Slashdot Mirror
Russian Student Arrested For Revealing DirecTV Secrets
An anonymous reader writes "The Associated Press is reporting the arrest of Igor Serebryany, 19, of Los Angeles for industrial espionage under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996. Serebryany is accused of providing details of DirecTVs 'P4' card technology to a number of websites."
Information wants to be free!
According to confidential law enforcement memos, he is also suspected of starting the "IN SOVIET RUSSIA" cliche.
This has a maximum punishment of 20 years of hard labor building beowulf clusters for Profit!
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
What he did is just as illegal as if I'd stolen a bunch of information on Magellan's tracking software to distribute or use for my company's navigation software. This doesn't appear to be a case where the technology was reverse engineered and published by that means, which should be protected.
You'll note that this is not being described as a DMCA case, but as industrial espionage. And if it's true and he's convicted, he should go to jail like all the other white-collar criminals who do this.
Mitnick finally gets out of jail, Skylov gets amnesty, and now I gotta endure all the "FREE SEREBRYANY" sigs on Slashdot. When will the madness stop?!
Any takers?
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
What I want to know is how did he get the information in the first place. It sounds like he broke into the company's computer or he worked for them and released stuff that was not suposed to. If he broke in I have no sympathy for him. And if he worked for them and he realesed docs that he should have *KNOWN* were private then his name should be mud.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
he stole it out right. if some guy robs me I would hope that he gets the book thrown at him.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
The article states:
"Serebryany was charged under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 [...] It prohibits anyone from disclosing trade secrets for economic benefit"
But it does not say wether he sold the info to the websites. If he did, I'd say he's in deep doodoo.
Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? - Calvin
Lets see, 6 years after the Berlin wall comes down - guess they needed to find something for all those unemployed cold war spooks to do.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
"It prohibits anyone from disclosing trade secrets for economic benefit, and carries penalties in this case up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Although investigators acknowledge that Serebryany apparently didn't profit from the disclosures, the law bars giving away secrets for anyone else's economic benefit. "
Will the charges hold up under this act?
Yes but every time I try to see it your way, I get a headache.
Why is it that everyone at slashdot feels like they have the rights to any information that is out there?
This person stole technology plans while working at a law firm. He didn't reverse engineer, he stole. This is illegal and should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. This is not a case of our rights being stepped on. This is a case of the rights of a company to trust that when they disclose something to a law firm that it won't end up all over the internet.
Our legal system can be cruel. It looks at issue in a black & white fashion. Either you knew what you were doing or you didn't. This is a 19 year old kid. He's in the shade of grey area, I suspect. Most likely looking for a thrill, or striking our at a large corp, most likely for weilding overly broad laws used to jail people like him.
Who knows, he could be a jerk?! But he didn't get any money for his trouble, so I'm more inclined to think he's not that bright.
I'm not going to post solutions to our legal system here. What a useless time suck that would be. After all our tangled legal system is born of know-it-alls coming up with "solutions."
Cheers!
-- James Dornan
-- Prepared at the direction of, or to be sent to Legal Counsel, in anticipation of litigation. Attorney Client Pri
Yet anoher example of the weakest link in security being the human link.
I've followed DirecTv's skirmishes with hackers for a few years and have always believed that Dave's (DirecTV / NDS) house of cards would crumble from the inside. It's simply a matter of how many people have access to the keys.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
Serebryany obtained the documents while working part-time at a law firm in California that performed legal work for DirecTV.
I'm -sure- they had to have had a non-disclosure agreement in place, especially working with a law firm. They guy broke the law and stole coroprate trade secrets. He should be arrested.
Now if he'd bought himself a DirecTV receiver and reverse-engineered the thing himself, and then got arrested, I'd scream "foul!". But come on... this is no Dmitry Skylarov case. This sounds like a case working the way the law should work.
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
Listen people. You do the crime, you do the time. Would we be whining if he was arrested for stealing DirecTV's CEO's car? How about their money? Why are these documents any different?
I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
note that this guy committed on honest-to-goodness *crime*, he didn't just reverse-engineer or otherwise do something in the privacy of his own home. So I'm not going to be carrying any "free Igor" signs any time soon.
However, the secrets he stole were related to anti-"piracy" technologies, so I'm not going to be *too* hard on the guy.
Also that anti-espionage law looks creepy. I hope they don't start wielding that one on innocent people.
Since he obtained the documents working for a law firm, and I have a hard time believing a law firm wouldn't make an employee sign an NDA, this guy should fry.
No sympathy for those that distribute trade secrets. Intellectual property is far too valuable to ignore cases like this.
My 2.5 cents.
-- People who hate Windows use Linux. People who love UNIX use BSD.
I could understand treating international industrial espionage as a criminal matter; I don't think you can get someone extradited to face a suit in civil court, which is where this is normally resolved. But the guy lives in the US. Why isn't a suit good enough? Has disclosing a trade secret been considered criminal until recently?
Reading a (slightly dated) article on the legislation being used to prosecute him, I'm not even convinced that requirements of intent are met in this case. Who was he hoping to provide economic benefit to? Do the satellite hackers sell mod chips?
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
Somebody mod this down. Read the article before posting.
...he is f*cked like chuck. That definitely sounds like a federal-pound-me-in-the-ass crime. I admire him in a way though. If it tweren't for these darn family responsibilities 'o mine, I'd prolly be out there doing some really unlawful stuff too. Curse my responsible nature! ARRGGH!!
Question though about something mentioned in the article: what's so amazing about this "P4" techonology that no one has been able to crack it yet? Has it only been on the market a week? Or is it just really that good?
Spread the RC luvin'
Writing the Cheney Rumsfeld administration and complaining about the never ending War on Everything
Cheers,
W00t
Serebryany was charged under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, a law so powerful that until March 2002 only the most senior Justice Department officials in Washington could authorize prosecutors to wield it. Only about 35 criminal cases have been filed under the law.
What an idiot. This is the exact kind of case that should put the kid in jail. He STOLE trade secrets and distributed them. By economic gain, couldn't it be argued that the distribution of these documents could lead to people getting free DirecTV service, thus providing them with an economic gain?
Throw the book at the ruskie!
It's nice to see someone exploiting another (probably poorly written) law besides the DMCA for a change.
Is it just me, or do Russians make great targets for this stuff?
Anyone know some details about this law (I'm too lazy to bother looking into it myself)?
Down with Saudi Arabia!!!
hostage ransom stock markup FraUDs.
no changes are planned? good gnus to follow?
how does IT feel, being soul DOWt?
As a few other posters have already said, it looks like this kid just straight-up stole information DirecTV. That's illegal in any country, and I'm going to say he'll probably be treated nicer than he would be had he gotten caught in a number of other countries.
What's funny is that Slashdot is reporting this as a YRO article... I'm pretty sure industrial espionage isn't on anyone's list of rights...
There are too many variables and too little information here to really state anything for sure.
...but shit, this can ruin the company!
Information wants to be free...
