will ya! We'll se whos laughing when you get a Black Spot on yer bill this month!

Victim: 'Click' tone.......................

Ask a simple question...

[Chakat]

Ya know, I really want to pirate DirecTV, but not to get all the channels... just to get a damn FOX affiliate over my dish so I could use my DirecTivo for The Family Guy and That 70s Show. Is that to much to ask?

There's actually a pretty simple way around this dilemma, Taco. Get a relative/friend/willing slashdotter/etc who lives out in the middle of nowhere to let you use their address for the bills. You're then considered out of range of local broadcasters and they'll let you have your local channels. After that, you can get all the Family Guy and That 70's Show you can TiVO

Isn't this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this what everybody's been asking for? We've asked companies to stop copy protecting their "intellectual property" at the cost of convenience to ordinary consumers, and go after actual pirates instead, and it looks like this is what they doing.

Re:i know it's been said before, but...

[gmhowell]

If it is an encrypted signal (it is) then wouldn't the DMCA cover this?

Re:Justifiying Piracy??

[ethereal]

Ah yes, the good old "if it's in plain sight you should expect it to be stolen" defense. I guess I'll just help myself to your car (parked on a public street no less!) and the contents of your mailbox. And it was your fault for not keeping these items inside your house.

The point is not so much that if it's in plain sight it's fair game, even though it is the case that DirecTV is sending their signals onto my private property without my permission and shouldn't have any say in what I do with those signals after that. The point is that there is no marginal increase in the production cost of the system for the system operators due to one more person decoding the signal correctly, rather than just letting the signal pass directly through their body. Therefore, I don't agree with the argument that "piracy" costs them anything at all, since the major costs of the system (the satellite constellation) were incurred before any legitimate or illegitimate signal reception even occurred.

There's a difference between stealing my mail, which would deprive me of it, and decoding this particular radio signal, which doesn't deprive anyone of anything. If I had a conversation with my wife on the front steps and didn't sufficiently obfuscate the language I was using, could I really complain that you heard what I was saying from the street? Even if it somehow cost me money to say it?

I assume the "lousy" part of their business model is that they have something you want and you aren't allowed to get it for free. Tough shit. They have to pay for the satellite, so they charge the people who use it. You want to watch their content, so you pay them for its percieved value. What's wrong with that?

I don't have a DirecTV, hacked or not, so the question is really more academic for me. I just don't like to see "pirates" blamed for DirecTV's security failings. You can make the argument that it would be morally and ethically correct to help pay for the satellites that send you the signal, and I would probably agree with that. I just don't think that I have a requirement to not decode this freely-published transmission just because DirecTV said so.

You could make the argument that it will be harder for DirecTV to pay for content for their network if they've made some sort of deals that mention specific numbers of subscribers or something like that. But that is a failure of their business plan and their lawyers rather than an effect of extra people decoding the signal. A business plan built upon the assumption that you could literally throw content to the winds and somehow prohibit unauthorized users from understanding it had better be backed up by some pretty invulnerable hardware, software, and signals security. If it gets hacked, DirecTV only has themselves to blame (well, and Hughes :).

Re:Eh?

[aonifer]

Taco said:
Ya know, I really want to pirate DirecTV, but not to get all the channels... just to get a damn FOX affiliate over my dish so I could use my DirecTivo for The Family Guy and That 70s Show. Is that to much to ask?

Then geomcbay said:
Is paying DirecTV for usage of their system too much to ask?

I don't know, is growing a sense of humor too much to ask?

He's joking, people! Is it really that hard to tell?

Cable

[telbij]

Heh, the other day a cable sales guy came to our house and was like "We know you're stealing cable, would you like to subscribe now at reduced rates?"

More companies should offer this kind of piracy discount, I think it'd be a great sell :)

From what I understand...

