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Satellite Hackers Charged Under DMCA
RexHavoc writes "'Invoking the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a federal grand jury has indicted six people on charges of developing software and hardware designed to hack into paid TV satellite transmissions.' My guess is that for those who haven't already plead guilty, they will have a tough time proving that they had good intentions, unlike Dmitry Sklyarov's e-books case."
Over half a million dollars? That's outrageous!. I suppose that DirectTV is just assuming that anybdy that bought modded equipment was going to buy every single channel and every single pay-per-view event/movie they ever offered. I'm sure that phone companies will start calculating damages from cellphne fraud by assuming that every hacked account was calling to a sex-line in Sudan 24/7. Or even better, that the account was calling to every single phone number in the world, at once 24/7.
Now that I think about it, that would be really amusing.
Having tried a few times to establish the full power of the DMCA by prosecuting people almost at random, they have now realised that they will have to start with a few obvious wrongdoers in order to establish credibility and precedent.
I expect after a few of these they'll try another Sklyarov type case and win.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
But where's the crime?
DirectTV broadcast their signals to everyone. Who are they to demand how their signal is used?
To criminalize the act of decrypting satellite TV is the same as criminalizing the act of translating spanish radio into english. The radio station cannot demand that only people that understand spanish listen to it. It's just taking information that's being broadcast to everyone and translating it into a different form.
When someone shares knowlegde that they have legitimately aquired, that also sounds like a good intention to me.
When someone sells hardware built from knowledge they have legitimately aquired, that sounds like a good intention to me. (Or at least good entrepreneurship.)
Frankly, there a lot of people that could stand to use a little more time learning how to build TV's and a little less time watching them. How about we start chasing after violent criminals again or spend some resource to solve problems in our schools? My two cents worth anyway...
-Derek
No, because you have an agreement with the electric company that they'll connect your house to their power grid and supply you with power, in exchange for them putting a meter on your house and charging you by the amount used. If you don't like that, they'll remove the meter and the power line, and you can live without electricity.
Cable is the same way; if you don't pay for it, they'll come and disconnect it. If they're too lazy or incompetent to disconnect it, then you can watch CATV for free, legally. I do this right now, in fact.
Satellite signals are totally different. They're beaming those into your house whether you pay or not. If you're not a paying customer, but you're still receiving the signals, why can't you build equipment to receive them? If I recall the Federal Communications Act of 1936, it states that people can receive any radio signal they wish. Sure, you have to crack the encryption to turn that signal into something watchable, but as long as the information used to crack the encryption wasn't gained illegally (like by breaking into DirecTV's R&D center), and only by reverse engineering, what's the problem? If they don't want people "stealing" their signal, they shouldn't be sending to the whole country for free. If their current encryption scheme is insufficient to deter or prevent reverse engineering, they should devise a better scheme.
The issue of "stealing" satellite TV is fundamentally different from that of cable TV. With cable, you can't get it in your house unless you sign a contract with a company to install it. Said contract stipulates that you won't decrypt it, so if you do so you're in breach of contract and you're wrong. Fine.
Satellite signals are broadcast into the house I own and the airspace above my property that I own, without my consent. This isn't a joke people, if I set up equipment to turn those transmissions into usable TV signals, I've done nothing wrong. If I put up a website telling people about my accomplishments, I'm now liable for 5 years imprisonment and a $500K fine? That's the same punishment as criminally negligent manslaughter.
I find it sad that so many posters on here seem to agree that this is illegal and side with the giant money-grubbing corporation. The war is already lost.
you don't like that, they'll remove the meter and the power line, and you can live without electricity
Not likely.
What they will do is tell the meter to no longer deliver power to you. Removing the meter and power line is likely to be: A) too expensive, B) illegal (since in most locales in the US a building without power is not qualified as liveable - turning it off is one thing, removing the ability to deliver is another).
Now if you go turn that meter on, are you just "using the emissions already on your property" or are you illegally using service? The same holds true for most utilities such as water and gas, where in most residential neighborhoods the tap is controlled by a valve on your property. Doesn't mean you get to jack around with it though.
Heck, look at your freaking mailbox -- it's paid for by you, installed by you (or by a contractor), and on your land. Destroy it, or contents within, and it's a federal violation. You don't own it.
If I recall the Federal Communications Act of 1936
I suggest the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The 1936 Act was almost entirely rewritten by it. (And Judge Green probably rejoiced at its passing... he didn't expect to be the sole regulator of the telephone industry for 30+ years).
You most certainly cannot receive and decode any transmission you wish. Doing so to cellular telephones is illegal, as are military channels. Beamed sat transmission isn't either one of these, obviously, but there's precedent against "don't broadcast into my house!".
Heck, for that matter, would you like the inverse to be true? The Supreme Court ruled against police using passive detection methods such as heat radiation without a search warrant. By your logic, they should have been able to - since if you didn't want them to use such a method you should've prevented the heat from irradiating out from your walls.
I can see the arguments both ways, and I don't like the DMCA in the slightest (and suspect that the people involved in this case could have been prosecuted under other laws), but the whole "quit beaming at me" argument is absolutely absurd.
What "satellite box" are you talking about? There is not "box" that gets hacked in this scenario. There is a card that can get hacked, but this is secondary. Let's take the example of an emulation setup for said devices. In this case, the datastream coming from the satellite provider can be logged on the emulation system without reverse engineering, "hacking", or modifying the conditional access system. One of the things the satellite provider may do is send signals down to your purchased system to alter the contents of its ROM, and change the functionality within your receiver. Any reverse engineering/hacking can be justified if it is to stop this alteration from occurring. To say that nothing legitimate can come from this hacking is obviously coming from someone that knows very little about how these systems work.
Their only viable use is to steal copyrighted presentation of satellite service
Not to be rude, but you don't know what the fuck you are talking about here. That statement is just as true as saying there is no legitimate use for DeCSS outside of making illegal copies of DVDs. The knife analogy stands here, you can reverse engineer anything you like, but as soon as you do something illegal (actually receive and watch these broadcasts, then yes, that should be prosecuted. Until that time, apparently you are guilty until proven innocent. Tell you what, go out to the net and order an ISO 7816 standard smart card programmer. I can almost guarantee you will receive a letter from DirecTV saying that you have done something illegal, and they expect you to pay them $3500 with no proof you have done anything and no due process. This will occur even if you have been using said programmer to code conditional access systems generally available (i.e. Sun's SunRay systems). Thank you for this broad generalization that justifies our current Gestapo regime. Because remember folks, those poor defenseless corporations need to be protected from us evil consumers out to get them.
Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.