So why not let it out? He's getting in serious trouble just for mentioning something he found in his work. He's recieving no money and no income for it. Take down the site, but what good is arresting him? He's already stopped!
Where does he get off thinking he can post such private information? With the format out, it's trivial to create a device to create fake keys. I give it one month, and it's too late now. He needs not only to be punished, but to pay restitution to DirecTV, which now must come up with a completely different security algorithm, stopping all the products they already have out or in the lines using this technology.
I, personally, say "arrest the cretin." Much as I'm inclined to dislike large companies, years of DirecTV's work is now ruined, and he should have to pay every dime.
Warning: Poster of this comment is a nerd. Just like everybody else here.
The government needs to find the answer to #2 if they want to prosecute him under that law. Now, they could wait until modified chips start be sold assuming the information he took actually helps such a device to be created. Even if it could, how could they have enough proof to say that the circumvention device actually benefited from his leaked information? Innocent until proven guilty. At least, that's the way it's supposed to work.
It's always the Iraq's fault, the Russian's fault, North Korean's fault, but not the Yank's fault. If this keeps up, the only Axis of Evil left will be the Ultimate Scums of America.
Take a deep breath and read the story before going off here (unlike the editors who post these stories)...
The guy *worked* for a legal company that had access to sensitive company documents. He *stole* the documents, then released them to the underground web sites.
This was not some clever hacker sitting in a basement and figuring a bunch of stuff out with a soldering iron in one hand and scope probes in the other.
How would you feel if some clerk at your university office did the same thing with your class transcripts? Some waiter posted your charge card number? Some guy at the help desk of your ISP sold your email account and password to a company that writes spammer distribution programs?
There are legitimate issues with the DCMA and similar legislation and common law that *really need* to be hammered out. Waving guys like this around as "little guy getting stuck by the man" is the *worst* thing we can do for sensible legislation.
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
He **STOLE** the documents from his employer and sent them to web sites that specialize in the hardware/software to make fake cards to steal DirecTV programming.
Unless he's brain damaged, I'd have to assume that he knew exactly what he was doing.
Let's see, a 19-year old gaining access to critical trade-secret documents, what happened to security? They probably aren't going the DMCA route, because maybe there wasn't a hint of circumvention involved.
Is breaking an NDA a criminal act? Breach of contract is normally something handled in civil court. You might be made to pay damages, but you won't be going to jail for it. Or perhaps I don't understand how things work in the post-DMCA America.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
the secrets reveal you!
good to see this defined as what it is, not DMCA.
fact is, they are very clearly breaking the law, very deliberately, and they make a considerable sum doing so. the one i knew, earned about 50k in a year. i am glad the asshole is not part of my life anymore. a real pathetic schmuck too, so worried about IRS that he spent it all on toys (stereo, new machines) and strippers, then sat around and said he couldn't afford rent, or couldn't find a job because he was just unemployed and not reporting his Stolen income. he was 27 at the time.
sad to see a 19 yo kid getting stomped on. 19 yo kids just see the law as something to break anyway.
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." - Rahm Emanuel
...The DirectTV P4 cards hand out information about you over the web.
RTFA
What does a teenager committing brazen theft have to do with My Rights Online?
You break the law, you get arrested, you go to jail. If you don't like it, change the laws. Don't be stupid. That's just what you fucking get.
Actually, Barbecue is both a noun and a verb.
u e& r=2
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=barbec
That is if you are a Russian living in or visiting the US. There is an instant distrust extended to foreigners living in a strange land. But the US has no monopoly on bigotry. I've been on the receiving end of that deal in Russia.
I'm a Republican who loves Russia. I lived in Russia for two years after high school and graduated with a degree in Russian.
As far as this case goes, it's going to be a difficult one for both the prosecutors and the defenders. In order for the prosecution to win, they'll have to prove that Igor Serebryany was trying to steal secrets for his, or someone else's profit.
It seems that the Corporations would have had a better case by going after the law firm that breached a contractual relationship of trust. Bringing the feds in was not the best move. Igor will not finish his education here, even if he wins the case, and that is the really sucky part of this whole deal.
Ok, someone posted that we should be pissed off if someone reverse-engineered a directv box or card or whatever and got prosecuted and then we would say all kinds of nasty things about the lawyers for directv who were bringing the case and probably wish them all types of ill-will and misfortune. Why then do we root against what appears to be a great gesture against some of these same lawyers? If there were a case pending against a sklyarov type guy in a directv case, we would cheer this Seb go on to no end!
I'm suspicious that someone didn't read the article (not you, perhaps the people who posted it...)
Aside from the guy also being Russian, it's nothing like the other cases where a lot of people (myself included) were bothered by what the government was doing.
This guy is not a hacker, not a cracker, he simply disseminated confidential information he was privy to.
I'm not sure there is a gray area in this one: he clearly broke the law. Whether the punishment fits the crime, I guess is another story. But, unlike the previous cases, this guy clearly and deliberately broke the law. I think maybe this should have been filed under a different category (not really a Rights Online issue IMHO).
.... i guess no... Because the feds always live by their own rules... and it doesn't matter what are the rules, they ARE allowed to brake them. That's sad, because world doesn't have to live by the american rules/law :(
most insightful underpants list EVAR
The government will have a hard time getting a conviction if the documents in question were previously available on any publicly accessible (read: google) website.
Fry him ... sure, it only takes 3 minutes to reboot, but my tivo is a linux box - sacrificing uptime makes baby jesus cry.
It isn't like the guy was doing any reverse-engineering. I say let him rot in jail for abusing his position.
I am the Barber of Seville.
What is it about the P4 cards that makes them so special?
We as voters have given up essential liberty. We hoped to purchase a little temporary safety. We in fact deserve neither
Is -how- he got caught I love a good forensics story. I'll bet all my karma that he u/l'ed those docs right from the law firm. :)
.gov that deals with sensitive info. Its unfortunate at least b/c no one that young will ever be given a chance to prove their worth at that law firm again.
Seriously though, this may hurt anyone under the age of 25 trying to get a job outside the
BOSTON SUCKS!
What does someone stealing documents from a law firm have to do with anyone's online rights? It's not like he reverse engineered anything. And while I agree that the kid was (a) stupid, and (b) deserves to be punished, I do think that they're using the legal equivalent of an elephant gun to hunt a mosquito. Even the DirecTV folks acknowledge that the information he posted doesn't give people specific information needed to hack their service, so I think that it's going to be tough to prove the specific intent that he (or anyone else) was looking for financial gain. Some notoriety and "street cred" is more like it.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." --Albert Einstein
...Russian wants to be free
Why am I inclined to think that if he was an American teenager, he wouldn't have been arrested? It would have just been, "now junior, just give us back those codes and we won't tell anyone about your little hacking escapade, and we won't put you in jail, either".
This law is *much* more specific than that. Nevermind the question of whether this *should* be treated as criminal.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
There's a totally obvious economic benefit here. He gave the documentation away, in the hope that others would be able to get satellite TV for free. Getting something for free, that would normally be paid for, possibly expensively, is a definite economic benefit. Doesn't get any more cut and dried than that.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
WTF. I thought you guys had laws about cruel and unusual punishments...