[cr0sh]

There are two main methods used for gaining "illegal" DTV access:

1. Cracked H card.
2. Emulator system.

A cracked H card is just that - back in the beginning of DTV, the smart cards used for access had an "H" designation or some such (am I showing my ignorance of the subject yet?) - these cards, when inserted into a legal DTV system, get programmed based on data in the video stream and data from the phone line. Due to various reasons, certain ones of these cards were never programmed, and as hacking them became more widespread, some were held back as blanks (as it was seen that they would soon be valuable). For the hacking scene, these "virgin" H-cards could be programmed to allow for all channels - so, buy or program a virgin card, pop it in, and get all the channels, for nothing.

Hughes et al. knew this, and developed ways to "destroy" these cards (ie, reprogram them - including the last "famous" Super Bowl hack of this past year) remotely. Sometimes the cards could be reprogrammed. But there is something about a "virgin" H card still - and they are tough or impossible to find cheap.

Now, there are emulators - but not a lot of people use them. Basically, an emulator is a piece of software running on a DOS PC (the software is well known - runs in DOS). Two serial ports are required on the PC - one is hooked up to a smart card reading device - and the other goes to a special "smart card" (actually, a custom PCB shaped like a smart card with pads and traces etched to put the pads in the same spots as an H card, and the traces come out to the edge to be hooked to the serial interface circuit, which is hooked to the serial port). Now, in the smart card reader is inserted the H card.

But what does this "emulator" software do? I have heard everything from it acting as some kind of "digital" filter - so that it doesn't all certain writes to occur (to blow away the H card functions), to that it does actual emulation of everything, and that the card handles the encryption, to other things as well...

This is a DMCA related issue - is the encryption being "cracked"? Or is the PC emulator system simply being used as a "go between" - and the smart card does the decryption?

Like I said - I am ignorant of most of this stuff (though no doubt I obviously know enough that with a little work I could set up a cracked system - problem is getting that damn H card) - does anyone know the answers to my questions?

Re:From what I understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

The cards themselves provide 3 functions.
1 is a uniq identifier and bank of "tiers" or switches that the reciever can check against to see if it's ok for it to show you any given channel. DTV regularly sends a "tier update" targeted to your card's uniq ID, telling it to disable any range of channels you're not subscribed to.
2 The card tracks Pay Per View usage and stores that information in memory for periodic uploading via the phone connection.
3 The card provides decryption keys to the reciever so it can actually decode the MPEG video stream. The card and card interface doesn't have the bandwidth or processing power to do it itself. From watching the numbers roll by on my emulator, it appears that the system uses some kind of changing key encryption algorythm based on hardware in the cards themselves.

The first method for card manipulation is simply to rewrite the software and memory on the card. i.e. the card just authorizes everything and don't track PPV usage. This is known as a 3M (all for one and one for all!) Decryption keys are still coming off the card as usual. Because DTV can test and write to the cards directly through the reciever this is prone to ECMs. DTV can and has "blown fuses" in hacked cards and rendered them inoperable. (looped..)

The emulation method involves putting an emulator board in yor reciever's card slot. You connect this card to a PC via a serial port, then connect the PC to the card itself in a special card reader/writer (programmer) via the other serial port. The PC runs software that emulates a smart card and answers all authorization requests from the reciever. Because the encryption scheme is based on that card's hardware the emulation software passes through any encryption information to the card itself to get the correct key responses. Because DTV cannot write to the cards directly, this keeps the cards safe from being damaged by an ECM.

DTV has been ECMing for as long as there have been hacked cards out there, but now that so many people have begun using emulators, those ECMs are not effective countermeasures against many people. The newest generation of cards has again, been broken, and many still just hack the cards directly.

PS. Yes I DO use the tools to get all the channels, but I also subscribe to thier service. I pay them every month. I wonder if I'll get a letter...

Re:From what I understand...

[bill_kress]

The H card contains some hardware that decrypts keys. The problem is, while it's decrypting keys, DirectTV can send signals to reprogram the card.

The emulator emulates the card itself and only sends on the actual key requests. Any writes are done in the emulated card in the PC.

It's interesting, but the people that really get into this aren't into TV as much as the challenge. It's kind of like one of the last REAL brain challenges left.

