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Cable Box Piracy Ring Busted

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the too-much-freedom-to-innovate dept.

WC as Kato writes "The U.S. Attorney's Office said it has busted a huge cable piracy ring. They made over $10 million in 5 years by advertising on the Internet and in magazines. Their only cover to the illegality of their actions was a disclaimer that the boxes were not illegal to own. Police say customers who purchased them are now at risk of being arrested. Did any customer actually fall for their 'legal disclaimer?'"

60 of 352 comments (clear)

  1. Well... by lamery · · Score: 5, Funny

    If it looks like a binding legal agreement it must be one. *cough* eula *cough*

  2. 4 when it's /.ed by fmlug.org · · Score: 3, Informative

    Here it is find the story here-->
    http://fox40.trb.com/news/ktxl-121703ille galcable, 0,4418393.story?coll=ktxl-news-1

    Two Men Accused In Illegal Cable Piracy Scam

    Police Say Suspects Offered Free Television For The One-time Price Of A 200 Dollar Chip

    Mike Bond

    December 17, 2003

    SACRAMENTO -- It was installation day for residents at a new apartment complex in North Natomas.

    But for every legitimate cable customer who signs up, Comcast officials say there are plenty of people ripping off programming with illegal descramblers called black boxes.

    Assistant US Attorney Robert Tice- Raskin says, "The disclaimer were really nothing more than a wink and a nod by these conspirators to members of the public."

    At a news conference this afternoon, federal prosecutors announced they'd arrested two people who are accused of selling descramblers throughout the state and the country.

    Over the past five and a half years, they're accused of masterminding a money laundering scheme that's earned them more than 10-million dollars.

    US Attorney McGregor Scott says, "The dollar amounts that are involved really make this stand out -- it really is a unique and distinct set of circumstances."

    Officials say the descramblers were advertised on the internet and in magazines with a disclaimer that the boxes were not against the law to own.

    Nevertheless, police say customers who purchased them are now at risk of being arrested.

    Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas says, "Common sense dictates if you have a black box, you're violating the law, disclaimer or no disclaimer. I mean if that was the case, everybody would have access to these movies!"

    Cable Customer Gwenice Garnett says, "I'm not going to squeal on 'em, but I do know people who have them."

    Gwenice Garnett was happy to hear about the bust as she stopped by Comcast this evening to upgrade to digital cable.

    She's paying 70-bucks a month.

    Garnette says, "I pay a substantial amount of money for my cable and if I have to pay, they should have to pay!"

  3. DMCA,,,? by cRueLio · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I bet they will try the customers under the DMCA, having used the cable box as a "circumvention device" against protections put up by the cable provider.

    Then again, a crafty legal time might just be able to argue this case in terms of the fact that the customer was fooled by the legal disclaimer.

    Just my two cents...

    --
    Investing forum
    1. Re:DMCA,,,? by dissy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Before the DMCA, technically they were right, these boxes _are_ legal to own.
      Now, its very illegal to _USE_ them... But to just own one, that was not.

      Now granted, who in their right mind would spend money on one just to own and not use, I couldnt tell ya. But as far as the disclaimer goes, they only mentioned owning, not using, so it was technically acurate and truthful.

      But you are no doubt right. DMCA makes any trafficing in them illegal now, including buying one.

      I'm shocked these two people kept records around at all.
      Saving finantual documents for 7 years is only for ligit businesses after all ;)

    2. Re:DMCA,,,? by Eggplant62 · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Before the DMCA, technically they were right, these boxes _are_ legal to own.
      Now, its very illegal to _USE_ them... But to just own one, that was not.


      I'm curious about this situation where I might be able to see where there *is* a legal, non-infringing use. Suppose I already am a subscriber, but I purchase my own equipment, ie, one of these black boxes, to use instead of my cable provider's in order to save the extra charges they tack on to the bill for each box? Fair use? Or illegal?
    3. Re:DMCA,,,? by Urkki · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually I see this as one of the few places where the principle of DMCA is somewhat justified. Ie the principle that it's illegal to go around digital protection techniques in order to use non-free digital content for free.

      Anything beyond that (such as saying you can't make mp3 rips of your own CDs for your own convenience, like for car *and* portable player *and* summer cottage), as well as the punishments in DMCA are still ridiculous though, as well as a lot of other implied stuff in it.

    4. Re:DMCA,,,? by mark_lybarger · · Score: 2, Interesting

      interesting. so you own the right to use the content on the cd you purchased, but not the right to inspect and possibly use the extra content being streamed into your house by the cable company provider that you didn't order?

      lets say new cd's start coming out with extra content on them (high quality mp3's of tracks not on the disk perhaps) that is encrypted, and to access the work, you need to purchase a key from the distribution company (RIAA). maybe microsoft media player licenses the right to have embeded keys in their software so they can play the encrypted mp3's but no other software can that doesn't pay the high license fee. if you figure out how to decode those mp3's, is it _right_ to listen to the content contained on them?