If given the chance DirectTV would love to steal private information about it's users. Perhaps there is some sort of perverse justice in this :P
-Jason
He committed a very blatant crime. He's getting everything he deserves, I'd say. If anything the only reason that I would say this sucks, is if the taxpayers have to support him while he's incarcerated. Hopefully they'll just put him on a slow boat back home.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
The editors need to step back and look at what they're posting as front-page material. Sheesh.
As a Canadian who has a DirectTV dish and receiver and loves watching "grey market" TV, I hope there are more guys like him at DirectTV. Sure dealers of the hardware and those in the US are getting arrested in droves, but the Canadian end-user is apparently never bothered by the law.
What I do isn't in the moral good-books, but I can't imagine paying for the piles of crappy programming that are offered by DirectTV or the Canadian equivilants -- I watch the NHL games the the occasional movie, and would pay a reasonable fee to do it above-board, but I can't seriously imagine shelling out hundreds per month to do it.
FYI -- Canadians CAN'T subscribe to DirectTV due to Canadian laws, as the government feels that we should be using the alternatives in our own country. However that doesn't stop a wackload of people from watching "grey-market" TV -- it isn't illegal, but you can't actually legally subscribe to it. It's really a very strange situation.
You get SHOT for revealing DirectTV secrets!
Please. My rights do not included theft of trade secrets. There is no kid genius reverse engineering their encrytpion scheme. He stole the documentation via his employer, and gave this information away/or sold it, not clear on that part.
Guy deserves to go to jail, plain and simple. No rights have been violated other than DirecTV's and the law firms.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Because The Man is keeping us down with his trade secrets! Because IP has no intrinsic value because it is not a physical object! Because it's not stealing if you copy something you do not have a legal right to copy! Because we all want your stuff for free! (Touch our stuff and we'll send in the GNU-Goons to break your kneecaps!)
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Usually, michael is the ed. who likes to miscategorize stories in order to generate traffic. You guys must have Malda behind you with a whip or something.
A story an hour! I mean it, dammit! *crack*
I know that we are all about law-and-order in this country now, ( except for businesspeople ) but does 10 years of prison under the Electronic Espionage Act sound like a resonably penalty for stealing cable television?
Read the article before commenting it AND read the comments before commenting them
"What would have happened if Henry Ford had not come up with standardized parts"
Well, nothing really, because he didn't. Sam Colt did.
Other things Henry Ford didn't come up with include the car, the assembly line and mass production.
He was a strong believer in trade secrets though, and the sort of guy who wouldn't hire lawyer if you stole one from him. He was more inclined to hire a thug to beat your head in with a baseball bat.
He was also a primary participant in one of the longest, nastiest and expesive patent busting cases in American history.
Go figure.
KFG
.. because by extension he is stealing free cable for lots of people.
I am the Barber of Seville.
Well, maybe not *that* big, but ABC News is reporting that he actually worked for a digital IMAGING company that was contracted out by the law firm to create digital copies of these sensitive docs. Adjust arguments appropriately knowing that he didn't work for the law firm.
Sometimes it helps to search for alternative versions of the story.
Intelligent Life on Earth
Perhaps the real news is that some laws have been used correctly for a change :)
no, that new card you got is a P4 card, the kind that he stole info about.
- This guys stole, and deserves to be punished, and
- The slashdot crowd is going to try to make this guy into a martyr/hero
Then I look at the comments here at slashdot, and all of the top moderated comments says, more or less, "this guy stole, and deserves to be punished." Most also anticipate the same overreaction. And I'm sure it is out there, in some of the lower moderated comments, but on the whole, it looks like we're having the same sane reaction, even as each of us assumes he or she is the only sane one around here. Interesting, I thought.To those of you who post here from the comfort of your aliases - mind your language. A new generation of kids is coming online and learning that stealing is not wrong because it's in PDF format and it happens to live in a computer. I'm sure very few people think of that, but it *is* a responsibility, especially when it's imbued in the flaming gown of open source and free software (yes, maybe *you* can see the disconnect, but a lot of others can't).
How long until we get stories of people getting busted for stealing trade secrets because "information wants to be free"? As in "Quake made me kill my classmates"?
Hey timothy, could you please elaborate on your obviously erraneous placement of the article in the YRO category?
100% of the replies so far seem to agree with that your selection is totally out of place. The common question is "since when industrial espionage became one of our 'online' rights?"
I'd urge to to reply and explain yourself, in case we missed any point you tried to make here (somewhat unlikely).
We name our kids Igor
YOU are arrested for releasing trade secr- ah, yes. Okay, nothing to see here. Move along.
You're forgetting the statutory requirement to announce "What a country!" every hour on the hour.
Hahah, that's a nautical term, and I'm using it interchangably with this article because the person's name is Ivan. That's just awesome.
Why are all of these Russians all of a sudden getting in trouble for cybercrime? Yes, this was a crime, but then there's that Dmitry guy, and there were at least a half of dozen others, I just didn't have the will power to remember anything about them.
In Soviet Russia, We convince West that Soviet Union is no more. Perhaps it is, they are just using a few "hackers" to try to get some knowledge, and then completely destroy us with computers (a la Splinter Cell).
My posts are so retarded.
How can you say there's no economic benefit, to getting something for free, that you would otherwise be obligated to pay a sum of money for?!?!
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
more than one of him is called a Beowulf clusterfuck.
Stealing boxes of tea off a ship and throwing them into Boston Harbor was a criminal act, but today we in America view it as morally justified, because it was in protest of "taxation without representation" by the British. Is Serebryany's act morally justified as well? The technology described in the papers he stole will be used to prevent you from freely viewing movies which are up to and over 70 years old. The writers of our constitution would certainly have had a problem with this. They said a copyright should be 14 years (I think), or at least "for a limited time". Serebryany committed an illegal act, which we should all view as morally justified, since it was directed against technology designed to repress our constitutional freedoms. FREE SEREBRYANY! This is the reason, I believe, why this post belongs in the "your rights online" section.
It seems that the cards are the weak link in the security of the encrypted satellite's data
stream. But I am curious as to if there has been much success with directly decrypting
the stream? As I understand it, the hacked cards allow access to the receiver which
then decrypts the data. If you are looking for free sat TV, buying or making a cracked
card will do the job, for a while. But I can imagine that building a virtual receiver to
decrypt the signal would be a very interesting (maybe illegal?) challenge.
Just Curious
Here is 18 U.S.C. sec. 1831 for your own eyes, but it looks like he only had to "know" that it would benefit a foreign gov't, agent, or instrumtality. To me I think the intent of this statute is to prevent espionage of the overseas variety, but good lawyers make their money fleshing out the grey areas like this when it's the person that is foreign. Who knows if he wanted to benefit foreign gov'ts; to my mind I think he just wanted free DirecTV. DirecTV has just been plagued by these hacked cards so long, I think the reason they're bringing charges under sec.1831 is they've done some serious lobbying to help bring out the big guns to make an example of some people now.
here's the statutory goodness...