If DTV was smart, they'd just start hiring the best crackers (at any price, really) and have them start searching for methods to stop pirating.

Re:From what I understand...

[IronChef]

I read something interesting the other day, someone was monkeying with altering the voltage supplies to the card slot. By lowering the voltage he was able to prevent the sat box from writing to the card, effectively ECM-proofing it. Neat. Why didn't I think of that? But surely the card must need to take some updates on occasion...

(you need to safe the rewriteable memory in the sat box too, that can be fried by ECM as well.)

Re:My question is...

[aozilla]

Hmm, this is a troll, right? I ask for no claim to the words I speak or write. I think this is evidenced by the fact that my name isn't even attached to them.

Your "nobody would write books or produce films" argument was already debunked by pointing out the fact that books are much older than copyright. Films would be easily sold in a scenario without copyright. Simply make a contract with the theatres to not copy the film. Books would be a bit more difficult, but they are also much harder to copy. You could claim that people would just scan them in and publish them on the internet, but if that's true, why aren't people doing it now?

The fact is that for all realistic purposes, copyright never did exist for noncommercial entities anyway. The internet is starting to make noncommercial, global distribution easy and efficient. Now we're starting to see laws like the DMCA come into play. But even that will eventually be noneffective, and we'll have to resort to even more intrusive measures. Copyright is dying. It's time we start coming up with more effective ways to "promote the progress of science and useful arts".

Re:My question is...

[aozilla]

There are many issues. The first and easiest one for me is that I don't believe in copyright law. I don't believe in crimes without direct victims, and in my opinion copying something does not involve a direct victim. Perhaps copying and distributing to kill a competitor could be illegal under anti-monopolistic laws, but other than that I just don't see it.

Second. DirectTV is using public airwaves. They are sending signals into my home, onto my property. I should have the right to do anything I want with those signals. Actually I thought the supreme court had ruled that to be the case, but I guess I was mistaken.

Third. I don't believe in laws which are blatently ignored by most of the country. That leads to a situation where the government has the power to arrest anyone, for any reason, because everyone is breaking some law. If you're going to make a law, it has to be enforced. For this reason, I'm all for the 1 million people "pirating" DirecTV being arrested. Hopefully a few will be members of congress, a few will be great lawyers, a few will be rich, and a few will be mobsters. Hopefully we'll get a relative of each member of the Supreme Court. We'll see how quickly the laws get changed and/or overruled then.

"Pay-Per-View" Article Now Out on DirecTV

[westfirst]

Peter Wayner, the author of Free for All , Disappearing Cryptography and other nerd books is selling a short book or long article on the war between DirecTV and the hackers. All you need to do it send cash with paypal.

Of course I wonder if the article will be pirated too. :-0

Satellite escrow?

[joshamania]

The pirates spend enough time/money on pirating signals, why doesn't DirecTV just make a deal where you can buy your dish system for $2000 - $3000, put that money in an escrow account to pay the monthly fees, and then allow the escrow holders to watch everything?

It would be much cooler if...

[zpengo]

DirecTV were pursuing "Ahoy, matey!" pirates. I'd pay to watch that over the 500-some channels of rubbish they now offer.

Where do they get their numbers?

[masoncooper]

I personally wonder where they get these stats...Big software companies always attribute their losses to piracy, what's to stop them from saying "We had 30% less profit this month, our software sucks, but that can't be it, must be piracy" No one's there to stop them from saying that or proving them wrong. Couldn't DirecTV pull a similar stunt in an attempt to explain 1M customers leaving or falling 1M customers short of their expectations(or at least bloat their piracy numbers a bit)?

The old sayings are true...

[JWhitlock]

If owning hardware to freely intercept DirectTV signals is considered privacy, then only pirates will have hardware to freely intercept DirectTV signals.

Re:But how...

[IronChef]

If the knock ever comes, the DTV gear is the least of your worries. When the cops show up for hacking-type-crimes, they typically sieze every piece of electronic equipment in the place: printer cables, CDs, telephones, the works. They may have been clued in to you hacking DTV, but they'll get you for all those warez CDs you have too... and you can say goodbye to all your hardware and legitimate data.

