1996 Economic Espionage Act and DirectTV

Pharmboy writes "The Register reports a 19 year old will plead guilty to the 1996 Economic Espionage Act for giving away DirectTV secrets, even though they admit he did not pirate the service or profit from the theft." See our original story on this case.

Comments

Put him in jail

[possible]

The Economic Espionage Act of 1996 doesn't require that the defendant benefit from the act of espionage, it refers to the benefit of "any foreign government, foreign instrumentality, or foreign agent". That's worded specifically to include foreign companies. It doesn't even matter what your intent was, if you knew (or should have known) that your act of espionage would benefit them, then you have violated this law.

And let's be clear -- this WAS an act of corporate espionage. He knowingly stole trade secrets from his work and posted them online. Put him in jail, and any hippies who think what he did was right, you can go join him.

Theft is theft

[SwissCheese]

So what he didn't profit or use the service, he still illegally obtained trade secrets and distributed them to those who would try and profit, or at least enabled those who are trying to steal service. Now he's caught and is being punished. The lesson learned here: Actions lead to Consequences.

No different than stealling cc#'s

[binaryDigit]

He is no more innocent than someone who gets a bunch of people's cc#'s and makes them public. Just because he personally didn't financially benefit is totally beyond the point. Just because he did it against a "large faceless/heartless corp" and many "common folk just trying to exercise their god given right to watch ESPN" benefitted doesn't make it any more right.

Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

It is really ironic that this is happening when the parent company of DirecTV at the time was busy giving away secrets regarding American rocket technology to the Chinese.

Impacts?
Giving away a hack to a TV box: Lost revenues for a satellite company.
Giving away high tech secrets: Future possibility of incoming with a payload carried by our own technology.

Which is really a worse outcome?

Re:hmmmm...

[cheezedawg]

You see, that is the fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals. Instead of whining about how many refrigerators a rich guy has, why don't you take some responsibility and try to better your situation? Everybody has plenty of opportunity for wealth- it just takes effort. Poor people are not poor because some rich person stepped all over them. In fact, thats the attitude that keeps them poor.

How is this misuse?

[Mr. Underbridge]

Blatantly misused as a sledgehammer to try and "shock and awe" the satellite TV community now.

I fully expected to read the article and find out that the kid had just cleverly reverse-engineered stuff as a hobby, making him a poor persecuted martyr. I really did.

But, that perception was WRONG. This kid had access to sensitive trade secrets. I see absolutely nothing defensible that he did. I would love if someone would explain to me how it should be perfectly OK to steal trade secrets and publish them. I suggest starting with the always persuasive "patents, copyrights, and secrets want to be FREE" argument.

So I'm waiting for the "misuse" argument. To me, the fact that they only went after a kid who really is a thief gives them credibility.

Honestly, I would love to hear from someone who actually read the article and feels otherwise.

This is not your rights online.

[OS24Ever]

This has nothing to do with violating freedom or any other right we supposedly have under the constitution.

he used his position within DirecTV to gain access to secret, confidential information, and leaked it to someone. What that someone did, or whether or not he benfitted is immaterial. He violated NDA from DirecTV, and violated that law.

Just like if someone posted a source code module from Windows 2003, the secret recipie of Mickey D's Secret Sauce, or anything else confidential.