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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."
Typical distorted nonsense from KDawson. DirectTV has issues, but in reality waht's going on here *is not* "computer science research", it's attempting to crack DirectTV's encryption scheme. Why would someone want to do that? It's not to benifit society in significant ways, it's to get free sat TV. Let's be honest, people.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
> The legal aspect should be limited to what we do
> with the contents of said box once we're in.
Makes sense. So do you intend to accept Kwikset's challenge and break into my house?