1831. Economic espionage
(a) In General.-- Whoever, intending or knowing that the offense will benefit any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent, knowingly--
(1) steals, or without authorization appropriates, takes, carries away, or conceals, or by fraud, artifice, or deception obtains a trade secret:
(2) without authorization copies, duplicates, sketches, draws, photographs, downloads, uploads, alters, destroys, photocopies, replicates, transmits, delivers, sends, mails, communicates, or conveys a trade secret:
(3) receives, buys, or possesses a trade secret, knowing the same to have been stolen or appropriated, obtained, or converted without authorization:
(4) attempts to commit any offense described in any of paragraphs (1) through (3); or
(5) conspires with one or more other persons to commit any offense described in any of paragraphs (1) through (4), and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of conspiracy.
shall, except as provided in subsection (b), be fined not more than $500,000 or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both.
(b) ORGANIZATIONS.- Any organization that commits any offense described in subsection (a) shall be fined not more than $10,000,000.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur
Yes, it was industrial espionage, yes he deserves to go to jail, etc. etc., but all he had to do was to sit on the information for a few months until his job expired and then release it through an anonymous remailer in Norway.
As a guy sitting in Canada, who is not allowed to subscribe to Direct TV, we have to pirate it to watch the Sopranos on HBO. And it annoys me that this guy could have been of huge assistance if he just held things close to his chest and then released them after a few months when he was long gone from the firm.
By the way, for those who care: the Canadian government originally said that Canadians could watch Direct tv all they wanted because DTV didn't have a licence to broadcast here. Now the supreme court has said "Nope" because although they don't have a licence here, it's "wrong" but we still aren't allowed to subscribe because DTV doesn't have sufficient Canadian contend.
So now approximately 200,000 Canadians have been made criminals in one stroke of a pen.
The baby's fine -- please stop sending business cards.
Lots of people are saying "He broke the law, so fry him", but you don't really mean that, because the consensus around here is that some folks who break some laws (i.e. bad laws, laws we don't like) are heroes who don't deserve frying. But this law is a law preventing theft, and since we all agree that theft is bad, and we don't want our stuff stolen, we basically like this law.
But in this case, what he stole was a description of technology that is going to be used to stifle the flow of information. Somebody could argue that this property doesn't deserve to be protected from theft, and that anybody who steals from the information-rich to give to the information-poor doesn't deserve to be punished.
If this doesn't prove that the law is bad in general, it proves that this application of this law is protecting an unjust institutionalized system of information as property, when information isn't and shouldn't be treated as property.
If you treat this as an act of civil disobedience, in the style of MLK, then let the system arrest and punish the guy, so that the system reveals its own injustice to anybody who happens to be watching.
I'm not sure I buy it myself, but I think it is a serious argument to consider, and so I'll throw it out there, since nobody else seems to be.
why is this news?
I'm sure you got the card to upgrade you from a P3 to a P4 card. My guess is that you have an older series 1 DirecTV/TiVo unit still using a P3 card, and they decided to upgrade you. I too recently got a new card in the mail, due to the fact that my standard Hughes receiver was using a P3.
However, I also got a series 2 Hughes HDVR2 DirecTV/TiVo receiver for my birthday, and that one came with a P4 card.
It seems that a lot of people are bitching that this shouldn't be under YRO. Personally, I think it's good just so people see, in opposition to those doing good and getting nailed, what real online (or otherwise) crime is like and how one can get fried.
If anything, this is useful just so that similar idiots don't get the idea that they can get away with this. Cracking hardware at home for your own use is one thing, giving out the info so millions can cheat a company out of legitimate profit is another.
This one comes out as Economic Espionage, because the individual stole trade secrets and then published them to the masses. He's not publishing the info to make better use of the product and he didn't even decode the info himself, so what we have is just one dumb kid who thought it would be a good idea to help people steal programming.
It's nice to see the slashdot crowd is quick to point out that this guy is dirty, as it goes to show that many know the difference between crime and getting screwed by big corps.
You can find good info on the DirecTV hacking scene at PirateDen and HackP4.
A lot of these people are ligit suscribers to DirecTV service. They see this as a game, release files to the public and see what Dave counters with. Its your typical hacker scene, more about bragging rights than free TV.
That is not to say it hasnt caused a black market to spring up. There are lots of scammers out there trying to rip people off. Just search eBay or Google for HU 3m some time.
Str8Dog
using System.Darkside; public
P4 was suspect from the day it was released by DirecTV, since the card was produced by the same people who released 3rd generation card that was also hacked because of leaked information.
Before the P4 card was out, plans for a 5th generation card that will be produced in house by DirecTV were already started. This alone discurages hackers, anything they discover now already has a limited life.
...it's a matter of scale. As an issue of fact-well, looks like he did it so far. As an issue of law, if he did it he certainly broke the law.
... odd... that US industrialists go to jail so rarely,despite scandal after ripoff that goes back years and results in billions transferring ownership *illegally*. They always seem to be able to skate with a fine someone else pays, like mr and mrs six pack with their friday afternoon "donations" to the 401k scam stock market.
Now here's the ironic part-the same US government prosecuting him uses ECHELON and stolen promis software and a huge base of satellite intercepts, under the ocean cable taps, etc to "steal" all sortsa goodies, inclucing "industrial secrets" that I have ZERO doubt wind up in the hands of 'connected ones" to high levels of government.
But we ain't seeing any of that get "prosecuted" are we?
Coupla weeks ago, a slew of top level wall street brokerages had to pay 'fines" for insider trading-like "crimes", said fines now being paid by-investors money, other people's money. There was zero jail time involved with any of these gents-why? Easy answer there-they are solid citizen uber fatcats, so their "industrial espionage" that made them and their drinking buddies rich is "less" of a crime than this kid's.
Which is worse, which one should result in jail time? I think it's
Oh well, crime is crime, moral of this story is,for one who might have criminal intent, do it in a BIG WAY then it's called "government" or "business", then it's a lot more acceptable.
I imagine that he's being charged with a felony with a 10 year sentence to pressure him into revealing to whom he sent the information. If he cooperates, they may reduce the charges or give him a suspended sentence.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if his former employer was encouraging the Feds to charge him. Admittedly, people in law firms handle sensitive material all of the time - but a 19 year old part-time worker was able to access electronic copies of a major client's most proprietary technical information? Either the firm's IT people are lax or someone on the staff made a mistake that allowed the fellow access.
You become thankful you didn't decide to go to America!
Where's the information he stole posted? Purely for scientific research, of course.
promoted the idea in the first place. *HE* got the idea from Honore Le Blanc while he was in France.
Was Jefferson the first "Al Gore."
As with most things of this nature there were actually several "inventors" who over a period of time developed the finished concept.
