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DirecTV Extortion Program stopped by EFF
eticket writes "After several years of an Organized Extortion program DirecTV has been stopped by the EFF. As many of you may know DirecTV has been suing people who purchased card programers even if they had legitimate reasons for them. Many have settled to avoid legal issues. The problem was they had to prove innocence instead of DirecTV proving guilt. The only thing that DirecTV did was say they purchased the card programmer from a site that sold Satellite pirating equipment. Even though there are legitimate uses. Thanks to the EFF for stopping this horrible miscarriage of the legal system. "
"The company will no longer pursue people solely for purchasing smart card readers, writers, general-purpose programmers, and general-purpose emulators. It will maintain this policy into the forseeable future and file lawsuits only against people it suspects of actually pirating its satellite signal. DirecTV will, however, continue to investigate purchasers of devices that are often primarily designed for satellite signal interception, nicknamed "bootloaders" and "unloopers.""
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Buried deep in the press release:
DirecTV will, however, continue to investigate purchasers of devices that are often primarily designed for satellite signal interception, nicknamed "bootloaders" and "unloopers."
Doesn't sound like DirecTV will be cowing to anyone's demands.
Also, smart quotes are stupid in MS Word, and they are stupid in Unix documents.
Yes, but the anti-DirecTV stand in this case wasn't that DirecTV had no right to sue people pirating their signal... it was that DirecTV needed a higher level of evidence than what they were using in order to go after a defendant in many cases.
If DirecTV sticks to the modifications mentioned in the release, most of the complaints are going to be cleared up and DirecTV's accusations should only be going to people who they have a decent chance of winning a ruling against.
Is everyone forgetting that DirecTV has effectively shut down the "pirates" (for now) by phasing out the last of the "hackable" smart cards? Between that and their soaring subscriber base (especially when compared to cable), it's no longer cost effective for them to continue with these tactics, nor is it worth the negative publicity. I'm all for the EFF, but if the RIAA found a way to stop 99.9% of file sharing, they'd drop their lawsuits too. Hate them all you want, but they are only fighting a perceived threat, using what they consider to be a deterent. If there's nothing left to deter, they aren't going to spend the money on it.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
If you settle, you are agreeing that the other side's case had merit such that you're willing to pay to make it go away.
:)
Those who were truely not involved in stealing DirecTV's signal should have allowed the lawsuit to go forward, let DirecTV put on their case, and then move for dismissal immediately after that case before even needing to put on a defense.
DirecTV's case in some of these situations were so weak that they actually lost a case where the defendant didn't even show up because they didn't have enough evidence to merit a default ruling... that's a rather bad defeat when you can't beat a defense that's not even in the room.
Just like the contrary verdicts in the OJ Simpson murder cases... you can be not guilty of a crime, but still be liable for that same crime because the criminal standard is "beyond reasonable doubt" and the civil standard is "a perponderance of the evidence".
In short, as long as DirecTV's evidence alone implies that it's more likely than not that you stole their service, you're going to need to put on an affirmative defense to tip the scales back into your favor. They don't need to prove you guilty...
I suspect part of the reason DirecTV has softened on this is that the particular series of access cards these programmers were designed to hack are no longer functional. In mid-april DirecTV switched from the older encryption stream decoded by the (hackable) P3 cards to the new encryption only decodable by the P4 or higher series. They figured that few enough legit customers were still running on old P3 cards (they'd been sending P4's to all subscribers with P3's for months) that they could safely shut down the old cards entirely. So DirecTV promising not to be so heavy-handed in the future is a moot point. Anyone buying a smartcard programmer to hack DirecTV now is an idiot throwing their money away.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
206.14.210.244
Oh, now I have to provide "sufficient evidence" that I'm not guilty? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Shouldn't the burden of proof be on their side?