Re:Cable company GAVE me free TV with internet svc

[unitron]

Is there anything in your agreement with them that says you are allowed to connect your television or anything else other than your cable modem to their cable?

Didn't think so.

The above should in no way be mistaken for any lack of animosity towards "give them a license to print money and they whine about the cost of the printing press while they try to stick you with the bill for it" cable companies on my part.

Re:Eh?

[nathanm]

Is paying DirecTV for usage of their system too much to ask? Nobody really needs all those channels. People generally only get DirecTV for a couple of channels they wouldn't otherwise be able to get in their area. If DirecTV can offer these programs you want to watch in a better way than you can see them now, why not just pay for the service?

Why couldn't they charge for DirectTV like you pay for a pizza? A set number of channels/toppings you get to pick and choose for a set price, with extra charges for extra channels/toppings.

Re:My question is...

[BenHmm]

and as we slip on our asbestos trousers and sail into the sunset...

I will bite. Why should TV be free for all? If the producers want to sell to a network who only want paying viewers, then shouldn't we respect their wishes? Why should anyone respect the GPL, say, if at the same time the open-everything crowd do not respect other people's choice of license?

Just because it is possible to pirate DirectTV does not give anyone a right to do so. Empowerment is not Entitlement. No arguments as to the price, quality or fairness of the incumbent system are valid whatsoever, if we want people to respect our own practices as much as we desire.

and lo, the asbestos pantaloons fluttered mightily in the seabreeze

But how...

[baptiste]

will DirectTV get probable cause for searches? It'll be interesting to see if judges grant the warrants based on product sales, etc. Especially when cops raid legitimate places using the cards (for what I have NO idea :) ) So DirectTV has some addresses, but is that enough to grant a warrant - what if the person just bought a non DirectTV hack product from teh same company - it could get messy.

Re:But how...

[ct]

DirecTV has the FBI in their back pocket & has for some time now. Larry Rissler, vice president of signal integrity for DirecTV, is a former FBI Special Agent - this is public fact, not some "X-Files" paranoia.

Back near the end of May, two of the larger companies that manufacture & sell Smart Card programmers/Card Repair Systems & various paraphenelia (WhiteViper & Vector) were raided & had their customer lists seized. The initial response from the DTV hacking community was that unless you were a big purchaser/middleman, you had nothing to fear. Now it looks like they may use this info in much more targeted manner. If I was a customer of either of these companies & ended up circumventing DTV's protection, I'd be awfully worried about someone knocking at my door.

-ct

Re:But how...

[IronChef]

...they'd have to prosecute each user individually, and what are they likely to get? A back bill for a few years' service at best?

Their goal would probably be to get a few "casual pirates" thrown in the slammer for a few years, as a message to the rest.

Re:Just the channels I want

[Lizard_King]

I agree, but they could be equally exploitative by overcharging for individual channels. Imagine:
MTV $10/month
ESPN $12/month
TNT $5/month
and on and on...

One could rack up a pretty hefty monthly subscription bill.

Re:Just the channels I want

[3333t00l]

Why can't they just offer the channels I want.
event but to get that I needed to buy 50+ extra channels. Not worth it in my opinion.

You just want 20 channels not 500?
Ok, that will be $50.00 per month.
DirectTV's costs are not deliniated on a "per channel" basis. They have very high fixed costs ie. satellites. The marginal costs of adding the other 480 channels you your "favorite 20" is negligble. this idea that the cost of 20 channels should be "20/500 x monthly cost" shows an extreme naivete in the way business works.
Same false logic that if record companies sold music by the song than that hit single you like would only cost 1/10 x $15.00 == $1.50. Weell, no average "hit group" only produces 1 hit single per year. I doubt your $1.50 mp3 download would support music creation effort behind that years worth of work.

He can't get Fox, no matter how much he pays

[Gorimek]

Due to really annoying federal regulations DTV cannot legally offer a lot of people the channels they would like to get.

