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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.
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."
No, but it can help bring them down, reduce revenues, and allow you to be in a better position. However, I think the number of people that would steal TV would not have a huge impact.
I think the biggest impact would be the compromised system requiring replacement, which can be big $$$.
I wrote "Couch Wars" more than a year. It's a good introduction to the current world of satellite smartcard hacking.
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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.
...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.