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Still More on News Corp. Hacking Charges

Posted by michael on from the as-the-world-turns dept.

Spike and others wrote in about this ongoing saga: subsidiary of Vivendi claims that a subsidiary of News Corporation cracked their satellite TV smart cards and posted for public download. (See our previous stories.) Two new stories from the Associated Press and Yahoo note that although the two companies are apparently dropping the original lawsuit (since News Corp. is making a large investment in Vivendi), Echostar is now claiming they were hacked too and the U.S. Justice Department is investigating possible criminal charges.

6 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. So they claim... by viper21 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But I can't see any reference to a shred of proof in these articles.

    So why did I read them?

    -S

    --

    We Apprentice Developers and Designers
  2. Isn't this breaking the DMCA? by suman28 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am sure there are copyright issues here. So how come a large corporation is able to get away but Dmitri Skylarov is still in jail? It always seems to be one rule for corporations and another rule for everyone else and yet another rule for the government.

  3. Interesting timing . by AftanGustur · · Score: 4, Insightful


    It was only yesterday (*not kidding*) that one of the bigger Vivendi owned satellite TV (Canalsat) upgraded it's encryption system to "Seca2".

    But I'm afraid the Seca2 system is DOA as it has already been cracked by Italian Crackers.

    --
    echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
  4. Re:"Security" by elvum · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're still twisting the English language to their own ends. They need to explain why users have to install their new cards, but "security" sounds so much friendlier than "to protect our revenue stream", despite the two being far from synonymous...

  5. dismay, delight, dismay by gosand · · Score: 5, Insightful
    dismay: The title of the article says "hacking" when it means "cracking".

    delight: The text of the article gets the term right, saying that their smart cards were "cracked".

    dismay: The text then misuses the term again, saying Echostar was hacked.

    Come on folks, if a site that supposedly is "news for nerds" can't get the term right, how is anyone else expected to?
    (and don't give me the BS that hacking and cracking are the same thing)

    --

    My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.

    1. Re:dismay, delight, dismay by trb · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The set of hackers and the set of crackers intersect. A person who breaks into a system is a cracker, but the act of breaking in, especially if it involves figuring out how to break in, is a hack as well as a crack. Hackers have been figuring out how to subvert security mechanisms for a long time, it's an interesting pursuit.

      I think of it this way - solving a crossword puzzle is like hacking. Copying someone else's solution to a crossword puzzle is like cracking.