Taco can't legally get Fox, no matter how much he pays. Still the signal for many Fox stations are transmitted to his receiver, but it just won't show them. Pretty frustrating situation.

I'm in the same position regarding WB and UPN. If I could I would pirate the signal and continue to pay my $40/month...

Re:Just the channels I want

[Pope Slackman]

Man, I wish I got the goatse.cx channel!

All prolapsed rectums - ALL THE TIME!

C-X C-S

Re:just go analog

[tb3]

It's been done. Check out this guy's website.

Re:They have legal recourse?

[mesocyclone]

This has always been nonsense. They have had legal recourse under US federal communications law for many years. It has nothing to do with DMCA.

Re:Justifiying Piracy??

[fishbowl]

>Ah yes, the good old "if it's in plain sight you >should expect it to be stolen" defense.

More like, "if you dump it in my yard, it's mine."

i know it's been said before, but...

[inquis]

the DSS satellites beam the digital signal to practically every square foot of land in the united states of america. last time i checked, it has never been illegal to intercept a signal that is being delivered to your property.

so what exactly is being stolen here?? let's see, they broadcast a signal at me that i did not ask for. i intercept the signal and do what i will with it. if you pay some company, they will furnish you with equipment which makes it easier to use the signal (that is being beamed at you, with or without your consent).

does this "crackdown" seem ludicrious to anyone else? how do you steal what you are being beamed for free?

-inq

Cracking DirecTV is illegal.

[Scoria]

just to get a damn FOX affiliate over my dish so I could use my DirecTivo for The Family Guy and That 70s Show. Is that to much to ask? I already pay for HBO and Sci-Fi channel.

I get FOX via DirecTV, Taco. Get the local channels pack that includes your local affiliate.

As much as Slashdot advocates free speech and free reception of products (among other things), the unauthorized reception and decryption of a DirecTV signal is illegal...

...and places that talk about it?

[AtariDatacenter]

http://www.hackhu.com is gone. Actually, even their goodbye message is gone now. They said they were folding because of the threat of DirecTV hounding them into the ground. It was *the* source for great information on the DirecTV war.

I can see DirecTV 'going through the motions' trying to scare subscribers. I can also see them actually prosecuting a handful of little people just to put up a good front. But I really don't see them nailing the end user. Just scaring the bejezus out of most of them into, 'Gee. Should I subscribe to this site that has the latest emulator code? DirecTV might get my subscription information and go after me!'

Re:Dudes, get over the "seriousness" of piracy.

[Tackhead]

> It's petty theft at best. So explain why the penalties are greated than what people who commit rape and 2nd degree murder get?

Because rape and murder enhance the revenue streams from entertainment companies. Who would pay to see half our movies, three quarters of our news, and damn near all of our "reality-TV shows" be without the possibility of witnessing or hearing lurid descriptions of real or simulated rape and murder?

(Yeah, I'm agreeing with you. I'm just feeling like a supremely cynical motherfucker today ;-)

"Sex and vi'lence and rock and roll... this is - serious business"
- John Cougar Mellencamp, Serious Business, 1983.

"We got the bubble-headed bleach-blonde / comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash / with a gleam in hear eye
It's interesting when people die -
Give us dirty laundry..."
- Don Henley, Dirty Laundry, 1982

They have legal recourse?

[el_munkie]

I seem to remember from the past /. story ( DirecTV's Secret War On Hackers ) that sateliette broadcasters had no legal recourse against pirates, on the principle that they are beaming their signals on private property, and the people who live there can do whatever they want to with those signals. It would be the content providers' responsibility to keep the signals off non-customers' lawns.

Though I suppose the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions do apply to doctored smart cards. Sigh.

Re:They have legal recourse?

[Dyolf Knip]

No kidding. We were all very impressed at the way they gave the pirate problem to the engineers and not to the lawyers. Apparently, The Powers That Be at DirecTV have decided that lots of nastygrams and junk mail will be more effective. Sigh....