    5. Re:DMCA,,,? by Urkki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm talking about the principle here. We're entering an era where a lot of things are digital, immaterial. There are a lot of issues that are still seeking form, such as copyright issues with material that is trivial to copy.

      Also, this is not a case where the users who bought the device in article figured out a way to get protected content. They paid somebody else to get their hands on that content wihtout paying the content provider. My common sense says that's on a general level same as stealing (like sneaking into a ball game or a movie without a ticket, or buying a forged ticket from street and using it, you know what I mean). Wether it is a big or small crime and how it should be punished is a good question, but IMHO there's no question that making it punishable is somehow wrong.

      In my opinion, digital protection schemes should be such that you can not "unintentionally" or trivially go around them, but they don't need to be unbreakable, because that puts too much cost in the distribution, and guess who pays that cost... Ordering a descrambling device is not unintentional, and it's not trivial either (if it were, you wouldn't need to order a plug-and-play device from somebody else, you could just do it yourself). Therefore I think that this is *just* the kind of thing a sensible version of DMCA would be about.

      There's a lot of gray area here obiviously, but I don't see this as a big problem. There's a lot of gray area in other legal things too, such as traffic. Like you can get fined for jaywalking on an empty street if you meet a nasty police officer, but it's not very sensible to suggest that jaywalking should always be legal.

    6. Re:DMCA,,,? by zakezuke · · Score: 3, Informative

      I'm curious about this situation where I might be able to see where there *is* a legal, non-infringing use. Suppose I already am a subscriber, but I purchase my own equipment, ie, one of these black boxes, to use instead of my cable provider's in order to save the extra charges they tack on to the bill for each box? Fair use? Or illegal?

      The problem is actually talking to the cable company and getting them to hookup third party equipment. In theory you can do this no problem, though I've had NO luck picking up boxes at the local thrift store as their responce was "It looks stolen the stickers are missing". I assumed that it was probally cable owned, but some poor sap didn't return it and got charged an arm and a leg for it, and as a direct result it was actually legaly purchaced rather then being stolen. But alas, they won't even look into it, they'll just snag the box, put it under their desk, give you $20.00 and send you on your way.

      --
      There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
    7. Re:DMCA,,,? by cayenne8 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I don't know....they've gone after people who bought stuff from the satelite tv people....who were based in Canada. I hear Direct TV is going after people they had on their lists as customers...for buying a card re-programmer, which does have alternate uses besides pirating satellite tv...even without any more proof than they bought a product from a company that DID sell somethings that allowed for descrambling the signal.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  4. I don't understand ... by errl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... why people never stop their illegal activities when they've earned enough money? I mean, $5,000,000 should be enough for anyone for quite a while? It seems that they'll eventually get caugh otherwise and don't have any real use of the money anyways, like in this case...

    1. Re:I don't understand ... by fmlug.org · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Money, thats why people dont stop there illegal actions. Its like gambaling, oh I just won $50 but if I put it all back in I get $500. That kinda pay off clouds peoples judgement, most of the time the fact that they may end up losing everything doesnt even enter into their minds. We live in a society where every one wants to get rich easily and dont wana work for the money. The reality is the easier the money is to come by the quicker your going to lose it, well at least most of the time. I guess thats my 2 cents.

    2. Re:I don't understand ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      640K should be enough for anyone.

      -- Bill Gates, 1982.

    3. Re:I don't understand ... by __aatgod8309 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I see your 2 cents and raise you a dime...

    4. Re:I don't understand ... by halaloszto · · Score: 2, Funny

      they do! just in the cases when they stop at $5M, and never get caught, you do not see thm in the news. that's the main reason for stopping at $5M - not to be caught, not to make it to the news. vajk

    5. Re:I don't understand ... by ameoba · · Score: 2, Funny

      At the rate things are going, $640K won't even be enough to get my children through college.

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    6. Re:I don't understand ... by TheMidget · · Score: 2, Funny
      They may know theyd'd eventually get caught, but probably not just yet... They can always get a bit more, *then* retire very soon, just after the next $million or so.

      Reminds me of the stock market in 1999 / 2000. "Sure, I know that there is a bubble. But it is highly improbably that it will burst right now..."

    7. Re:I don't understand ... by notcreative · · Score: 2, Funny

      At the rate I read /., I won't have children to put through college.

  5. Geez" by Sklivvz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Two guys got arrested. Big news, indeed. What a huge ring!