Technically, it's not a criminal case, but a civil case. Civil cases are decided on "preponderance of the evidence". "Innocent until proven guilty" is only for criminal cases. The plus side is that the accusation "he has the technology to pirate the signal, therefore he has pirated the signal" is easily refuted by showing a legitimate use for the technology. But, our legal system being as it is, it's usually much cheaper for the defendant to settle the case than to fight it, which is what witch hunts like these (and, oh, the RIAA comes to mind) rely on.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.
Of course you're innocent until proven guilty. In a criminal court of law, that is. In a civil lawsuit, more likely than not is usually good enough.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
YAINAL, but settling does not mean admitting guilt. I present to you all of Microsoft's settlements over the years. They never admitted any wrongdoing.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Dish Network owns Directv
Uhmm... no they don't.
Dish Network == EchoStar
DirecTv == Rupert Murdoch (and friends)
If I recall, they tried to merge awhile back, but were not allowed to.
Casual Games/Downloads
those ads on tv, and the phrase in the article "Stealing Satellite SIGNALS"... Now i may be way off base, but how the heck does one steal a satellite signal? They are beamed to everyone in north america/world... Basically the phrase stealing satellite signals could be applied to someone who has a dish on their roof, but no decoder, since they are collecting the satellite signals.... I mean really, its not stealing the signals, its illegally decoding the signal that the problem...
Dish Network's customer services is horid and they like to charge and hold onto funds forever. There compression quality is pretty bad as well as compared to Directv. In my own case I got the equipment and service from directv got the install signal strength in the 90's good line of sight etc all with a 30 day no penalties right of return. Well there compression is horid it's as bad as my local cables digital offerings or directv's local channels. So I called up to retunr it. That took nearly two hours mid afternoon on a weekday between operators that insisted I had a year contract etc etc etc, a manager finialy honored there contract and accepted the cancelation and told me to call the installer to pick up the gear. Funny the installed didn't want to and took 3 weeks to do so even leaving me the dish on the roof. 3 months later a funny charge showed up on the plastic I used to setup the account for like 400 ish from them. I called and it tooks hours and hours with them insisting that I broke contract. I had to fax them the recipt for the returned equipment and my contract with the 30 day return 3 seperate times. They then claimed that I didn't realy cancle till the equipment was picked up not when I called them so was over the 30 days and still owed them. A round with my credit card company and the BBB finialy got it resolved and a credit nearly 4 months after they charged it.
I have had Directv for six years now and have never had those issues. One bad tivo in shipping but nothing like this experience. I'm comparing service on a wide screen CRT and DLP rear screen and dish has much more noticable compression artifacts to my eye. Directv I beleive has the ability to alocate varing ammounts of bandwith on a per channel basis where dish is fixed meaning that cnn dosent look as good as HBO but who cares about CNN but your HBO HD should look great.
Again this is just the comments of one person with a bad experience with dish.
No sir I dont like it.
There is a link (pops) off of the main article to the DirecTV Defense website that has a rundown of DirecTV's machinations. Included as part of the awareness package is a list of uses for smart cards, including IDs, storage of cryptographic keys, secure memory storage...etc.
#define CLUE 0
There is a reason they are despised in every industry they are in. Rupert Murdoch is a major asshole and everyone knows it. I am pretty sure he prides himself on it.#
I think DirecTV knew from the beginning that there was about a 1-2 year life span on their approach of threatening lawsuits. Once they started filing them, people were going to fight those lawsuits. Judges across the company have started throwing many of the claims out from the very start. And once cases got to discovery like depositions or even trial, DirecTV had absolutely no case because they never once could provide any evidence that a person was pirating their signal.
Case law was pretty clear. Even possession of devices which allowed an individual to pirate signals is not sufficient. They have to prove actual usage (and therefore theft). Besides the fact that a smartcard programmer doesn't do anything by itself. You still needed a computer, advanced software to program DirecTV's cards along with the personal knowledge how to do it all.
Currently, no one can pirate their signal so I am sure that factored into their change of approach too.
But it definitely was not the love of good old News Corp that brought this shit to an end.
