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Comcast in Court, AT&T Gets Greedy
raindr writes "The Detroit News has this article on how comcast is going after people with modified Cable TV boxes.These fines (170k) seem a bit much to me." They apparantly send out a "bullet" to deactivate modded boxes. In other coax news,Shynedog writes "Boston.com is running a story about AT&T broadband users in the Northeast who are complaining about the unfair price hike that has been imposed on subscribers who own their own modems.
It the wake of recent customer complaints, AT&T has started offering coupons to offset the monthly increase, but only for the next six months."
Their first mistake was to modify a box that the cable company owned. They should have bought a descrambler of their own on the grey market. These 3rd party descrablers are "bullet" proof anyway which would have completely solved the problem altogether before it started. Their second mistake was calling the cable company and complaining when their modified box stopped working. They should have been FAR more cautious than that. If I hacked something and it stopped working the first thing I'd assume is that it was either something I did or something the cable company did in response. I would have checked to see whether the box was still good, which is as simple as connecting the cable straight to the tv. At that point I'd take steps to replace the box on my own, or at the very least undo the hack, assuming that was possible, before handing it over to the cable company.
I heard of this same tactic being used when I was living in DC back in the late 80's. You would think that people would be wise to it by now.
I'll bet you that of the people who are stealing cable in that region, all that were caught were fools and idiots. Anyone with a brain would not be so easily busted. I figure the 170k is nothing more than a stupidity tax, something I never ever see a problem with.
A word of advice to all those who would break the law or do something that could get them in trouble, develop some street smarts and an ounce of common sense beforehand.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
On the topic of stupid cable thieves who get tricked into turning themselves in, I just wanted to mention another trick the cable companies have pulled in the past.
You'd be watching your show, and right when the movie was due to begin, you'd see a message saying you won a prize (new TV, whatever), and to call a number to claim it. When you called and gave your name and address, you'd then wind up losing your cable service and/or having to pay a fine or go to court.
What happened? The cable company scrambled that ad with a key that no one was supposed to be set up to receive. But the modified boxes would treat it as a regular scrambled show and decode it. So only the cable pirates would get the message.