    Was it "The One Ring", by any chance? :^D

    And now for some karma whoring: "in Soviet Russia the ring arrests you!"

    --
    My Stack Overflow user
    1. Re:Geez" by paxcirca · · Score: 2, Funny

      And now for some karma whoring: "in Soviet Russia the ring arrests you!" In Soviet Russia, bad joke perpetutates you!

    2. Re:Geez" by Channard · · Score: 4, Funny
      Two guys got arrested. Big news, indeed. What a huge ring! Was it "The One Ring", by any chance? :^D

      Are we talking about Tolkein or the Goatse guy here?

  6. Dear DirecTV by mikeswi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dear DirecTV,

    Please take note. This is how you deal with people pirating your signals without being viewed as jackbooted thugs. You find people buying and selling equipment designed specifically to do that.

    Contrast this to your current methods which involve extorting protection money out of people who do NOT pirate your signals simply because they bought a programmable smart card with a wide range of possible uses, one of which *might* lead to the pirating of your signals.

    --
    Only on /.
    1. Re:Dear DirecTV by fuzzybunny · · Score: 3, Insightful


      Doesn't parse.

      You must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone has committed a crime, or in some cases, that they are about to. And even then there are strong limits (e.g. you must plan or threaten or somesuch--IANAL.) No pre-crime police here.

      It's the age-old argument about being pulled over with lockpicks in a state where lockpics are not illegal. Although yes, technically, while not necessarily in accordance with the law, a cop can in practice arrest you if he doesn't like your ugly mug. But then, that's why we have laws, innit.

      Same with smart cards. As long as it was a legal transaction, the goods were not stolen, no tax laws were violated, whatever, you have not committed any crime, whether I buy it from DirecTV (although it escapes me why anyone would want to voluntarily watch _more_ TV, paid or free), my cable box p1r8, or my neighborhood crack dealer.

      And as for your Blockbuster example, I'd be fairly happy about doing my little tiny infinitesmal bit to maintaining the free market and taking my custom elsewhere and telling everyone I know to do the same. You'd be surprised how fast that sort of thing can result in a consumer backlash.

      Lastly, the use of litigation as a threat to extort money out of individuals against whom there is no indication of a crime or intent to commit a crime beyond circumstancial evidence (yes, that is precisely what it is) is immoral, unethical, and downright pathetic. And once again, it has led to me, for whatever little tiny unnoticeable bit it's worth, voting with mr. wallet.

      --
      Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
    2. Re:Dear DirecTV by Freedom+Bug · · Score: 2, Informative
      True, but on the other hand if you bought your smartcard programmer from a site called www.hackdss.com I think there is a plausable argument that you might have purchaced said equipment to hack dss.

      How about if that was because it was the only way to get one at a reasonable price? Most of the legitimate places that sell things like that are not set up to sell single units to consumers. You can pretend to be a real engineer actually designing products for sale and get yourself a free evaluation unit, or you can buy significant quantities. The middle ground is very difficult to find for stuff like that.

      Bryan

  7. I have to say... by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 4, Insightful
    On a scale of major crimes, this one is seen by Joe Schmoe in the same serious vein as crossing at a "Don't Walk" light. Apparently a contributory factor to the collapse of ITV Digital in the UK was that hundreds of thousands of Scots were using pirate viewing cards, sold openly on Glasgow and Edinburgh street markets, and not paying a penny to ITV. There's a huge appetite out there for "free" TV as subscription TV is seen as overpriced - considering you get even more adverts than on free-to-air TV.

    Significant that it was Fox who carried the article though - they have something to lose ;-)

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
    1. Re:I have to say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I live near glasgow and it's a cottage industry locally; pirate games/dvds/software, cable boxes/sky cards, chipping xboxes/ps2's etc etc.

      Thats what happens when you get fairly savvy ex electronics workers sacked by IBM/National Semiconductor/Motorola etc etc...

    2. Re:I have to say... by doogieb · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's a link to The Register's story about the Christmas raid on Ingliston market.

      --
      Doogie. If you can read this, my sig fell off
  8. She's paying 70-bucks a month by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Boggle!!! Do people really do that??? Are they really that desperate for television??? Don't they have lives to get on with???

  9. Scrambled Descramblers by AndroidCat · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I wonder if these jerks were any relation to the ones who keep spamming me for "completely legal" descrambling devices?

    The fact that they hijacked someone else's computer to send me that "completely legal" message would be a tip-off if all the other signs failed.

