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Former Anti-Piracy 'Bag Man' Turns On DirecTV 257

Posted by michael from the made-man dept.
Cowards Anonymous writes "SecurityFocus has this story: 'A one-time enforcer in DirecTV's anti-piracy campaign is suing his ex-employer for wrongful discharge, after he allegedly resigned rather than continue to prosecute the company's controversial war against buyers of hacker-friendly smart card equipment.' John Fisher claims that he was hired by DirecTV as a senior investigator to track down satellite signal pirates. Instead, he claims, he was no better than a 'bag man for the mob'; coercing people into paying money for stealing services when he had no proof whether they had really done so."
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Former Anti-Piracy 'Bag Man' Turns On DirecTV More

Former Anti-Piracy 'Bag Man' Turns On DirecTV

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  • You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:44PM (#8893132)
    The DirecTV "accused pirate lawsuits" story has been going on for quite a while.

    The point of the problem is this: They're having something in the area of a 90-95% success rate in accusing people who were actually watching DirecTV's programming without paying for it. Or, to state it in a less pretty way, they were harassing completely innocent techies with to 5-10% of their efforts.

    What's worse, is that the hackers have realized that so long as they don't confess, DirecTV doesn't have enough evidence to win most of the lawsuits they're filing. In fact, successful defenses have been mounted by making no defense at all. Usually trivial motions like the standard motion a defense lawyer always makes to dismiss the case after the plantiff's case claiming they didn't meet the minimum standards of proof, or motions for summary judgement against a defendant who no-shows are not going DirecTV's way. The only people to lose cases have been ones who either confessed or said something stupid to DirecTV that gets used against them.

    Yet, despite these devistating blows in court, DirecTV is continuing to operate this SCOish collectors and lawyers devision. Despite having cases of zero chance of suceeding legally, they have been able to get people to hand over settlement money such that this operation is profitable.

    What we need in this country is a higher penality for filing a lawsuit that is eventually lost. Basically, people are signing admissions of guilt and sending in checks in order to get the harassing phone calls to stop, when in reality they should be calling DirecTV's bluff and letting them file the lawsuit.

    • It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      DirecTV is continuing to operate this SCOish collectors and lawyers devision.

      SCO is enforcing conjured fantasy with no basis in reality. There are no real Linux Thieves of SCO Code.

      There are DirecTV Thieves.

      Or, to state it in a less pretty way, they were harassing completely innocent techies with to 5-10% of their efforts.

      Failure does not necessitate innocence.

      • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:5, Interesting)

        by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:56PM (#8893223)
        Failure does not necessitate innocence.

        Actually, in this case it does. There's no crime in attempting to discramble DirecTV's signal, just in actually doing so... but nevermind, that's the business of the local Prosecutor's Office anyway to file that case.

        DirecTV's filing a civil suit. And in order for there to be a civil liablity, the definitely has to be a service obtained without paying for it... no evidence that supports that having happened is the fatal flaw in these cases.

      • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:4, Insightful)

        by theCoder ( 23772 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:39PM (#8893474) Homepage Journal
        There are DirecTV Thieves.

        I'm sorry, maybe this is a troll, but I have to respond/rant. There are no DirecTV thieves. And if there are, then the police should track down the people who stole equipment or other property from DirecTV and make them return it (in addition to facing charges).

        If DirecTV wants to put a satellite in orbit and have that satellite broadcast digital information that anyone with a satellite dish can receive, then they shouldn't be upset when people do just that. NBC isn't upset if I put up an antenna to receive the stuff they broadcast -- in fact, they're happy I do. DirecTV has already done all the work necessary to get the signal to my home -- whether I view it doesn't affect their costs at all (for the record, I don't have satellite TV, and with companies like DirecTV running things, I probably never will).

        DirecTV is trying to sell and control both sides of the transmission, and frankly, I don't think the law should be on their side. They chose, and in fact got special permission, to send these signals. They're using up part of the EM spectrum, the public's EM spectrum, mind you, and then turning around and expecting the government to stop people from listening to what they broadcast.

        Sure, you'll say that it's not economically viable for DirectTV to not charge customers by the month, and to that, I say so be it! Somehow over the air broadcast TV survived, and flourished. Broadcast towers require maintenance, just like satellites. Do you think TV would have ever become as popular as it is today if broadcast TV wasn't free? DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes and access to broadcast on the network, and then thre wouldn't even be an issue of people listening to a signal they're not supposed to hear. The fact that DirecTV thinks the govenment should enforce the current arrangement and the government agrees is bad enough. DirecTV's barratry/blackmail against innocent smart card developers (and even the not so innocent ones) is disgusting, and should be itself illegal.

