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."
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.
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
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
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?
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.
Good grief, it says right in the article that he worked for a lawfirm that handled DirectTV legal issues. He had access to these documents because of his job.
The only issue is which law he was arrested for breaking. It is the toughest of such laws and is meant for people that take these actions with the intention of monetary benefit. He didn't benefit monetarily. However, the law apparently also says that you can't give trade secrets to anyone else that will benefit from them monetarily either. So there is the assumption that he gave it to people that will use it for monetary benefit.
He broke a law and deserves to be arrested. Did they choose the right law? That's for a jury to decide.
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...
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.
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.
"Will the charges hold up under this act?"
It's an issue for the lawyers and courts to decide, which frequently has little bearing on common sense. Should they prove that he did acquire the documents without permission (as opposed to, oh say, reverse-engineering the information) then I imagine that all they'd have to prove is that the information -could- be used by another party for economic benefit, not that his intention was for that to happen. And that will be very easy to prove, since there are companies that make cable converters and the like, and even an individual stealing DirecTV gains economically by virtue of not having to pay for what he/she receives.
What does a teenager committing brazen theft have to do with My Rights Online?
I'm not trying to troll here, but this shit is tiring after awhile. The fact that this is listed under YRO is some laughable shit. Committing a crime is committing a crime. I don't care how intelligent you had to be to do it or if you used your linux box or you put an advanced knowledge of computing into it, it's still a crime. I'm so sick of all of these people on /. thinking that if someone breaks the law, but they do it in a really bitching way using technology, or the crime itself revolves around technology, then that person should be elevated to the status of a hero.
If 5 years from now, cars became so computer controlled that you could literally hack into them and steal them, then drive them remotely, and some guy did this, it shames me to say that it would make a YRO article and we would be called to arms to defend this obvious victim from the slings and arrows of the cruel and unjust American justice system.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
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.
"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
- 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.Maybe the most you would pay for it is nothing. TV has only novelty value to me, for example; I often feel after watching something (which is rare these days) that the enjoyment I got from it was not even worth the time invested.
Suppose you sneak some people into a museum with an entrance fee without them paying, and they get to look at everything. What is the economic benefit? Are they happier? Would they have paid for it? Can they now charge someone else to pay for a recounting of the experience? Now suppose I draw a really bad picture and call my home "The Museum of Lousy Art" and start asking $100 to walk in and gaze upon the picture. Furthermore suppose some kids look in my window and see the picture. Have they gained anything? Perhaps, but was it worth $100?
Now, you could argue that the satellite service has some value because a large market of consumers exists who will pay the price asked. But you can't exactly resell the pirated service you are receiving, so what they will pay is no measure of your "economic benefit". Perhaps you can sell your entire pirate rig to someone else; that is exactly the potential economic benefit I mentioned originally. Otherwise, you are probably getting more satisfaction out of simply achieving the "pirating" than from watching the results.
Java: the COBOL of the new millenium.
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
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.
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