    --
    One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
  10. Dear stupid fuckheads by Lord+Bitman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    There are very simple methods by which the box on the street, which you own, can be forced to not send signals into my home.
    Sorry, though, as any signals which you broadcast directly into my home without any contract between us, I will do whatever I want with.
    Anyone who thinks they shouldnt be allowed to recieve whatever signals are being broadcast into their home is an idiot. I'm not hacking in to your box, or touching your property at all. If you beam signals directly toward me, you don't get to complain when I use them.
    Stop sending signals to the homes of non-subscribers and you will absolutely never have this problem again. You are not allowed to take away basic rights of perception in order to save a few bucks.

    --
    -- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
    1. Re:Dear stupid fuckheads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually it is possible to stop sending the signals to a person's house. I was recently annoyed at my $100 cable/internet bill and was going to downgrade my service from whatever was just a step above basic back down to basic.

      They told me it would cost $15, so they could send out a service man to install a "part" that would filter out the channels they normally send descrambled.

      ----

      What I'm guessing it boils down to is that it is too much hassel and expense, especially when the cable industry was young, to keep track of and update those little $15 boxes to millions of people.

  11. Cable Company to Offer $25 Reward .... by leoaugust · · Score: 2

    Gwenice Garnett was happy to hear about the bust as she stopped by Comcast this evening to upgrade to digital cable. She's paying 70-bucks a month. Garnette says, "I pay a substantial amount of money for my cable and if I have to pay, they should have to pay!"

    Wow, with people like this all the cable company has to do is offer a prize of $25.00.00.00 (Twenty Five $$$$$$ only) and every "pirate" is going to be rat-ted out in no time.

    More money will of course be made when the Rat gets on the TV shows "selling" their story of how they bravely turned in every Tom, Jane, and Harry to collect their Mega Bounty.

    And with DEA conspiring to get the Kids to rat on their parents, the determination of the Assistant US Attorney should be in doubt to no one ..

    --
    To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies ...
    1. Re:Cable Company to Offer $25 Reward .... by Fat+Casper · · Score: 2, Insightful
      70 dollars a month for the privilege of being able to suckle at the electric teat every night???

      I pay more, but my cable modem is part of the deal. I use that more than the TV. There are only seven or eight channels that I watch, but the buck or so a day isn't that bad a deal. The other part of the bill, the buck or so a day for the cable modem, is even less of a bother. While I'd love to pay for the channels I want instead of the hundreds (including music) I get, what you're really paying for is the connection, not the content. Kind of like the internet, you know?

      --
      I spent a year in Iraq looking for WMD and all I found was this lousy sig.
  12. Bloated Prices by Saint+Mitchell · · Score: 5, Informative

    I was going to get Comcast at my new house. Then when I called to find out what it would cost me for "basic" digital cable + internet. $120+ a month. I about fell out of my chair.

    Since I had made up my mind I wasn't going to swallow that pill, I decided to mess with the guy. I asked im if he knew why they couldn't say fuck on basic cable. "I don't know". Well, it's because technically it's a FREE service. We pay for the access to the cable, the programming is FREE. This is how HBO gets away with things like Real Sex, you PAY for the service. So, my question is why are you jacking up the price when you pay nothing for it? "Well, sir, that is our price. I have no control over what we charge. Can I set up an install date for you?" Maybe, can you tell me if there is an equipment rental charge in there somewhere. "Yes sir." Can I guy buy a cable box so I don't have to rent one from you. "No sir, that is illegal. Can I take your order for service, sir" No, no you can't.

    Oh how I miss Time Warner. I never thought the day would come when I would say that. It is indeeed a sad day. I've even ordered DSL from the evil phone company. Did I move to bizzaro world and didn't know it?

  13. $70 a month to watch advertisements?? by nich37ways · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gwenice Garnett was happy to hear about the bust as she stopped by Comcast this evening to upgrade to digital cable.


    She's paying 70-bucks a month.


    Garnette says, "I pay a substantial amount of money for my cable and if I have to pay, they should have to pay!"


    Living in Australia digital tv and all the joys of interactive tv and movies on demand is still to be rolled out AFAIK anyway, I believe it is due sometime next year


    However I find it hard to believe that people are so willing to pay so much to watch advertisements and it will surely get worse in the future.


    *put on tinfoil hat*

    Digital tv means providers can finally start to monitor who is watching what and when, this means they get to build up massive databases of viewing patterns. Combine this with an increased level of profiling and we get targeted advertising. The great joy of been told what we want according to what we watch and whatever random data the advertising companies have bought.

    If anyone out there has digital tv, they are monitoring you, they will use the data to directly advertise to you and to take as much of your money as possible.


    *takeoff tinfoil hat*

    Anyone who believes this will not happen is at best naive and worst extremely foolish. I know it will not happen in the next year, but the ground work is been laid now and I see no sensible way to avoid it unless people refuse to watch digital tv, an unlikely proposition or it is legislated by the government (an unlikely thing)


    Anyone with any ideas on how to try and escape the future of advertising hell..