Le Blanc had the idea, Whiteney was able to put it into practice, Colt brought it to the point where interchangeable parts were *actually* interchangeable ( i.e. didn't require any hand fitting at all).
In any case the whole thing was a done deal before Henry Ford was born.
KFG
Who has a link?
Secifically, this case should not hold water because Huges obviously did not hold it's trade secrets close enough. See the act itself, quoted here,
(3) the term 'trade secret' means all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, including patterns, plans, compilations, program devices, formulas, designs, prototypes, methods, techniques, processes, procedures, programs, or codes, whether tangible or intangible, and whether or how stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or in writing if --
(A) the owner thereof has taken reasonable measures to keep such information secret
What were these trade secrets doing in a law firm? What was that law firm doing handing them to an intern?!!! Did that intern sign anything binding him to non release of information? Details like this are very important.
This case may be the begining of a very real shift in "intelectual property" law. It's a very small step from jailing this intern, who may have been under no contract, to jailing you and me for picking up a paper on the street. Such a broadening of trade secret "protection" will eliminate the need for patents as all technology will be under protection, without the benifits of public disclosure.
Those are a few issuse that you might be worried about.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Convicted rapists and murderers being released from prisons early to make way for the REAL criminals prisons are expecting due to the RIAA, DMCA, Microsoft, etc...
Ok what were talking about here is a charge that should relate to stealing trade secrets on behalf of a foreign power.... In this case it seems like a simple breach of confidentially.
... if they're so darned secret why were they sent to an outside law firm? If they were going to patent them they'd have to publish anyway if they weren't why did they send them to their lawyers ?
This of course assumes that he did indeed steal the documents
It's possible that his working for the same lawfirm was purely concidental and they're using that link in order to bring criminal charges.
Either way this is a law meant for spies not crackers. It seems like a major sledgehammer job.
Incidentally they refer to DirecTV's "NEW" access cards - I've had directv for nearly 5 years and still have the original access card. Are these the new ones they're talking about ?
Damn, I am glad that I am not the only one that thinks that this guy is stupid and should be locked up for what he did. I love how people come to your defense when you are facing a case like this, but ignore the fact that laws were broken.
Kevin Mitnick, Randal Schwartz, and now Igor Serebryany - all criminals who should get what they deserve.
RonB
It is human nature to take shortcuts in thinking.
His family is from Los Angeles, and he's going to school in Illinois, but he's a Russian! The headline should read "student Arrested..." Of course, with Dubya in the White House, everyone is a foreigner. Redneck Cracker wins Presidential election in 2000.
Check out this link. Note that it says
Now, this is Arizona-specific, but I suspect it is similar to other states.Bruce
Bruce Perens.
have nothing to do with stealing confidential documents and make them available to the public. Such statements only serve to spread the idea that persons interested in the STUDY of information are all out to steal it. This guy stole confidential documents, and should be punished.
-----Buy the ticket, take the ride.-----
http://www.asu.edu/counsel/brief/privilege.html. Sorry!
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
The student, identified as Igor Serebryany, 19, of Los Angeles, was accused of sending over the Internet hundreds of sensitive documents describing details about DirecTV's latest "access card" technology - credit-card devices controlling which of the company's 11 million U.S. subscribers can view particular channels.
The P4 and all other DirecTV and Dish access cards are Smartcards, not magnetic strip cards like credit cards. The Amex Blue and one Visa card are also smart cards, but credit cards in general are not, and Blue still has a mag strip. Sattelite access cards do not use mag strips.
Moderation Totals: Flamebait=2, Troll=1, Redundant=1, Insightful=6, Overrated=1, Underrated=1, Total=12. (not mine)
A couple of things bother me about this. Why is a federal prosecution needed, when California already has strong laws against trade secret theft? Why did federal prosecutors need high-level approval in DC to apply this law, unless the DoJ knows that the law is overbroad and easily abused? Why did a law firm even have these documents, unless there was already some dispute about them? How are the feds going to prove economic espionage when that entails proving economic benefit, when the Russian did not economically benefit and it is not clear how anyone else might have economically benefitted either?
in my day we had to actually work to crack a system. social engineering, scopes, reverse engineering. Not kids today, they just steal the documantation and call themselves hackers.grumble grumble, mutter, wheez
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Of course the mechanism by which he obtained the information is important. Reverse engineering is legal (in most cases) because it relies only on publically available information. The technical documents he stole were not public information.
In Soviet Russia ...... oh, Welcome Comrad.
DirectTV watches you.
A common pattern in the threads below is a sense of incredulity that something other than civil remedies are available for misappropriation of a trade secret. Criminal responsibility for trade secret theft is actually quite common, and there are statutes in most states addressing same.
Usually, DA's have better things to do than to prosecute causes for which civil remedies provide adequate deterrence, relying instead on the private actions to keep honest folks honest. But every now and then, civil remedies fail to adequately encourage good behavior -- particularly when the defendant is effectively judgment-proof -- and a state attorney may decide to try to get someone's attention.
At any rate, the Economic Espionage Act is simply a Federal law against theft of trade secrets. The remedies are tougher than most analogous state laws, but so are the reqirements. No doubt, the language is somewhat different from uniform acts, but it is hardly anything new or special -- and chances are that if it weren't applicable, one or more state laws would also be relevant.
I think everyone is missing a fundamental point here: The dam that is technological content protection or access control can be easily burst... as shown by this case (especially if any infringing technology shows up) and the DeCSS case. The development of DeCSS allowed content to be copied by the end-user (even if poorly) and, once the program was out, there was no going back... In this light, it doesn't seem that hard to imagine the entertainment industry advocating draconian legislation like the DMCA, CBDTPA, and the Berman Bill. Yikes...
I just read this article in 2600, I knew the guy was going to be busted for it. It's a real shame when explorers go for too much glory like this, he's only hurting himself.
Mike Cho
fyad fyad lol
"The only consumer signal I know of in North America that remains untouched is StarChoice's, since they use DigiCipher... It seems like pirates don't want to touch that with a 10 ft. pole (probably for VERY good reasons :) It still isn't particularly popular, though. "
I can't imagine why. Just another proprietary encoding method. And no harder to break than DSS.
And yes it is popular, for those living on the edges of a satellite's footprint, and those who've already invested.
Serebryany was charged under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996, a law so powerful that until March 2002 only the most senior Justice Department officials in Washington could authorize prosecutors to wield it.
I think in bureaucratese, the proper wording is thus:
Ash nazg durbatulûk, ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
guaf-fu
Lots of petrified grits
Because the law is terrifying. If you're a programmer you've probably signed something that says all your coding, wherever and whenever, belongs to your employer. If you develop a script and post it online, have you just violated the act? Have you violated it when someone else grabs it and uses it to make money? This is scary stuff. And what the heck is a trade secret and who gets to decide that?
My list of fun facts / questions.
So does this mean that I cannot take apart my electronics, build something new out of them, and post the details to my website?
No, really, I know, in this case his deeds could be used to defraud a company. Maybe if their cards were not so easy...
