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EFF Lands a Blow On DirecTV
An anonymous reader writes to alert us to a court win for the EFF in two cases in which DirecTV employed heavy-handed legal tactics to suppress security and computer science research into satellite and smart card technology. Here's the ruling (PDF) from the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals. From the announcement: "The cases, DirecTV v. Huynh and DirecTV v. Oliver, involved a provision of federal law prohibiting the 'assembly' or 'modification' of equipment designed to intercept satellite signals. DirecTV maintained that the provision should cover anyone who works with equipment designed for interception of their signals, regardless of their motivation or whether any interception occurs. But in a hearing earlier this year, EFF argued that the provision should apply only to entities that facilitate illegal interception by other people and not to those who simply tinker or use the equipment, such as researchers and others working to further scientific knowledge of the devices at issue."
I thought this sort of tinkering was already barred. With that in mind, this is likely to be at most a Pyrrhic victory; remember, the 9th Circuit is traditionally the most overturned circuit in cases that end up being heard by the S. Ct....
You *ASSUME* thats true. But learning how to crack a system is interesting too. Life is but a journey not a destination.
I for one have thought about doing this many times just because it would be interesting. Not because I want free tv. I already pay my cable bill for that... I just find it an interesting thing to do. I havent touched it though because of these sorts of issues.
while it is illegal to own a fully automatic fire arm it is not illegal to buy a conversion kit.
So...now excuse me, I do not think like a legal person, I am just a common dumb citizen subject to the laws of this land and not intellectually capable of making decisions that implement and adjudicate the validity of such law but...
totally fictional scenario here, I mean its not like someone can actually do this...
If I designed and built a receiver that could pick up any and all satellite communication, regardless of band, system, encryption, language, broadcast tech etc and play it out for any and all to hear (sort of a reverse tower of Babel), the resultant box, my design specs, even the idea in my head would be illegal and all (including me) should be locked up with key thrown away.
(sorry, I guess I CAN think like a legal beagle!)
During the Dark ages the Church had the only literates so they virtually controlled communications. later, others learned to read and write and for a while, this skill was controlled regulated and even banned by the Church. Welcome to 900AD.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
You are full of shit. I worked for a satellite communication company in 2000 - 2001 and we had home built routers designed by our company and Phillips. We used smart cards for security. I was the unix sys admin on staff and worked with engineering on security. The router ran linux. I bought a smart card reader writer and an unlooper from whiteviper for the very reason of researching the security of our system. We learned a lot about the security of smart cards and the security of our systems. The reason I bought from Whiteviper was because the devices were a quarter the price than any where else. Turns out that DirecTV got a hold of the customer list and thus I was sued for hacking their signal. I didnt have directv or any satellite television. Did not matter. Either pay directv to settle or pay a lawyer to fight. Thousands of dollars either way. Tell me exactly how that is legitimate.
All points of time and space are connected.
True. And one might add that Judge Siler's dissent points out that two other Circuits have ruled differently even on the point that the EFF won. So not only is this ruling valid only in the 9th Circuit but there is a good chance that other Circuits will hold differently and that the issue may reach the Supreme Court and be decided differently.