        There are bigger problems in the world than some people watching satellite TV without paying DirecTV for the privilege!

        • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          At least for Cable TV, the law does call it "theft of service". Just a point to squeeze into your abnormally clenched rectum.

        • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:5, Interesting)

          by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @05:37PM (#8893837) Journal
          Broadcast towers require maintenance, just like satellites.

          Actually satellites are not designed to be maintained. It is only the rare satellite that receives servicing, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. This is for two reasons: servicing missions are absurdly expensive, and most TV satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit, which is unreachable by the Shuttle.

          In fact this is the main problem with your argument. The money for the broadcasting infrastructure has to come from one of three places: advertisers, viewers, or the government. Not many people agree that the government should pay so that everyone can watch satellite TV. Furthermore, remembering that satellites can't be maintained, the costs and risks of satellite broadcasting are orders of magnitude larger than terrestrial broadcasting. Launches are expensive, and if something breaks (or if technology advances), the only option is to launch a new satellite. It's not viable to ask advertisers to bear the sole responsibility for subsidising the medium, especially since people are bitching even now about the amount of advertising on TV.

          As for your claim that "DirecTV could have made a killing selling dishes," you're advocating that DirecTV should use the access equipment to subsidize the service? How would this be different from using smart cards?

          The fact is that DirecTV is not viable without paying subscribers. So once again we encounter the problem of common good versus the I-want-my-MTV mentality. Why is it that people think that, just because they can do something, they have a right to do so?
          • The fact is that DirecTV is not viable without paying subscribers

            Exactly the point. This useless "service" is not viable. The only reason it exists is because a bunch of usurpers managed to pervert and twist laws into a mess that affords them protection in implementing any hair-brained, money making scheme as long as it has words "copyright" or "intellectual property" in its description.

            I cant stand people so brainwashed that they actually think: "but they would not make any money on this so we must give u

          • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Insightful)

            by theCoder ( 23772 )
            Actually satellites are not designed to be maintained. It is only the rare satellite that receives servicing, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. This is for two reasons: servicing missions are absurdly expensive, and most TV satellites are in a geosynchronous orbit, which is unreachable by the Shuttle.

            Fair enough, though I was more referring to monitoring the satellites, sending data to them, correcting their orbits, and even to some extent preparing to replace them when they need to be retired (that sho
            • If I, as someone who's never had a relationship with DirecTV, built a device that picked up EM signals directed at me and translated them into something my TV could display, I don't see why anyone would think that (a) it's illegal or (b) I should stop.

              Let me say firstly that I don't support bully tactics. But I don't reject the idea that media companies should have legal protection for their signals.

              I can't find a link, but I remember a court case some time ago involving a farmer whose land was crossed

          • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Xylantiel ( 177496 )
            So once again we encounter the problem of common good versus the I-want-my-MTV mentality.

            When I first read this I took it opposite of the way I think you intended it.

            i.e. Actually the common good is served by NOT making it illegal to decrypt this stuff because such a law is overly restrictive of personal freedom. So the 'pirates' are actually acting rationally and the broadcasters are the actual "I-want-my-MTV" party in this transaction.

            Like you say, just because we can (have satellite TV by selling

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
            Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Indeed... commercial radio.... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by zogger ( 617870 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @06:36PM (#8894134) Homepage Journal
          ...in the beginning, didn't even have commercials! The radio spectrum was more closely held to be a public commons, with a public benefit. Broadcasts were more a free service in the sense of they were donated by the companies on their nickle. Later on commercials started slipping in, now these various broadcasters get to "own" a slice of spectrum,apparently forever and forever and forever, and their relicensing hearings are a COMPLETE SCAM, a mere rubber stamp job. It's apparently illegal to run your own non commercial very low power radio station, even on a totally unused piece of the spectrum. And to just listen, to use a wireless receiver? To my mind, you broadcast it out at random into the ether, then anyone may listen if they have the equipment. It is NOT the same as illegally hooking up a wire, then you have touched, altered property that is not yours, it's anothers, but over the air broadcasts to my way of thinking are open to reception. Of course, the courts and companies don't agree, but what else is new when a public "thing" gets sold to a private for-profit concern, turned into a "private" thing? To me, there's the theft in the first place. Just to get MY permission as a joe tax payer, part owner of all the spectrum around me, at a minimum your boradcast should be available to me to receive. If you want to make money, ask for donations of sell stuff. IF you wish to broadcast commercials to garner a cash flow that MIGHT lead to profits, that is your right to do that, and I don't see the government should interfere there as well, YOUR choice of programming and how many and what commercials you may transmit for that "license" to "own" some of the EM spectrum, untilsuch a time as your relicensing comes back up, and we need REAL hearings, not this joke we have now with industry insiders licensing other industry insiders..