Actually, I don't think the DMCA can even apply to this. Nobody is copying the signal, it's being broadcast onto my property whether I like it or not. What they've got going here is a content scrambling system. This, at least, is the logical way to look at it. Given Adobe's recent despicable (and successful) behavior, doing anything with their product that the company didn't certify apparently qualifies as "copy protection circumvention".

I for one don't understand how they can even think they have a legal backing here. It'd be like charging me with illegal surveillance for listening to my two neighbors yell at each other across my backyard.

Re:Justifiying Piracy??

[unitron]

Isn't that more like the FCC says you can't get the same network feed as the local affiliates do instead of having to watch the rebroadcast by those local affiliates of those network feeds because that means you are no longer part of the audience exposed to the commercials run by those local affiliates, which means they can't charge as much for airing those commercials?

If enough people in a community start relying on satellite and cable and if they get direct feeds of NBC, CBS, ABC, and FOX from them, how long until local broadcasters can't make enough to survive? That means no local news, no local weather, no operating "in the public interest".

Re:Just the channels I want

[Tackhead]

> Man, I wish I got the goatse.cx channel!
> All prolapsed rectums - ALL THE TIME!

Who are you, and how did you get your hads on the FOX new season lineup? I'll have you know, trading in SirCam-leaked information can still get you sued ;-)

Re:Cable company GAVE me free TV with internet svc

[Archfeld]

But does this apply to internet access as well. Astound cable has VERY DIFFERENT policies towards additional TV's VS. additional PC's. I just put up a firewall, spoofed the MAC address and told them to getr out of my house. But they tried to charge me per PC for the same bandwidth. Is that legal ?

Eh?

[geomcbay]

Ya know, I really want to pirate DirecTV, but not to get all the channels... just to get a damn FOX affiliate over my dish so I could use my DirecTivo for The Family Guy and That 70s Show. Is that to much to ask?

Is paying DirecTV for usage of their system too much to ask? Nobody really needs all those channels. People generally only get DirecTV for a couple of channels they wouldn't otherwise be able to get in their area. If DirecTV can offer these programs you want to watch in a better way than you can see them now, why not just pay for the service?

IMO Its really damaging to the Geek community to have people who want to pirate DirecTV yelling in chorus with the people who think the DMCA is evil and corporations are trying to strip us of fair use, etc. Just paints us as an unruly mob that wants everything for free.

And, before anyone posts the 'well they broadcast their signal onto my property' defense, I don't buy into that and never will. The fact that these same people would be outraged if they were videotaped and/or voice recorded if they walked by my property (despite the fact that they are reflecting light and broadcasting sound waves onto my property) just makes it more ridiculous.

Re:Justifiying Piracy??

[Have Blue]

Ah yes, the good old "if it's in plain sight you should expect it to be stolen" defense. I guess I'll just help myself to your car (parked on a public street no less!) and the contents of your mailbox. And it was your fault for not keeping these items inside your house.

I assume the "lousy" part of their business model is that they have something you want and you aren't allowed to get it for free. Tough shit. They have to pay for the satellite, so they charge the people who use it. You want to watch their content, so you pay them for its percieved value. What's wrong with that?

Re:Justifiying Piracy??

[Enry]

What he's saying is because of the crappy FCC regulations, he can't get local channels on his dish and thus use his TiVo to record the channels. Would Taco pay DirectTV to get the local channels via satellite? I hope so.

Re:My question is...

[duffbeer703]

Give me a break.

Without the notion of copyright, you have no claim to the words you speak or the words you write.

The victim of a wild-west style world that you seem to want is the public at large. Without copyright, nobody would write books or produce films at all.

Just the channels I want

[Anonymous Coward]

If direct TV would just offer channels on an individual basis at a reasonable cost less people would pirate it. There are only about 20 channels I ever watch but to get them all I have to get the Super Duper Bazzillion Channels pack. Why can't they just offer the channels I want. Also for things like the Tour De France I would have gladly paid for Outdoor Life Network for 3 weeks to have that event but to get that I needed to buy 50+ extra channels. Not worth it in my opinion. Any thoughts on why they can't sell "per channel?"

