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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'm giving up my ability to mod this thread but I need to set the record straight. DirecTV went as far as obtaining lists of people who purchased smart card equipment on the internet, and corelating them with people who had bought DirecTV equipment. Anybody who fit the profile was sent a "demand letter" which threatened a federal lawsuit unless they paid DirecTV thousands of dollars. There were lots of innocent folks caught up in this (and lots of not-so-innocent ones too). At issue is the fact that the innocent people who had an interest in smart card research for computer security purposes, and who happened to purchase equipment from low-priced on-line retailers were wrongly harrassed by DirecTV.
People bought smart card read/writers for their computers. There is no direct evidence to prove that they used these smart cards for their DirecTV systems.
DirecTV is claiming that anyone who bought such a smart card reader for their computer is deliberately trying to get "TV for free".
Will "DirecTV sue you next?"
Such devices are available for $30-$60 integrated within keyboards, within a computer case and as external USB devices.
It seems that Microsoft were involved in the development smart card technology for encryption purposes, DirecTV makes use of similar technology, and these gets all hissy about other people using
the same technology.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
My big problem with this issue is that at my past two jobs I worked for companies that did work with SIM cards. These are basically just a smaller form-factor of a smart card. At the time, there were various companies selling smart card readers specifically for the purpose of defeating DirecTV's copy protection scheme. As it happens, they had better prices on the same equipment I used for my job, so I ordered several for myself and a few cow-orkers.
DirecTV's lawyers started going after these businesses, obtained their customer lists through discovery and started going after their customers, too. You can guess what happened next.
As it happens, I was a DirecTV customer at the time. I never used these card readers to hack my DirecTV smart card, but I did use it legitimately for work. It took quite a bit of song and dance and a discussion between them and my (Sweden-based) management and CTO to convince them that I did have authorization to procure "SIM card readers" and expensed them through my company and wasn't using them for illicit activity, though it almost cost my job. Smart cards are very popular in most of the Scandinavian countries in many industries, and it was a bit amusing to hear DirecTV tell my CTO that he had no business reason to need a card reader for ANYTHING other than to steal from DirecTV.
For some examples, look at the security industry (physical access requiring a smart card - very popular in Finland), secure banking industry (you've seen the American Express Blue with the built-in smart card), cellular industry (all GSM SIMs are really smart cards), and Finland even uses smart cards for their national ID (which I hear makes their voting system work well).
Yes, perhaps I should have looked for a more "authorized" dealer or whatever, but money is money and my original bright idea that made my popular with my manager cast a shade over me that pisses me off to this day.
Maybe the correct question is, "Are you liable if you purchase equipment intended for illegal/illicit/immoral/ purposes for a legitimate reason?"
Tying in to the original point, it's amazing what power these guys have over people that don't have a company "in the business" to back them up. If I were doing the same job as a freelance contractor (which is very possible and more profitable in my former industry), I would have been legally fucked.
There are good reasons why lawyers should not be able to shackle research, industry, and "creative" self-education that fall outside of their business model. Generally speaking, smart cards are very secure devices, and if I recall correctly, DirecTV's woes started by using a vendor that leaked critical information (whether through subterfuge or buying off one or more of their employees) about how to confuse one of their specific types of smart cards into giving up it's secrets. This made the entire smart card industry look bad, and instead of taking it up with their vendor and immediately replacing those cards, they started suing potential customers. (I say potential, since I doubt many of them actually had subscriptions. At the time DirecTV was allowing their equipment vendors to sell receivers directly to people who obtained an unauthorized smart card to receive the service for free. Who really knows if they would be real customers had this avenue of exploitation not been available?) They took years to phase out the old cards for new, secure ones, and have since gone to a lease-only model for equipment so they can track who actually has a receiver and demand the equipment back if they're not suing it.
I'm not sure that DirecTV is evil, per se, but rather incompetent and legally blame everyone other than themselves. *Shudder* I'm glad someone is finally putting them in their place, as they have contributed to the overall chill on research that seems too prevalent today...
This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
The DMCA will stop the parent from sharing what he has learned about satellite (not necessarily DirecTV) encryption. It will also stop a colleague from sharing what he's learned. This is analogous to Einstein not being able to get help with non-Euclidean geometry. It stops research!
I've often thought a good defense against the DMCA would be the US constitution itself. You know, that part about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. If I cannot satisfy my curiosity because the DMCA blocks my natural need to share my discoveries, then it is unconstitutional.
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
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.
That's what the law says and how DirectTV interpreted it. You are parroting DirectTV's now shown to be false argument. The company began its crusade by raiding smart card device distributors to obtain their customer lists, then sent over 170,000 demand letters to customers and eventually filed more than 24,000 federal lawsuits against them. Because DirecTV made little effort to distinguish legal uses of smart card technology from illegal ones, EFF and the Cyberlaw Clinic received hundreds of calls and emails from panicked device purchasers. See? They claimed anyone using a smart card for any reason what trying to hack them.
This, too, was from the EFF's web site: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_11.php
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
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.
Except these people are not busting into YOUR house they are busting into THEIR house.
Once you buy a thing, you own that thing. Busting into it becomes "equivalent" to busting into your own house and not someone elses.
Anything beyond that needs to be proven.
We have standards and procedures in this area for a reason.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.