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."

Comments

Re:Oh Come On.

[sleigher]

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.