I have seen or heard several people talking about how they did this. Lets say I know of 3 people. And every 3rd person also knows 3 people. Take that times an average of 39.99 a month for service upgrades they are stealing. x=loop(((x+3)*3)*39.99). This really is something I would want to crack down on if it were my company getting ripped off.
Why is it that no matter what the service, some people expect to get something for nothing. My search for "direct tv hack" returned 73,700 results.
On a last note, its funny that this is deemed proper, and he should go to trial and be convicted, but having 5,000 MP3's on your hard drive is not. Say the average person in the USA has a minimum of 3 full cd's by one artist in MP3 format. Now take that times the nation's population count, and then times $15. Doesn't that too add up. If it was your company or industry would you just turn YOUR back on it?
Hell I get mad when people take code and don't keep the readme with it when the redistribute it. And I don't even make money from that.
Just my 2cents.
in a fit of petulance over its failure to gain approval to merge with EchoStar. I can do little but rub my hands together in glee as I ponder their misfortune.
Perhaps there really IS such a thing as karma.
"Receiving stolen merchandise" and trade secrets are not reconcilable.
Specifically, trade secrets aren't stolen property, if they are disclosed, they are merely disclosed.
One only obtains intellecutal property protection under the law as a result of self-disclosure of what would, otherwise, be trade secrets. The protection is given in exchange for the disclosure, to ensure, like the secret of making red glass from raw materials, the information is not lost: i.e., to propmote progress in the sciences and useful arts.
The industrial espionage act under which he is charged was not intended to target individuals who were disclosing in order to disclose (e.g. disgruntled ex-employees), but was in fact intended to be brought to bear against people who obtained their positions *in order to* disclose for some other comapnies economic benefit.
Even so, such a law is arguably un-Constitional, on the basis that Trade Secrets are not permitted any Constitutional protection, unless they are disclosed in the form of a Patent.
Therefore, Trade Secrets are not "merchandise", per se.
Remember that the supposed Trade Secrets of AT&T were in fact the bsis of the AT&T/USL lawsuit against BSDI, and, later, BSDI, and the follow-on Cease and Desist letters USL sent to the 386BSD, FreeBSD, and NetBSD projects (this was prior to the 1996 Act), and those lawsuits came to nothing, and no "Receiving Stolen Merchandise" charges were ever files against DEC, Apple, IBM, Cisco, etc., who had taken and used the Net/2 sources in the commercial products that form the basis of today's Internet.
-- Terry
- but a 19 year old part-time worker was able to
- access electronic copies of a major client's
- most proprietary technical information? Either
- the firm's IT people are lax or someone on the
- staff made a mistake that allowed the fellow
- access.
THAT's a very good point - the law firm seriously screwed up here in protecting client product...
No surprise, tho... DirecTV would be wise to find a new firm with better IT security.
All in all, tho, I'd say the kid is the one in deep excrement - if he did what they say, it definitely sounds like industrial espionage - at least in the sense that proprietary trade secrets were obtained and distributed - whether that was for economic gain depends on whether hacking satellite service is an "economic gain" in the INDUSTRIAL ESPIONAGE sense...as opposed to some other legal sense.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Such a broadening of trade secret "protection" will eliminate the need for patents
Oh really? Nowadays, United States patents are primarily used not to obtain a monopoly on an invention in exchange for public disclosure but rather to obtain a monopoly on an invention that is obvious to anybody who looks at the product. Just look at Amazon's "one click shopping" patent on sending billing and shipping information along with a request to buy. It's so simple and obvious given the product's outward appearance that anybody could hack up a clone.
And look at some of the other bad patents found by the League for Programming Freedom: drawing and undrawing an image with XOR, topologically sorting statements in a spreadsheet program, and other things that any competent software engineer could have come up with after looking at the problem for ten minutes.
Large corporations in the United States use patents to 1. stop copying, and 2. stop independent invention. The disclosure of the contents of a patent is almost redundant in 2003.
Will I retire or break 10K?
All crimes are equally wrong--theft is as bad as murder is as bad as rape is as bad as vandalism is as bad as burglary is as bad as assault is as bad as fraud
Is as bad as possessing 0.4 grams of marijuana, with a prescription?
Is as bad as publicly performing a song written in 1925?
Bad troll. Bad. Go to your room.
Will I retire or break 10K?
The websites benefited through publicity/extra clicks/banners etc. In a sense, Igor may have gotten into a situation similar to the one Kevin had gotten into - although not having any obvious profit right away due to the acts incriminated to him, he will probably have some publicity that he'll be able to exploit (write a book later on?). Although I'd think one must be damn crazy to ever chose being a prison inmate for some dubious future profit. Kevin didn't want it for sure...
VKh
And by doing so, they could wind up putting enough information in the public record
Unless the record of the trial is sealed. Would that apply?
Will I retire or break 10K?
So now we go and ponder the theoretical. What if we find out that that Jon guy who cracked the CSS encryption on DVD's had really just obtained the codes by violating an NDA? How would that change things.
Everyone thinks that Jon is a hero. Everyone thinks that this russian kid is a criminal. I want to know what the difference between these two is.
Had the story been more like "Russian kid steals documents and uses them to make a program that'd let you decode and play DirecTV feeds in Linux" would this guy have been a slashdot idol. Is it really what the person does with the information that determines how right/wrong that person was?
I think that's what the DMCA is supposed to be, like an NDA of sorts. It's an agreement between the company and the consumer that gives certain rights to the consumer that purchased the product, and prevents them from doing certain things. At least that's what i think it was supposed to be, only the companies involved botched the thing so badly that it pretty much gives them the rights to do anything they want. So here goes another question. If the DMCA was very well worded, and served as an NDA that prevented the consumer from sharing details about the product they've purchased, then would the slashdot community consider it as bad? Would we still stand behind that Jon kid, even though now he broke a well-worded NDA?
What I'm trying to figure out is why everyone is so anti-company in this forum. It seems that it's always big bad company versus good ol' hacker. It seems like no one feels that companies should have any rights whatsoever, so is this the case or am I missing something here. Is the problem that the DMCA is poorly worded? is the problem that it prevents you from getting things for free? is the problem that the RIAA is inherently evil and so the DMCA must be bad?
what gives?
The HU cards still work
So I can play my old TurboGrafx-16 games on a DirecTV box? The TG16 stores its software on "HuCard" media.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I must mention that many lawyers and law firms are waaay behind the times when it comes to computers and automation - never mind the field of computer security. Most lawyers spend their time practicing their debate, public speaking skills and thinking of clever ways to convince the jury, and haven't a clue about computer security.
How do I know this? I had reason to hire a criminal lawyer at one point. After he handled my case, he grilled me at length about computers in general and graphics in particular and informed as to the sad state of affairs between lawyers and computers. Many of them are surprisingly low-tech. And I'll lay odds most don't even *have* IT departments.
blue
Yeah, cause NOBODY's mentioned this shit before...
Here's why this may be about your rights...
