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Cable Box Piracy Ring Busted
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?'"
If it looks like a binding legal agreement it must be one. *cough* eula *cough*
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
... 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...
Two guys got arrested. Big news, indeed. What a huge ring!
:^D
Was it "The One Ring", by any chance?
And now for some karma whoring: "in Soviet Russia the ring arrests you!"
My Stack Overflow user
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
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.
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?
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...
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.
'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?
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!
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.
(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
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
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
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."
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.
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
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..."
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. ;)