    --
    37 - what does it stand for really...
    1. Re:$70 a month to watch advertisements?? by Roofus · · Score: 3, Informative

      If anyone out there has digital tv, they are monitoring you

      You are so full of it. Might it happen in the future? Maybe. Is it happening now? No.

      Once the digital cable box has been provisioned and 'hit', it does not talk back to the headend when you change a channel, since it already has the access list in memory. Do you have any idea how much memory one of those boxes has? Not enough to be recording your viewing habits.

      The above statement doesn't apply to services like VOD and PPV, since when you order one of the those the box does talk back to the headend. But of course, if that really bothers you that much, do you boycott Blockbuster and all movie rental stores as well? Because they know what you watch! Ooh!

    2. Re:$70 a month to watch advertisements?? by awol · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Digital tv means providers can finally start to monitor who is watching what and when, this means they get to build up massive databases of viewing patterns.

      Not in my world buddy! here in the UK, I have free to air digital TV and there ain't no way for them to tell which channel I am watching at any given time. I am not sure about the technology of determining which channels are being watched without some kind of "upstream" connection in addition to just the decoder, but even so the broadcast version I am using certainly can't be monitored so the Digital TV itself does not automatically give the montioring of viewing information about which you speak.

      --
      "The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
    3. Re:$70 a month to watch advertisements?? by DingoBueno · · Score: 2, Interesting
      If anyone out there has digital tv, they are monitoring you, they will use the data to directly advertise to you and to take as much of your money as possible.
      While I don't want to be monitored, I don't mind targetted advertising. Let them do it anonymously. I'd rather see ads for new-to-market products and services that interest me rather than a lot of garbage that does not.

      This is, for the most part, good stuff. It's what makes the economy run. At least in the US, we could use a boost. I have a job so I can make money and give it away in exchange for things I want.

      I honestly don't care if advertisers know every single thing about my life. What's the worst they're gonna do? I get 30 spams per hour. They're not gonna do anything worse.

      And remember, the more tinfoil you buy, the better the economy. Just keep those hats off until a real threat comes around.
      --
      ascii art
  14. It was a scam anyway (surprise!) by Powercntrl · · Score: 4, Informative

    A quick search on Google reveals that Digital Cable services have not been hacked. Indeed the only cable descramblers that are/were sold can be broken down into 4 catagories:

    1. Analog filters
    These removed a signal that was placed on a nearby frequency to that of the channel the cable company wanted to "scramble". I'm not even sure if this old form of protection is even used anymore. The end-user benefit of this protection was you did not need a cable box.

    2. Chips/jumpers
    Usually the channel is scrambled by missing a sync signal and you're provided by the cable company with a decoder box that can selectively re-create it. Adding a chip or jumpers tricks the box into decoding channels you didn't pay for. This method of analog protection is also quite old.

    3. Digital cable filters
    Blocks your digital cable decoder from communicating with the mother ship. Briefly get PPV movies for free, then you can't order any more until you remove the filter (at which point it phones home and you get billed anyway). Similar in effect to unplugging the phone line from a DirecTV box.

    4. Cable TV "decoder" boxes
    Found online and in your typical junk magazines... These are basically just an external tuner and remodulator to make a non-cable-ready TV (the old kind that just get VHF and UHF only) analog cable ready.

    If this business was really hacking digital cable, that would sure be some big news... Most likely they were selling old analog crap or snake oil products.

    --

    ---
    DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
  15. 'I'm guessing you took the five dollar law class.. by Channard · · Score: 4, Interesting
    .. instead of the ten dollar one.' as the Gord would say. Certainly it seems that there are some completely loopy disclaimers that crop up when grey or illegal activities are involved. There's:

    'These discs are only provided as backups and you must own the original game.' - which raises the question, why isn't the person backing up the game themselves?


    Or 'These roms are legal to download provided you delete them within 24 hours' - despite there being no such law.


    Or my personal favourite.. 'If you are affiliated with any government, or ANTI-Piracy group, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), local or state police or government agencies, any record label or recording company or distribution company or group or any other related group or were formally a worker of one you cannot enter this web site, cannot access any of its files and you cannot view any of the pages contained herein. All the objects on this site are private property and are not meant for viewing or any other purposes other then bandwidth space. Do not enter whatsoever! If you enter this site you are not agreeing to these terms and you are violating code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act signed by Bill Clinton in 1995. That means that you cannot threaten our ISP(s) or any person(s) or company storing these files, cannot prosecute any person(s) affiliated with this page which includes family, friends or individuals who run or enter this web site.'. Wow. Well, that's the feds screwed then. Anyone got any examples of loopier disclaimers?

