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NewsCorp/NDS Sets Up Operation To Expose Canadian Pirates; What Could Go Wrong?

Posted by timothy on from the boarding-eh dept.

Presto Vivace writes "Murdoch's Pirates is a business book that reads like a thriller. The chapter excerpted in the Sydney Morning Herald explains how Operation Duck, an effort to discover the identify Canadian pay TV pirates, went horribly wrong. 'By October 25 Oliver had been in Toronto four days and had programmed a swag of pirate cards, using a program he had ripped off another pirate hack. And he had been paid a lot of money. That evening, he met with two piracy dealers in a car and programmed a few cards for them with his portable programmer box, to demonstrate that it worked. The following night Oliver received a call from a friend in London, a partner in his old piracy ring, who was sleeping with a woman who worked for Federal Express. 'He told me, these guys [from the previous night] sent a parcel to Larry Rissler,' Oliver recalls. Rissler was a former FBI agent who headed the Office of Signal Integrity—the operational security division—of DirecTV, and he had been hunting Oliver for some time. One of the dealers Oliver had met was a Rissler informant and he had despatched a re-programmed smartcard by FedEx to his boss. The parcel would be with Rissler early the next morning—if it wasn't already there.' The story reads like some perverse blend of James Bond and the Pink Panther. It is just amazing."

7 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Reading TFS by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The story reads like some perverse blend of James Bond and the Pink Panther.

    Well, TFS reads like a chinese instruction manual. What the hell? Piracy dealers? Discover the identify?

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    1. Re:Reading TFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      loose translation:

      Dude X was selling counterfit decoder rings.

      Mr Man McManniman wasn't happy about this and so orchastrated a cunning plan to catch him, Operation: DUCK

      Operation: DUCK was foiled by Dude X's super sexy cohort, Hennry "The Horn" Hornison, when he managed to seduce a Delivery one, Miss Baggage.

      Miss Baggage had information that Phil Squealer, who Dude X had recently met and shown his ring making device to, had sent a ring to Mr McManniman...

      Can Dude X get to the package before it's opened?

      Will The Horn manage to handle anymore baggage?

      Why exactly is Mr Man McManniman so manly?

      Find out in next weeks thrilling installment of "Meglomaniacs Eye Patch!!!"

    2. Re:Reading TFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't mod the parent down! Now on to my real point...

      NewsCorp/NDS Sets Up Operation To Expose Canadian Pirates; What Could Go Wrong?

      Interesting headline there, timmyboy. Another misleading title for a slashvertisement. Once I read the article, I discovered that this is an account of events from FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. 1997, dude. That was the era of the F cards and H cards. The era before the emulators and even before the unloopers. SERIOUSLY? How does this count as news? You have NO date in the summary, and you are deliberately misleading the reader to think that this is something recent.

      It's nothing really engaging. It's just a historical account which might be a little entertaining to those of us who used to program DirecTV cards for the fun of it and resell receivers with Hu cards (unprogrammed) for hundreds of dollars on ebay.

  2. To Rupert Murdoch: Pay Your Taxes ProperlyFirst!!! by dryriver · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Murdoch's NewsCorp makes Billions of Dollars in Profit/Revenues a year, and is one of the largest media companies in the world. Yet NewsCorp only pays about 4% in Taxes on all this income, thanks to an intricate network of hundreds of shell-companies in tax havens like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. Article to back this up: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/276-74/6796-focus-pay-your-taxes-murdoch ---- So, Rupert Murdoch, perhaps you should pay your taxes properly before you go after anyone for "Piracy"? You owe multiple governments and territories hundreds of millions of Dollars in back taxes. --- Perhaps you should clean up your "Tax Piracy", before you go after hapless individuals for "Content Piracy"? --- Better yet, run your "archconservative" NewsCorp dinosaur biz into the ground for good, so more ethical, talented, objective news and content producers can fill the gap you leave in the market.

    --
    Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
  3. Re:Yu-Gi-Oh: Pirate Edition by The+Rizz · · Score: 5, Funny

    I be summonin' ye Dark Magician Wench in face down position. Yarrr!

  4. They would know.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After all, NewsCorp seems to have funded the design, manufacture, and distribution of hacked cards to bring down British DTV competition. (And were successful. Poor ITV) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17494723

    Not to mention illegally listening to voicemail...

    Maybe they should cut their piracy out first.

  5. Re:LMAO by Cid+Highwind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    LMAO at people who pirate television.

    Agreed.

    But then also LMAO at people who think they can bathe half the globe in a radio signal and then decide who is allowed to decode it.

    --
    0 1 - just my two bits