          That's my take on it.

          Story, long time ago when cable first started, you didn't even need a box, just the cable. I moved into an aprtment that had a coax hanging out of the wall. Now I had a TV, and normal rabbit ears, but the reception sucked, and I was not able to get a normal antenna, as I didn't own this apartment. I had not purchased the cable networks offerings, but I DID feel it was my choice to screw that coax on and see if the longer wire that went out the wall and up the wall and "over yonder" some place might somehow improve my over the air reception, as it was the closest thing to having an outdoor aerial. Much to my surprise, I got cable feed, and it WASN'T connected, but it ran parallel to a connected cable. I guess induction did it somehow. Now, I would NOT have physcially screwed that together to the for-pay feed, or climbed the pole and hooked myself or anything of that sort, to me, that was and is illegal. But I saw no illegalities in receiving the signal. I rented the apartment, there was the wire, it worked, no physical connection, I did nothing to get the reception, it just "was there".. Eventually the cable company came and moved all the wires and I lost feed,so be it, so I went back to fuzzy rabbit ears.

          There's the difference. There's physcially hijacking someone's property, then there's recieving a broadcast that is transmitted "at random" down from the sky, using a granted monopoly piece of the spectrum that is part mine anyway. They are not some sort of tight aiming it to individual people, they broadcast it out in a WIDE spread that hits everyone basiclaly under a huge area. It's as random as their altitude can get in the "down" direction.

          Basically, I am tired of the government saying it can just take MY property and sell it, then saying it's OK for this private company to sell me my property back. I fully realise it's expensive to run a satellite and launch it and etc, but, we already figured out that advertising is "enough" to make incredible profits for broadcasters, I have no idea, but the sum totality of over the air broadcasting profits since the beginning of the radio age has to be into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
        • Difficult to believe this nonsense mods as "+5 Insightful" even on Slashdot. Encrypted messaging by radio is at least as old as Marconi and essential to your wireless LAN.

          Broadcast televison in the U.S. began as urban-suburban commercial monopolies. You needed an insane amout of cash to launch a station but once up and running you had a license to coin money. The most you had to fear was one or two competitors within seventy-five miles. The good times ended with cable and sattelite. Now even the broadcast

      • Re:It isn't SCOish (Score:2, Interesting)

        by shepd ( 155729 )
        >There are DirecTV Thieves.

        Yes, they work at the DirecTV NOC. They steal once quiet airwaves and fill them with unwanted trash and beam them at my once quiet home without my permission.

        There's theives all over if you choose to define the word incorrectly.
      • I have something of a problem calling people "thieves" who make use of something that is lobbed into their property by someone else. DirecTV is sending its signal into your yard, after all. It would seem that those who make use of the signal given to them are less "thieves" than granky ol Mrs. McGurdy who kept the football you accidentally kicked onto her porch.

    • Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:02PM (#8893255) Journal

      What we need in this country is a higher penality for filing a lawsuit that is eventually lost.

      Assumiming you're in the US, I agree that it sounds like something needs to be done, but is this it?

      Doesn't this make it an even greater risk for someone without deep pockets to take someone to court?
      • One way to work around it is that if you file a lawsuit and lose, you have to pay the winning side the cost of your legal actions. That way neither side is able to drive up the stakes by hiring high-priced lawyers, ala SCO.

        • Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Interesting)

          by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:19PM (#8893368) Journal
          One way to work around it is that if you file a lawsuit and lose, you have to pay the winning side the cost of your legal actions. That way neither side is able to drive up the stakes by hiring high-priced lawyers, ala SCO.

          Yep, familiar with that, but I'm not sure it helps. Consider...

          EvilCorp does something bad to you. You file a suit against them. They hire a high-priced legal firm - they might even have some $300/hr lawyer on staff. Now you know that if you pursue the suit and lose you're going to be paying a fortune you cannot afford.

          • Then make the penalty $10,000 for every 10th lawsuit you lose IF you have lost more than 5 of your last 10 lawsuits.

            Wouldn't harm genuine litigators, would scare the crap out of people like SCO.