  16. Of course they fell for it.. by arcanumas · · Score: 2, Insightful
    Did any customer actually fall for their 'legal disclaimer?'"

    People have bought land in the moon and you are wondering if others would fall for that?

    --
    Slashdot Sig. version 0.1alpha. Use at your own risk.
  17. "Legal disclaimer" by Zocalo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Did any customer actually fall for their 'legal disclaimer?'. Sure they did; the same demographic of people that receives a "confidential email" from a Mr. Mobutu of Nigeria and parts with large sums of cash. However, it's far more likely that the majority of customers probably saw that and thought "yeah, right!", followed quickly by the thoughts "cheap cable!" and "where's my credit card?"

    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
  18. This story sucks. by Matrix2110 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I happen to work for a TV station in the area and we reported it a week or so ago. I also happened to get a look at one of these cards and I can safely say they are very fragile in every since of the word. A very thin card, one chip. a couple of resistors, plus a one page of small print. No tech support.

    I know what I am doing and I had a hard time with this thing.

    And no, it never worked.

    Move along, nothing to see here.

    These rip-off artists milked a bunch of greedy people that got burned but did not dare turn them in.

    Until, somebody got ticked off enough to turn everybody in.

    I will leave it to Slashdot to calculate the odds of the squeal factor.

  19. That's a poor argument at best - here's why... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (OK, I going to get flamed to hell and back for posting this, but here goes nothing.)

    This "if your signals penetrate my airwaves then they belong to me and I can do whatever I like with them" argument really is flawed.

    Yes, if you were an island state that would hold true, but you're not, you're an American citizen (or the citizen of another country) and you're bound by the rules and laws of the country that you live in.

    Now, if you live in the US, you have to play by the US government's rules. One of the rules says that killing someone is forbidden, and that if you kill someone then that's a crime and you have to pay for your crime.

    Another one of the rules says that certain wavelengths of the RF spectrum belong to (or are for the exclusive use of) certain governmental organisations (eg, the US armed forces, police departments) or private corporations (eg, DirecTV). In the former case, these wavelengths are used without compensation, but in the latter case, the corporations concerned are paying for the right to exclusive use of those frequencies.

    Just who are they paying? Well, directly, they are paying your government, and hence, indirectly, they are paying you/i>. So, although they might not be sending you personally a cheque (check) in the post, you are being paid for the use of those airwaves.

    Now, if you disagree with this arangement, if you don't like any third party owning then the solution is simple: Lobby your Congressman and/or other representatives.

    But, please, don't pretend that DirecTV or whoever has no right to be upset when you decode their signals without paying for their service. They have every right, and that right was sold to them by your government.

    Obviously, this arrangement of rights between the individual, the government and the corporation will vary from country to country. (For example, if you're Canadian, then intercepting signals intended for the US market and doing with them whatever you want is legal, as determined by the Canadian legal system.)

    But pretending that the law of the land can be ignored and that "if you beam signals directly toward me, you don't get to complain when I use them", and "you are not allowed to take away basic rights of perception in order to save a few bucks", are poor arguments that fail to take into account that the rights here (as determined by law) are with the transmitter and not the receiver.

    Now feel free to retort. Just keep the personal insults out of it please?

    --

    "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    1. Re:That's a poor argument at best - here's why... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Just to let you know, in Texas you are not liable for killing someone who is in your house.

      I think that depends on the circumstances. If you get pissed off that your wife didn't put too much salt on your dinner or if the electrician that just fixed your short circuit gives you a bill that's $100 more than you were expecting to pay you don't automatically have the right to blow them away.

      The right of self-defence, to respond with appropriate force when threatened, is different from the right to kill at will. Just to let you know.

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    2. Re: That's a poor argument at best - here's why... by Black+Parrot · · Score: 2, Funny


      > This "if your signals penetrate my airwaves then they belong to me and I can do whatever I like with them" argument really is flawed.

      Like the old Benny Hill skit where a woman leans over his fence and he thinks that gives him a right to grope her tits.

      --
      Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  20. These people aren't "stealing" anything! by goldspider · · Score: 4, Funny
    Ahoy matey, thar be PIRATES off tha port bow!!

    Seriously foolks, how does one "steal" cable? Did they back a truck up to the back of the cable company building and steal a spool of cable?

    Oh, you mean they're "stealing" information? But but but... INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE!!!

    These people are LIBERATING cable, not "stealing" it!