This is about the disclosure of a trade secret by an employee of an employee of a company being prosecuted as if it were an act of industrial espionage by a person employed by a foreign power in order to harm the U.S. industrial base relative to foreign competition.
There are several problems here:
1) We don't know if he had legal access to these documents, prior to the disclosure, in the course of his normal work responsibilities, as assigned by his employer.
2) We don't know if he's the original discloser, or if, assuming he did *not* have legitimate access, the original discloser was someone who left a CDROM sitting in the lunch room, instead of maintaining physical control over the information, as required by due dilligence... making them the discloser.
3) Trade Secrets have no constitutional protection. This is on purpose. To obtain constitutional protection, you have to file a patent, and agree to lose that protection after the patent expires. The lack of protection is intentional, to encourage disclosure.
If he went out of his way to steal the documents, that's one thing. If it's simple disclosure, however. which seems likely, then the amount of recourse is (intentionally) limited to damages to the company, recoverable from him personally.
In any case, now that the information is disclosed, it's disclosed: it's in the public domain. The company has the right (in the U.S.) to file patent, up to a year following first public disclosure. Foreign patents, except for Japan, are now impossible -- if they weren't imposssible as software patents everywhere else (except Japan, again), anyway.
Personally, I doubt he had to violate the law to obtain the information, and I doubt that he profitted from the disclosure, and I doubt foreign companies will profit from the disclosure. So this is a likely an attempt to bludgeon him for the disclosure, using an inappropriate law.
On the other hand, it's likely that no one will hire him for an NDA position, ever again, even if he didn't violate NDA through the disclosure (by being a person who picked up a CDROM that was not dilligently stored or protected by someone else). That's as it should be.
In any case...
The reason that makes this about your rights, is that Trade Secrets are not Constitutionally entitled to the level of preotection that is being attempted to be enforced in this case.
We should be wary of any attempts to increase legal protections for Trade Secrets, without some benefit to society, in trade (and that's what Patents and Copyrights are intended to do). Permitting a company to obtain (in effect) patent protection without the disclosure required for patent protection is simply wrong.
-- Terry
"Federal-pound-me-in-the-ass crime"?
I did eight years in the Federal joint. It is NOT like you see in the movies! Nobody even suggested to me that they'd like to screw me... (Beat my ass, maybe, but not screw it...)
OTOH, I wasn't a good-looking young kid...
Still, I NEVER in EIGHT YEARS saw or heard ANY verifiable case of someone being raped in the Federal joint... Not to say it never happens, because I am absolutely sure it does, but it AIN'T as common as people imagine...
Now, if you want to say "STATE-pound-me-in-the-ass crime", I have no direct experience of the state joint and I have heard it is considerably more violent than the Federal joint, so feel free...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Depends on the size of the firm. I would expect DirecTV to be using a sizeable firm, but perhaps not. I know I worked as a temp for Brobeck Phleger and Harrison at one point, and they have a considerable IT department (running IBM System/38's in the San Francisco office in the late '80's).
There are IT magazines oriented strictly to law firms.
If this guy as a temp had access to computers with sensitive client trade secret info on them, or he had access to documents with same in them, the law firm screwed up. There's probably due diligence rules somewhere that the Bar could bring against them. One would hope so...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Read this from the ABC report on the matter:
Investigators said Serebryany took copies of many of the documents to his family's home in Los Angeles and from his home computer sent more than 800 megabytes worth of electronic copies to at least three Web site operators.
The operator of one Web site,
"It was mostly like snippets of internal meetings, technical meetings, about the new access card and such," the site's operator who identified himself as J. Gray of Nanaimo, British Columbia said in a telephone interview. "It gave people a start on where to start looking, the technical specifications."
LOOK AT THIS PART!
Zwillinger, the lawyer for DirecTV, was formerly an expert on the law for the Justice Department and prosecuted the nation's first case under the law.
AND LOOK AT THIS PART!
The internal DirecTV documents were under court seal as part of a lawsuit between the company and rival NDS Group PLC, a unit of News Corp., over an agreement for NDS to provide access cards for DirecTV subscribers. In a series of lawsuits and countersuits, NDS had alleged that DirecTV itself was responsible for leaking the internal documents onto the Internet.
READ THAT LAST SENTENCE!
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
They abandoned me, and yet still charged me for a month of service ater -- yes, AFTER -- requesting canellation. So Fuck them. Spread the info, bring DirecTV to it's DirectKnees.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
If someone is being prosecuted, is it ever NOT "to the full extent of the law"?
If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
But you can't have a YRO discussion on slashdot without all these "I think he/she should/shouldn't go to jail"
Who gives a fuck.
Most of te comments are great too, and then end with some kinda chest-pounding morality disclaimer.
Maybe there are criminals reading, you insensitive clod.
Do the company & it's accomplices(employees) go to jail?
Hell no, they just fire somebody and say they're sorry; but don't step on their toes because individuals are accountable.
Just once I'd like to see a mass corporate jailing.
This from the New York Times: "The card is designed so that even if you know everything about it, you still can't hack it," said Marc Zwillinger, the lead lawyer for DirecTV's anti-piracy efforts.
Am I mistaken, or isn't that a little like saying "I Tripple dog dare you"? Can the DirectTV people seriously believe that this is possible? And furthermore, who's more foolish, the guy for stealing info that is irrelevant (whether it truly is unhackable, or it is hackable and thus would be hacked anyway), or the company for believing that they have done anything but get a whole bunch of new people working on the DirectTV hacking project. Or maybe it's slashdot... YRO? Give me a break, the last thing we need to do is turn people who are blatant criminals into populist heroes. If I rob a music store at gunpoint and get sent away on an armed robbery charge, are my rights on line being infringed upon by the evil machinations of the RIAA?
Associating something like this with YRO makes those who fight the good fight look bad. Don't think you can elevate this blatant theft into some grand crusade, all you can do is make the crusaders look like thugs.
"The documents included details about DirecTV's latest "P4" card technology, which hackers have so far been unable to crack. A lawyer for DirecTV, Marc Zwillinger, said the papers included details about the design and architecture of the new cards but did not reveal instructions for hacking them." I'm thinking that with complete schematics for the directTV system, instructions should not be necessary.
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
A company that appropriates a limited public resource for its own profit will never get my sympathy, even if the law is, according to some interpretations, on its side. Non omne licitum honestum.
LA is known for its infiltration by Russian organized crime.
Russia itself is infested with organized crime.
I say, get this kid out of my country.
The same goes for anyone who calls me an infidel.
No worries mate, us non-americans understand the meaning of "fry him" even within different contexts. What we don't understand is american culture.
With great power comes great electricity bills.
Forgive me if I don't understand the American law very well, but does this mean that companies are giving up on the DMCA? Wouldn't it be much easier to try him under the DMCA? It would seem very hard for the prosecution to prove an economic interest. The article says that it doesn't have to be his economic interest, but even proving a significant economic interest on the part of the people who received the information from him would seem hard. Most of this information ends up floating around on the web, so an "underground website" would have trouble finding a way to exploit this information for money.