One of the funniest things about this quote is the number of people who use it....and don't know anything about it. Not much use arguing about the exact wording, or who it's attributed to. No one seems to know for sure. There have been at least 4 different versions attributed to Mark Twain, a few to Abraham Lincoln and others to various other people. The best guess for the 'origin' (first record *I* can find, anyhow, which doesn't mean it is the absolute origin) is Proverbs 17:28 - Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
No matter what your views on the truth of the bible, that Solomon guy sure had some intelligent observations attributed to him.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Legitimate uses mainly focus on authentication devices for access to computer systems. I currently teach Network Administration, and have several smart card "devices" that are used in class demonstrations concerning security issues. The use of these devices for DirecTV piracy involves flashing chips in order to load the software necessary to interact with DirecTV's systems. Since I bought these devices, I have been waiting for a letter from them, but nothing yet.
/.
However, as one who does read quite a bit about smart cards and such, I find it somewhat amusing that DirecTV agreed to this AFTER they performed a huge card swap and shut down the data stream for their P3 cards, the most popular hacked card they had. There are no programs out there that can hack the newer cards... yet. Oh, and BTW, I am a subscriber and have been for years, so I have little reason to hack DirecTV, just in case their lawyers stumble across
The law says it is, regardless of how vociferously you object. Legally speaking it is theft, or to be more specific, theft of services, and is a felony in many states, usually depending on the dollar value of the services that have been stolen. New Jersey law. Pennsylvania law. Kentucky law. And so forth.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Right, DirectTV is filing their claims under tort law, not criminal law. DirectTV is not accusing the defendant of necessarily breaking any laws, only that they were harmed as a result of the defendant's action. Remember when OJ was found not guilty at criminal court, then later was found responsible at civil court?
That's another reason defendants in these cases may have been urged to settle: civil trials are held to a much lower standard of proof than criminal trials are. "Guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt", only applies to criminal charges.
/not a lawyer
Your lack of understanding of these lawsuits is monumental.
DirecTV is/was suing people who purchased practically any bit of smartcard equipment from dealers (not just unloopers).
Their lawsuits were vaguely worded (other than the parts about them demanding $10,000 fines *per device purchased*. A passive PCB purchase landed you a $10K "fine".
DirecTVs actions took advantage of the fact that most people would be either too scared, or lacking the funding, to fight their corporate lawyer army.
The lawsuits even covered people who purchased equipment from the H-Card era, it has nothing to do with them shutting down the HU streams.
-This sig intentionally left blank
Obviously not a lawyer. It isn't 'beyond a shadow of a doubt', it is 'beyond a reasonable doubt'. Much lower standard, really. On the other hand in a civil case, the standard is even lower, a preponderance of evidence is sufficient. Oh, IANAL either.
Matt Groening later admited that Fox News never threatened to sue, he was just joking. Fox News all along claimed that there was no lawsuit threatened...
The apparent source of all of this was that the show got a "network note" about one of their scripts that mentioned a news ticker underneath Kent Brockman pointing out that if they were going to do that, they'd have to make the headlines funny enough such that somebody just tuning in would not confuse it with the real Fox News ticker. The Simpsons staff thought that was a little overprotective... like they'd put anything that could be mistaken for real in such a ticker.
I'm not sure this is such a great deal for the people.
DirecTV will now drop its suits if the end user provides enough evidence of their innocence. DirecTV doesn't specify a quanta of proof, but we can assume that it will be whatever DirecTV wants it to be.
In a court, DirecTV would have the burden of proving its case by a preponderance of the evidence. In effect, DirecTV would have to prove that it is more probable than not that these users were pirating their signal.
Given the fact that DirecTV based its claims solely on the possession of a smart card encoder or emulator (or other technology), these cases wouldn't survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim or a motion for summary judgment.
Thus, DirecTV loses in court.
I'm sure someone will complain about legal fees though. Here's the thing: In most states, and in the Federal system, it's possible to obtain sanctions for pleadings filed in bad faith.
In this case, there's a solid argument to be made that filing a suit based merely on possession of otherwise legal equipment is . . . wait for it . . . bad faith.