    --
    "Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
  21. dear directtv by circletimessquare · · Score: 4, Funny

    blue blackground, gilbert gottfried holds a letter

    "dear directtv

    i made millions selling fake cable boxes. these boxes aren't legal they say? lies! lies!

    sincerely, joe schmoe"

    applause

    "did i capture the guys anger?"

    --
    intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
  22. no different than a cable modem... by John+Seminal · · Score: 4, Insightful
    don't the cable companies have a rental charge for those boxes? if you order service and pay for it, don't they charge you for each additional descrambler you have to rent. how is owning your descrambler any different from buying a cable modem. you still pay for the service, but instead of renting the equipment, you own it. why should anyone be forced to rent the box? this sounds to me like they are shifting the burden from proving you are doing something illegal like stealing cable, to saying we know you have the box, now prove you are innocent.

    also, for the money you spend, why can't you buy individual chanels from the cable company. why do you have to buy them in a package? what if all i want to buy from them is just cspan and cnn? why cant i buy just those two chanels? what do i also have to get a package? because they are a monopoly and the only other option is a dish, and if you live in a condo or apartment and do not face south, you are screwed.

    --

    Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."

  23. Re:Arrested? by dekashizl · · Score: 4, Interesting
    AC Says:
    do you accept a government who wants to arrest you for 'illegally viewing' television?
    Most important is being aware of the penalties for your actions ahead of time.

    If I know exactly the penalty for something along with the likelihood of getting caught, I can decide to do it or not. These "open source" contracts between citizens and governance are an acceptable part of our society that allows large scale organization. (For example, we may sadly all need to surrender the sovereignty over our freezers and submit to periodic random freezer inspections in order to minimize risk of a catsrophic biological release).

    It is only when laws and consequences are opaque, unknown, or nondeterministic that they become problematic. This is what was interesting about this particular case: the people who bought the boxes were told (incorrectly) that they were legal.
  24. Stainless Steel Rat by wowbagger · · Score: 5, Interesting

    In Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" series, one of the central tenets of the lead character, "Slippery" Jim DeGriz, the most wanted interstellar criminal, was "When a con finally starts going bad, walk away - don't try to cash that last check". Hence he very rarely got caught.

    It is the same thing here - the folks who are smart enough to walk away before things go south are never caught - thus we never really hear about them in the news. The only ones we hear about are the stupid ones who cash the last check and get busted.

    I once heard a cop say "I've been throwing these punks up against the wall for 20 years, and I've never once found a Mensa card in their pockets."

    --
    www.eFax.com are spammers
    1. Re:Stainless Steel Rat by Motherfucking+Shit · · Score: 4, Insightful
      It is the same thing here - the folks who are smart enough to walk away before things go south are never caught - thus we never really hear about them in the news. The only ones we hear about are the stupid ones who cash the last check and get busted.
      Ponderous, man, ponderous.

      This reminds me of something I saw on 20/20 or 48 Hours a couple of weeks ago. A pair of guys came up with an ingenious scam: their local horse racing track posted unclaimed winning ticket numbers on its website. Apparently, winning tickets could be fed into a machine at the track which would verify things via some OCR magic, then spit out cash money. These two guys got the bright idea to print up fake unclaimed "winning tickets" with the right font, etc. to fool the cash machines.

      Everything was going just fine. They were pulling the scam and cashing out to the tune of thousands of dollars a month - as one of them said in the interview, it was "unclaimed money," it's not like they were sticking up banks. At this pace, they never would have been caught; a few grand a month was way under the radar of the gaming commission. Then, one of the fools got greedy and decided to print up a forged ticket for a practically impossible series of bets, which paid off in the millions. People got suspicious damn quick. Now they're both in jail.

      It's definitely true, greed will ruin just about any successful scam. If these two guys had just kept running their few-$K/month scam, I bet they'd still be out there living the good life.
      --
      "BSD: Free as in speech. Linux: Free as in beer. Windows 10: Free as in herpes." --Man On Pink Corner in #52607549.
  25. Re:'I'm guessing you took the five dollar law clas by Afty0r · · Score: 3, Informative
    'These discs are only provided as backups and you must own the original game.' - which raises the question, why isn't the person backing up the game themselves?

    Because the person lives in a contry run by a government which has enacted laws that, while giving them the *right* to make a backup, has made it illegal to sell, give or talk about the equipment required to make the backups. Thus, while the person has the right to carry out the activity, they are prevented by law from doing so.
  26. Actually.... by TygerFish · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Actually, I've seen people pay more for it... especially in packages combinating basic television, premium/movie channels, data services and what have you.

    Considering that in New York city at least, Time Warner Cable appears to have withdrawn pay-per-view movie access from all but its digital customers without bothering to mention that it has done so, there is a strong pressure for its customers to pay more.