>I can't imagine why. Just another proprietary encoding method. And no harder to break than DSS.
:-). Cracking it doesn't just get the wrath of a satellite company that's probabaly up to its eyeballs into debt on you -- it gets companies that can do all sorts of things... like buy laws to keep you in jail for a very good long time... angry at you.
My personal guess? DigiCipher is used by major companies (Disney, Paramount, etc) to distribute all sorts of "goodies"
Just my best guess...
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Agreed, trade secrets are adequately protected by contracts (NDAs or more general clauses in employment contracts), and systematic industrial espionage should be treated as an aggravating factor, resulting in greater damages.
However, what might be needed is laws allowing for the punishment of the actual beneficiaries. Under contract law, the person who gets hit hard is the one who signed the NDA, not the party who paid him to leak information.
which, I think, developed from the presence of Sing Sing penitentiary in Ossining, NY, north of New York City on the shores of the Hudson River.
I think you may have combined that with "Up the creek without a paddle", which is what the idiot subject of this whole discussion is now (and rightly so).
American Culture? Isn't that like Jumbo Shrimp or Military Intelligence?
Guy is aware of legal and heroic efforts on the part of hobbyist hackers to reverse engineer a piece of DirectTV technology. Guy, though course of his work, comes into possession of DirectTV "secrets" reguarding said equipment. Being sympathetic to the hackers, he publicly releases the "secrets".
Now what the guy did above probably broke a contract with someone somewhere, but its not criminal. Contracts are civil matters. However, a large company is now ticked off, so they want to find a way to make it criminal. There's an "espionage" law, intended to prevent companies from stealing other company's secrets. With some fancy legal work (which they can easily afford) they can twist that law to their purposes, but they have to argue that someone somewhere is going to "profit", even though the guy won't, and the folks he initially gave the info to are hobbyiests. If they can do that, then there basicly is no caviat to this law at all, and the courts have now made release of any "trade secret" criminal. Once they do it for someone, it is a "precedent", and can be used against anyone that way. That's what makes it YRO.
To be more specific, this would be purely a civil matter, if it weren't for the following facts:
Check out Washington Post article: Student Accused of Taking DirecTV Data: Hacker Sites Got Documents, FBI Says
I did indeed get it wrong. Backwards in fact.
Honre Le Blanc gets credit for the *idea* of standarized parts, although the concept was one of those things that was "in the air" at the time. When Jefferson was in France he met Le Blanc and was taken with the idea. He brought the idea back to America and ended up being the driving force in getting Whitney his contract.
Whitney made *standardized* parts, but they weren't truely interchangable. The manufacturing process at the time wasn't sufficiently precise to make the parts truely interchangeable. That is, they still required hand filing and fitting.
Colt was the first to refine the *manufacturing* process to a level that actually let you take any part off the shelf and simply install it in a new gun with no hand fitting required and it was this concept I had in mind when attributing credit to Colt.
KFG
He was an asshole in high school. The type who thought his intellect was higher than anyone else's. I guess he wasn't smart enough to not realize he was being tracked by the Federalis for months. He was just being stupid and deserves what he gets. I'm all for free info, but this stuff isn't exactly free info for the masses. I pray that there aren't any "FREE THIS IDIOT" stickers popping up, because Igor really doesn't deserve it. Not like Mitnick did atleast.
Posting credit cards in a wallet you've found is not the same thing as posting trade secrets that you've found.
... nothing.
The reason for this is that trade secrets are not protected by law, but credit cards, which are non-bearer financial instruments, are. Using a credit card that does not belong to you is fraud. Providing the credit card to someone else to use is being an acessory before the fact to a fraud. Using a disclosed trade secret is
Consider a classic trade secret.
You are a trucker for a company. That company issues to all its truckers, under non-disclosure, a map of 50 short-cuts. This is a business advantage for the company issuing the list.
Now your cousing from out of town is going to come visit you. He tells you the route he's going to take. You say "Oh, turn left on Cottle Road, instead of going straight, and you will save 40 minutes!".
Now this Trade Secret has been disclosed.
Enough employess share similar information with their own relatives, and all 50 shortcuts become public knowledge. The highway commission periodically measures traffic flow, and repaves all these shortcuts into two-lane routes, to accomodate increased traffic, and this, itself, encourages more people to use it. The entiretly of the trade secret is lost to cometing trucking companies, with no action on the part of those companies.
So... is everyone who turns left on Cottle Road guilty of "receiving stolen property"? Or is it just truckers who turn left? What about truckers who *live* on Cottle Road... are they allowed to turn left to go home?
Trade Secrets maintain value only because of their secrecy. You can't hold the recipient of a disclosure responsible for receiving the disclosure, since at the moment of disclosure, the information is no longer secret -- and therefore no longer a Trade Secret.
The law provides *some* remedy; specifically, it permits collection of estimated damages from the disclosers themselves -- based on a breach of contract, not based on any legal protection for the Trade Secret itself, as a matter of law and public policy.
In point of fact, the law encourages disclosure, as a matter of public policy, and provides legal protections, in the form of copyrights and patents, in trade for such disclosure, in order to encourage it.
Attempts to extend equivalent legal protection to Trade Secrets is *wrong*, as a matter of public policy.
-- Terry
[Possession of small amounts of drugs] is not a crime; it may be illegal, but it shouldn't be, and as far as I'm concerned there's nothing criminal about it.
If a fellow can go to jail for committing an act, then by definition, the act is a crime. The "illegal but not criminal" acts are those acts that can get a fellow sued in civil court but can't put him behind bars, such as patent infringement and trademark infringement.
you have no right to perform something created by another without the permission of the creator.
Do you have the right to perform "The Lord's Prayer", first published by Jesus of Nazareth in the first century A.D.?
Do you have the right to perform works created by J. S. Bach?
There does exist a public domain. My question as to the criminality of performing a 1925 work was a crime was an attack directed at the questionably-constitutional Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
But do jaywalking, possession of small amounts of drugs that the pharma companies are probably paying the FDA to ban, and infringing questionably-valid copyrights, even though they are crimes, merit a death penalty? I don't think so. I believe that giving the death penalty or even life imprisonment to a mere jaywalker constitutes cruel and unusual punishment as defined by the Bill of Rights. Of course, the RIAA and the MPAA would love to lock up copyright infringers until the copyrights expire, but that's not how the United States judicial system works.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Those Who Benefit slowly chip away at common sense and traditional freedom in the name of security. It starts with small irrelevant things like the DMCA, cases like this, and vagrancy laws. It ends in armed warfare. Over and over again. What a dumb ass place.
Yet another reason to buy the DVD of The Hunt, which was discussed a while back on Slashdot. Not only does our Russian companion figure prominantly! In SEVERAL scenes (he's the one deconstructing the plastic-bottle-melting vaporizer..."the resister melted," etc.) he participates in the skinny dip in the law school fountain.
In other words, he's STARK RAVING NUUUDEEEE.