No satellite tv in the /. world?

[Gorimek]

Several people voice the opinion that since the DTV signal is broadcast onto their property, they should have the right to do whatever they please with it. And I do have some sympathy with that position.

But as far as I can see, if that were to be the law, I can't see how a satellite TV system could possibly be viable. Those satellites cost billions to put up and run, and with no revenue stream that would simply not happen.

Or do I miss something?

Re:No satellite tv in the /. world?

[IronChef]

If hacking was legal, there wouldn't be "no revenue stream." Today, hacking DTV is illegal, but it easy to do for technical people. Still, 90% of their subscribers DON'T hack.

Even if hacking was legal, the sat company would be free to make it a pain in the ass, and most people would just pay anyway.

names and addresses

[canning]

As many as 100,000 names and addresses were collected from searches of alleged bootleg equipment operations

O.K. we have search and arrest warrents for a Mr. S. Clause, I.P. Freely, Phil McKraken, and George Washington. We're still waiting on the ones for Clark Kent and M. Monroe. Let's roll.

Ha ha, what chumps. Why don't they just go door to door and ask people if they're stealing Direct TV's signal?

Agent: "Sorry to bother you sir but I'm Agent Thompson from the FBI, are you stealing a Direct T.V. signal?"
Man at Door: "No."
Agent: "Fair enough, thanks for your time."

Only ID10Ts will get busted ...

[Stavr0]

Let me get this straight... M0r0n goes and visit this underground shop that sells pirated DirecTV cards and give them his real name and address?

Sorry, but he deserves to get busted.

Re:Everything in is not free

[Dyolf Knip]

"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law." -Robert Heinlein

Sure, DirecTV has every right to make money. What they seem to forget is that they have every right to lose it, too. If they want to make sure that only paying customers can decode their signals, sending out nastygrams and junk mail isn't going to do it. Making it illegal to own a cell phone scanner isn't going to stop it, nor will outlawing radar detectors stop people from exceeding the speed limit.

Pure legislation is very often the least effective means to acheiving a goal. Which is more effective: leaving your house unlocked and trusting to the illegality of theft or installing deadbolts on your doors? Printing money on typing paper and hoping that nobody counterfeits it (after all, that would be -gasp- illegal!) or using cotton paper and any number of tricks to make forgery as difficult as possible?

Obviously, there are many cases where both laws and preventative measures are necessary (murder comes to mind), but why should that include ensuring a corporation a steady source of income?

I would infinitely rather that my cell phone service put money into keeping the signal encrypted and private than have them spend it on lobbying and have to depend on some flimsy law that supposedly has my best interests at heart. Law can and will be twisted to serve any purpose and is written by people who haven't got a clue, while a technical fix to a technical problem is more effective, usually costs less (when you consider money spent on enforcement of the new law), and adds to the knowledge in that field. How much money have the RIAA/MPAA spent on their wars, and just how effective have they been? The RIAA's attempt at CD copy-protection may be nasty, but it's a heck of a lot more effective than what they've been up to till now.

Pirates should be treated this way

[Anonymous Coward]

So this old haggard man of the sea walks into a bar, sits down, and orders a drink. Now, this wouldn't be worth note normally, but he has a steering wheel hanging out of his fly. Not wanting to be rude to a new customer, the bartender says nothing of it and gives him his drinks.

This man starts to become a good customer, so finally, the bartender asks him, "I've really aprecaited your business this past week, but what's with the wheel hanging out of your fly?"

So the man says, "Aye there matey, It's driving me nuts!"

Two Wrongs...?

[Foggy Tristan]

So...they're combatting piracy by using junk mail.

What happens with pirates who have opted out of junk mail? Get off scott-free?

Re:The way to get your FOX affiliate

[IronChef]

Are you aware that Fox has bought Speedvision, and they are going to turn it into the all-NASCAR network?

There is a petition up to oppose this, as if it will help. (I still have it linked to all over my web sites anyway.)