    It is also easy to see why some people see nothing wrong with trying to avoid paying eight-hundred-forty dollars per year for access to the USA network and, eventually, Gigli shown and repeated again and again and again...

    --
    To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
    "Yeah. It smells, too..."
    1. Re:Actually.... by Alrescha · · Score: 3, Funny

      "Please, someone cut off my hand for typing 'combinating.' That last would have been so nice a note without it..."

      Got bad news for you. You used *both* hands to type that...

      A.

      --
      ...bringing you cynical quips since 1998
  27. Fiar use... by FreeUser · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm curious about this situation where I might be able to see where there *is* a legal, non-infringing use. Suppose I already am a subscriber, but I purchase my own equipment, ie, one of these black boxes, to use instead of my cable provider's in order to save the extra charges they tack on to the bill for each box? Fair use? Or illegal?

    Fair use. But don't tell that to our whored out congress; they'll just use it to sell themselves cheap to yet another corporate media John and turn another Trick.

    --
    The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
  28. When I worked for a major set top mfr by cblguy · · Score: 4, Informative
    We had a guy who worked across the hall from me. He was the 'cable cop'. He even had a little silver badge pasted on to his employee access badge. His job was to purchase pirate devices, and then get with engineering on how the company could defeat them. :)

    It was pretty interesting, getting to play with the chipped boxes, seeing what happened. Of course, that was a few years ago when analog still ruled the roost and digital was working but not prevalent.

    Engineering had to come up with different scrambling algorithms to try and keep one step ahead. Those head end scramblers were pretty cool pieces of equipment. We'd throw the latest scrambler firmware at the pirate boxes and see what happened. And then there were the attempts at total picture obliteration (no "nude parts" in a picture). Those were interesting to test. =8)

    I bailed out of that industry, but I must admit, the trade shows were pretty darn good. ;)

  29. Here's my problem... by j-turkey · · Score: 3, Interesting

    My problem with this is that part of the AT&T breakup ruling was that AT&T could not require you to rent or purchase their equipment (anyone here old enough to remember the US pre AT&T breakup remembers that it was "illegal" to buy your own phone and hook it up...or "illegal" to hook up additional phones on your line).

    The federal government stepped in and said that you can't be trapped into renting or buying equipment to use a communications service.

    Now, that being said, why do I have to buy or rent equipment from a cable provider? I can provide my own cable modem. If I plug my computer directly into the wall for cable (in order to use a product like Showshifter, and I pay for premium service -- why can't I descramble it myself? It's decidely not stealing in any was (unless you count timeshifting as stealing, but this is a completely unrelated issue). That being said, why can't I have a descrambler box?

    This is no different than Hughes witch-hunt where they went after anyone who bought a smart card reader...they just assumed that anyone who bought one was going to steal their service. Sure, they may catch a few theives, but at what expense?

    I'm surprised that many of the same slashdot readers who were against the DMCA (and its use in enforcing copyrights) seem to support the use of the DMCA here. I can also draw some parallels to the DVD-CCA/DeCSS case with regards to the DMCA, but hopefully, those anti-DMCA readers will get the picture by now.

    --Turkey
    --

    -Turkey

  30. Here you go: by geekoid · · Score: 3, Informative

    " In Section 629 of the Communications Act, as added by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Congress directed the FCC to create rules that would allow consumers to obtain "navigation devices" -- meaning set top boxes, remote control units and other equipment -- from commercial sources other than their multichannel programming service provider."

    http://ftp.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/1 99 9/nrcb9009.html

    "Service providers are prohibited from taking actions that would prevent navigation devices
    that do not perform conditional access functions from being made available from retailers,
    manufacturers, or other unaffiliated vendors."

    http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Cable/News_Releases/1 99 8/nrcb8013.txt

    Here is what is going on, in a nut shell:

    In 1996* the FCC ruled that consumer can by set top boxes and use them to access cable TV sa long as trhe consumer is paying for the service. Basicaly giving the consumer an option to renting the devices.

    The the Cable/Satalite companies started adding 'security' devices intergrated into the set top box, and has said consuymer can't create something that 'circumnavigates' those device.

    So now the commision as saifd that the security devices need to be seperated from the reciever.

    Cable companies have tried to fight this, but the FCC has rulled against them.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:Here you go: by Whatchamacallit · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yeah but the guy with a black box may think he's safe because he pays for basic cable, but the black box decodes all the channels including the pay per view stuff so he's really not paying for it all.

      A person using this while paying for basic cable service is theft. It's no different then walking into a store, shoplifting a bunch of stuff and paying for a pair of socks!

      To steal cable without paying at all requires running a cable a splicing it to the pole. This happens but it's less likely due to the technical issues. It's also easier to get caught.