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Behind the Satellite Piracy Lawsuit
McSpew writes "This article at MSNBC is the most in-depth coverage I've seen from a mainstream news source about the $1 Billion Canal Plus lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch-owned NDS. For those not familiar with the suit, French direct-broadcast satellite (DBS) company Canal Plus alleges that NDS, a company owned by News Corp (which also owns BSkyB--Canal Plus's biggest competitor in Europe) hacked the smart cards used by Canal Plus and published the hacks on the Internet. Included in the article are conspiracy theories, a suspicious death and a look at the shady characters working for both sides." We had a previous story about this.
Same thing we do everynight Pinky.......Try to take over the worlds media!
Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?
From the article:
There's also a long-standing notion that piracy is good for the business. In an odd twist, tacitly allowing people to watch pirated TV is a way to gain market share, since many pirates eventually give in and convert to paying customers.
I hadn't expected to hear that on MSNBC. In fact, I'm led to wonder if the 'higher ups' even know of this policy. The management of media companies seem to be more prone to saying things like "Ad skipping is theft!" "Napster costs us billions each year." etc, etc. One really has to wonder why big media is really cracking down on piracy, if they have people in their ranks who have been encouraging pirates all along.
So if I give people my competitor's service away FREE it somehow increases my own?
Unlikely.
Hey - it is my property. I didn't give you permission to blanket it with satellite TV. I'll use your service unless you keep you damned dirty broadcasts out of my land!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
This looks an awful lot like the plot from "Weapons of Mass Distraction," with Ben Kingsley and Gabriel Byrne.
Great movie, albeit completely depressing, as the two media moguls don't back down from their feud until they've utterly destroyed the lives of their own families.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
One thing about the piracy in Canada that the article fails to mention:
While the signals have been ruled public domain (and thus don't need to be payed for) since the American providers do not have a broadcast licensce in Canada, it HAS been ruled illegal to sell the equipment for those services.
Best reference to this I could find can be found here.
Short version:
Illegal to buy, but legal to use.
Dark Nexus
"Sanity is calming, but madness is more interesting."
I wrote "Couch Wars" more than a year. It's a good introduction to the current world of satellite smartcard hacking.
.
http://www.wayner.org/books/f7.pdf
You're free to circulate it now because I've turned it into advertising ware for my latest two books Translucent Databases and Disappearing Cryptography
If anyone has thoughts, comments, or suggestions, write me at p3@wayner.org.
If you're pirating satellite, you're still probably watching the ads!
"And like that
...should be concentrating on instead of Napster. A couple of good triple-damages laws, some rigorous enforcement (featuring rewards for turning in corporate hackers, backed by a good witness-protection program), and so elite flying squads kicking in the doors of corporate labs in Israel (those scanning electron microscopes are neither cheap nor easy to hide, and this problem disappears.
Either that or Newscorp disappears. Either way, a desireable outcome.
Eternal vigilance only works if you look in every direction.
This link might help explore the background of this story.
This is a debate which has been raging in Europe, and especially in the UK for a number of months. Here in the UK, On Digital, later ITV digital, were in direct competition with Rupert Murdoch's SKY satellite services. Yet the suspicion was that millions were being lost by ITV digital by the sale of pirate smart cards, which by the end of the service could be picked up at most car boot sales for about ten pounds, yet would unlock all the premium rate channels for the service. Normally these guys sell dodgy 3rd generation videos, so how did they mange to crack technology which was equivelant in security to the triple DES algorithm?. The following articles from The Guardian offer more information.
How codebreakers cracked the secrets of the smart card and Murdoch security chief linked to TV piracy site.
The Guardian is a left leading broadsheet in the UK which carries influence beyond its half million (UK) circulation figure. Yet it even devoted an editorial to this subject whcih can be read here;
Breaking the code - Piracy on the digital airwaves.
In the UK there are/were four prominent pay-television services:
ITV Digital shut up shop recently due to financial problems most people have attributed to their overinvestment in football broadcasting rights (my personal belief, having been an ITV Digital customer at one point) is that there was simply a lack of choice of good channels, but that's irrelevant).
Fundamentally, it's worth noting that SECA, the system employed by Canal Plus is also the same system that was employed by onDigital - as noted in this Google cache of Hackwatch. Cracks relevant to Canal Plus were also relevant to onDigital.
In the UK Sky Digital employ the OpenTV system as opposed to SECA. Companies who also follow in this vein are ntl:digital and Telewest Broadband.
This all poses some interesting questions.
Included in the article are conspiracy theories, a suspicious death and a look at the shady characters working for both sides.
ah... the staple of most fun stories that don't go anywhere. I stopped watching X-Files a coupla years ago when it became apparent that there wasn't really much of a coherent larger story being told. Still, post-partum fans who go in for that sort of thing can use this satellite story as a fix, I suppose.
To wit, who should I despise more? Rupert Murdoch? Or the French?
When will we learn that the biggest threat to our liberty is not governments or corporations, but *CORRUPTION* of our legal framework and institutions.
Capitalism works very well with a solid legal framework and institutions that make running a business accessible. Without these key ingredients you have a recipe for a third-world country like many South American economies.
Today, Corporations have a lot of access and influence on our legal framework and institutions, so it's not surprising they use their influence to legislate and create bureaucracy advantageous to their interests.
Stop Beating up on Corporations, They employ us...
As much as corporation hating has become popular so has defending corporations. Taking one side or the other does nothing to address the real problem, let alone solve it, insofar as those problems root in the institutions and legal framework.
Arguing does nothing to address Rampant Corruption
This starts with every one of us. We need spread the word that corporation hating does nothing but start a backlash with people who have the same objectives we do, while corporation loving doing nothing to address the problem of rampant corruption. All of us want to preserve what made our economy great, and attack that which threatens the economy and our opportunities.
STRICT Anti-Corruption Measures may save Capitalism
I know campaign finance reform is one tiny start, maybe some of you can clue me on some other great ideas.
(Feel free to copy/rewrite/steal my ideas and call them your own, just try to improve on them)
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce
So, which really corrupts -- money, or power?
3
Kuro5hin had an interest article on this...
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2002/5/28/192548/03
"Communism is like having one [local] phone company " - Lenny Bruce