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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.
I'm all for this.
This case should not be confused with an independent person doing a "clean room" reverse engineering of the technology. This person was in a position of trust and violated that trust by stealing something that didn't belong to him.
It's irrelevant that he did not profit from this. The cost to DirecTV is the same whether he used the information himself or passed it on to someone else who did.
Why is this in YRO again? What rights online does this concern?
How can I blash Bush or Ashcroft for a bad law passed during Clinton's time as president?
.0001 percent of the population who are so smart that they don't have to worry about being fired. Sadly they've never had the chance to learn about compassion, or being human.
No no, back up. In Clinton's days these laws were a lot like marijuana statutes. They were very rarely enforced, and when they were it ammounted to a slap on the wrist.
Now that George W. Orwell and friends are in charge, these laws have been convoluted into a completely different picture. Now any kind of intellectual curiousity is treated like a "bad taillight" in which a cop can harrass you for being what you are. Intellectuals, the middle-class, and computer professionals are the last demographic republicans want to hear from.
The internet is a threat to any regime whose existence depends on the falsification of information. The funny thing is, so many Slashdotters here claim to be republican. They're either scared shitless over losing thier jobs, so they say "hiel hitler!" I don't need healthcare, I like working 70 hrs a week, I like living with my parents. Or they are the
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
From my (brief) reading of the Act, there are two interesting things to consider:
First, it is weaker than the DMCA in that it requires "theft" whereas the DMCA prohibits the "breaking and entering" part of defeating copy protection.
Second, it appears stronger than the DMCA because acts can fall under its scope even if somebody is outside the U.S. Check out Section 1837... This chapter also applies to conduct occurring outside the United States if-- An act in furtherance of the offense was committed in the United States.. Hmm.... so if the information is posted to a newsgroup located in the U.S., does that count as an act committed within the U.S. in furtherance of the offense, even if the actor is in Ecuador?
Ouch!
-A
The Enron executives. ...
The Worldcom executives
Those pump and dump wallstreet brokers from the 90s.
These guys do far more damage than this kid ever did to our economy yet they will get far less severe punishment. What this kid did was wrong but I don't these others should be let off any easier.
From the article:
"These weren't just instructions like, 'do this and do that.' He was putting up the actual changes to make to the card -- specific code bytes that needed to be changed," says Zwillinger. "People say you should be able to log onto the Internet and say anything. But if you go on the Internet and admit to misconduct, that's called a confession."IANAL, but my sister is, and her three rules are:
Never confess.Never confess!
NEVER CONFESS !!Her fourth rule is: Since it's illegal to lie to a policeman, if you're caught red-handed say nothing. Refuse to answer questions, demand an attorney, but never confess. A confession makes things soooo easy for the prosecutor.
So how is posting something to the Internet, not under oath and without Miranda rights, considered a confession?You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
I find it interesting that nearly every is coming out against this guy. While I whole heartedly agree that what he did was wrong, and that he should be punished, there seems to be a bit of a double standard.
Read any article on the RIAA cracking down on P2P services and you will get a much more mixed set of opinions.
Is this really that different from downloading music for which you have not paid? True, he 'stole' trade secrets, while MP3 are a product. However, either way, the issue is with the loss of income from the company.
Just something to consider...
(on a side note, I include myself in the 'double standard' group)
Uh huh, mentioning professional accredations:
"Nobel Laureates, 450 other economists fault tax cuts plan"
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Thanks to this 19 year for the info , I know of people who crack DirectTV on a daily basis, one being a roommate in the same house.
Even though he did not benefit from the Theft of Trade secrects, my roommate did cuz he's not paid a single dime to direc TV other than the occassional hunt for a Virgin Sim CARD to crack when the Sattelite sweep hits the switch at 2 am to interupt the illegal subscribers but with the computer just seconds a way, a nother cracked sim card is within my grasp.
One simple solution to this is use PKI or public key infrastructure which can issue a new certificate to the sim CARD every 24 hour period, but that would be too simple.
In other words this 19 year old is the single reason for DirectTV losing billions to those crack programs that my roommate uses. And he's not even technicaly inclined, he's usings some sort of kitty scripting program that with a few clicks and waiting for about 10 minutes for it to fine a good cracked sim and EUREKA! You have free PORN all night on TV from Spice, to hotzone, to playboy, and much much more free pay per view tv and not a single dime goes to DIRECT TV.