This isn't to say that what the EFF did isn't a good thing, but at the end of the day, it didn't save any of these victims either.
--AC
As someone pointed out elsewhere on the thread, that's simply a result of the differing standards of legal proof in civil versus criminal courts. In terms of the burden of proof, it's much easier to sue someone that it is to prosecute them. If the OJ example offends you, I'm sure you can think of analogues to illustrate the point some other way, though ;)
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
Well, actually the government didn't make any such declaration - if you recall, the government was arguing very strenuously that he was, in fact, guilty. In the criminal case, a jury of his peers determined that he was not guilty according to the standards used to decide guilt in criminal cases, and the government - and the rest of us, for that matter - are bound to respect. Now, in murder cases, the government brings charges on behalf of the dead person - it has to be that way, since they're not around to press charges any more. But that doesn't mean the victims were the only ones harmed by the murder - others who have been harmed, but not criminally victimized, can sue in civil court to recover the damages they have suffered. So the state prosecutes criminally on behalf of the victims, and the families sue on their own behalf, based on the idea that they have been harmed by the actions of the accused - specifically, they were deprived of family members. And double jeopardy doesn't apply the way you might think in such cases - you can be sued for as many times as there are people to bring claims of damage against you, although each person who has been harmed may only sue you once. But if you murder twenty people, you can expect dozens and dozens of lawsuits from their family members, each one claiming you've harmed them.
As well, you can be tried more than once for the same act, if that same act encompasses more than one offense. Suppose I intend to kidnap you and hold you for ransom, but as I grab you off the street, I handle you too roughly, and you die. Even though there's but a single act that I performed, I can be charged with any or all of several offenses - murder, attempted kidnapping, assault and battery, and so forth. And charging me with all of those things, and even trying me seperately for them, doesn't violate double jeopardy. Finally, concurrent or subsequent state and federal prosecutions don't violate double jeopardy - so sez the Supreme Court - on the theory that the federal government and state government are both sovereigns, and both have an interest in prosecution. This is how the federal government was able to prosecute the police in the Rodney King affair, despite the fact that they had been acquitted in state court - A) dual sovereignty, and; B) they were charged in federal court with a different offense arising from the same act, namely depriving King of his civil rights, which is a crime under federal law.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
It's obvious that you are not a lawyer, and you should not be giving out legal advice. They (DirectTV) were suing in Federal Court, under a federal statute. Ignoring process from a federal court is a really bad idea.
Er, no, I don't think so.
What is more, the judge can award costs, so you don't get screwed when you win. Seems eminently sensible, don't know why the US don't adopt it...
The EFF has just added on another story on the topic... an Appeals Court has just ruled that showing a defendant has DirecTV hacking equipment isn't enough to create liablity. DirecTV needs to bring evidence that the devices were actually used to steal DirecTV's services sucessfully.
Do not -- please do not -- sit still and let some one get a judgment against you in some distant jurisdiction. When they carry that judgment to your home state, there may be NOTHING you can do to avoid it. (You do NOT get a brand new trial. Usually, the time period for appeal has expired too.)
Please -- please -- do not take legal advice over the net. If you are sued, get a lawyer.
IAALBIANYL--GYOGDL,YMNO
It is tax deductible. You can support them HERE. I did.
We also have the constitutionally provided right to not be tried twice for the same crime, or "double jeopardy". I guess what I don't understand is the legal or moral reasons why we allow these types of civil cases at all. To me, "not being tried twice" is a pretty simple concept. It sure is different from "we'll try you once, and if that doesn't work try you again in a second court that by the way has a lesser standard of guilt."
Read the actual amendment.
(From Cornell's US Constitution page)
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
He was not "twice put in jeopardy of life or limb". It says nothing about civil trials.
"And even then, the innocent defendent doesn't get their attorney fees paid for by the plaintiff. If even 1% of these thousands that were sued were innocent, that's too much!"
That depends on which state you're in. A lot of states not only automatically award legal costs to a winning defendant, but also damages for wasting their time, depending on the result and type of lawsuit.