Thanks 19 year old. I strongly believe my roommate should stop this immoral behavior and even left him web site print outs of people being arrested by the FBI cuz its a felony in California, yet he is not detered since its just seems so simple to CRACK and nothing more too it.
CIAO
There is something inherently deceitful about this young man's behavior and he should be punished for it.
That said, lets look at the laws.
It's called the Economic Espionage Act. The fact that it's wording can be made to fit this crime since Canadians will benefit from it doesn't speak to it's intent.
Interviewer: "Congressman, this law that your working on, the one that can only be used with approval from the Justice Department for curbing Espionage, is it designed to be applied to 19 year kids who steal secrets from the Entertainment Industry?"
The congressfolk involved would not have their work so trivialized. Protecting DirectTV from Canadians was not the intent of that law. They obviously left it overly-broad to relieve the justice department of the need to prove that it was benefiting a particular person or agency. If, for instance, we were at war with France and I was found sneaking GPS decryption secrets (to improve the accuracy of GPS guided cheese-bombs) across the French border, I could be convicted under this act without any particular recipient being proven. But it's worth noting: We are not at war with Canada.
The congressfolk in question probably felt comfortable leaving the terminology overbroad because of the barrier imposed by limiting it to cases approved by the Justice Department for it's use, "...a limitation that was lifted in March, 2002." Which seems to be when it became popular to assume we are always at war. Being popular does not make it right.
DirecTV's lawyer claims, "I imagine most people who steal get paid for it, or somehow profit by it... but it's the theft that's the crime. There's no more appropriate statute to use in this case."
Yes. There is. Newsflash lawyerboy: Theft is already illegal. So there are many many more appropriate statues available. Theft of trade secrets has been a crime for some time and in other cases companies have gotten away with suing for years worth of R&D that were lost due to the secrets getting out, and those penalties were certainly non-trivial.
The victory here has nothing to do with plugging a leak that lets those Evil Canadians (who apparently aren't worth the bother to provide service to) watch free T.V. The victory has everything to do with attaching Espionage to Entertainment theft. This is an ugly connection. When well established, it will allow the unprecedented monitoring capabilities of the federal government to be applied to any Digital Rights circumvention.
And it would seem this has already occurred to them:
"But Marc Zwillinger, the chief litigator in DirecTV's war on piracy, says Ump25's posts aren't much different from posting a DVD descrambling program to the Internet, which has been ruled illegal in the past."
Now, or sometime in the near future, if you watch DVDs using Linux, you're not only violating the DMCA, since you trafficked in illegal copies of decss with "foreign powers" you're also a spy. If there are millions of spys among us, does that not make it easy to justify giving the Justice Department even broader interception and monitoring capabilities?
I don't use drugs; I don't hire prostitutes; I don't dump my employers secrets out on the Internet for public consumption. And I never will.
If chosen for jury duty, I will enter an unswaying not-guilty vote for anyone on trial for:
Possession of Cannabis.
Prostitution.
Espionage with countries with which we are not at war.
Not to protect my right to commit these crimes, but because the cost to our society for having laws like these is too great.
With this b.s. lawsuit happening to IBM from SCrOtum, any bets on whether IBM is also guilty of this "crime" too. After all they must have given trade secrets to Linux which are now spread all over the planet, and undoubtedly now gone into the hands of foreign terrorists too.
the poor see nothing because they pay almost no taxes!!
the rich pay more taxes than anyone else (greater than 50% in some cases). let's see you cough that up. accross the board tax cuts affect everyone equally.
So, um, you think you and I should be forced to pay for his recklessness instead of him?
/somewhere/, remember...
The money for socialized healthcare comes from
Only on slashdot can a posting be rated "Score -1, Insightful".
he did not work for direcTV, he worked for an outside legal firm that was hired for an UNRELATED incident, he was an office assitant making photo-copies, he was a MINOR at the time of the violation, though he is 19 now, so the NDA does not hold water, HIS UNCLE, a partner in the law firm SHOULD be the one in trouble, he HAD lawyer/client relationship with the DirecTV and then allowed the documents into INSECURE hands.
I do agree that this IS NOT a freedom of speech issue or a constitutional one though...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?