            Also make sure you fine the lawyers the same ammount as the defendant to stop them pushing stupid fucking shit through the courts without any regard for ethics.
          • EvilCorp does something bad to you. You file a suit against them. They hire a high-priced legal firm - they might even have some $300/hr lawyer on staff. Now you know that if you pursue the suit and lose you're going to be paying a fortune you cannot afford.
            If you have a good case, a good, expensive law will take your case, knowing full well that your expenses will be paid by the company. This way, no frivolous chickenboner "lawsuites" will be filed.
          • " they might even have some $300/hr lawyer on staff"

            Yeah, God forbid they have a $300/hr lawyer. Got news for ya, thats about mid range. A high-priced legal firm's lawyers are going to cost a LOT more than that.

          • The only thing I can think of that makes any sense is to have the judge/jury that hears the case also decide if the suit had merit. Even if you don't prove your burden and win, you still might have had a case with merit. In the event of a meritless case, THEN you pay.

            Otherwise, let the system work the way it does now.

            LK

          • Re:You can file that lawsuit... you won't win it! (Score:5, Interesting)

            by zenthax ( 737879 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @06:37PM (#8894140)
            It would seem to me that a really good solution would be that the legal costs of the plantiff and defendant can not exccede a certain ratio. Say 2 to 1, and if some one wants to exccede the ratio they must give a 1 to 1 ammount to the other party. Obviously the ratio is decided by the lowest number For example A defendant has 1 lawer that say charges $100/hr, then the plantiff can not have lawyer that charge more than $200 and hour. If the plantiff wants to spend $300/hr then the must give the plantif $100/hr I highly doubt we will see anything like thi happening, for some reason i doubt that large coporation will give up their high priced lawyer or that the high priced lawyers would let this happen
          • The legal department of most corporations (those that can afford one) consists mostly of general counsel and support staff. Additionally, there may be a few attorneys whose background is either corporate law or something specifically related to the company's business. It would be highly unusual that any such company has a full-time litigator, unless you consider Kevin McBride full-time. Or a litigator. Bada bing.

            In the case of trials, companies always hire outside counsel. Just like corporate lawyers

      • What we need in this country is a higher penality for filing a lawsuit that is eventually lost.

        Assumiming you're in the US, I agree that it sounds like something needs to be done, but is this it?

        No, make it optional, in part or in full. We have that here in Norway, and it works very well. If you file a baseless lawsuit, you get slapped with the court costs. If they stall with volumious defense and appeals, you may get both the win and your court costs covered. And if either side rack up too unreasonable

      • Personally, I've always liked the idea of providing free lawyers to anyone who requests it in lawsuits, but it might encourage frivolous lawsuits and raise taxes a fair amount, so it's hardly a perfect idea and needs some additional reworking. You might want to throw some punishment for "frivolous" lawsuits in there too.
      • We are in more or less the same situation here as Microsoft is with Windows. It's riddled with poor design decisions that we're more or less stuck with. So we make small fixes which deal with the symptoms rather than the root causes. As a result, the system continues to be generally usable. But we're at the point where it requires our constant attention just to function even as poorly as it does, making it impossible for us to create improvements to deal with the future.

        What I'm getting at here should

    • I wonder what DirecTV would say to these scenarios:

      using the cards and receiving in an unauthorized fashion the "major networks" (because due to the waiver system there is no other way to get them) and paying DirecTV the typical fee for network feeds.

      Canadians using the cards to receive all the US channels that are censored off the Canadian channel list, and also paying for these by putting extra money in the bill.

      • Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:57PM (#8893586)
        DirecTV is known to tolerate a "social hack" that allows access to a service you're geographically prohibited from getting. Simply call them and tell them that you want to change your "service address" but not your "billing address"... they don't bother to verify the service address you submit, and then all of your equipment will have access to the programming somebody at that location would have gotten, including major network and regional sports network programs.

        They know this is going on. They've done nothing to stop it because they get sales they otherwise wouldn't have gotten, and it's really the content suppliers who are losing out of money they'd otherwise be entitled to.
        • and it's really the content suppliers who are losing out of money they'd otherwise be entitled to. How are the content suppliers losing in this? For example, a Canadian who does this address trick to get Fox News (last time I knew, it was censored in Canada) ends up paying DirecTV for it on the bill, and the appropriate cut goes to Fox. Seems like the only losers are the control freaks who don't want people to see certain things.
          • Fox News Channel is not available to Canada because it has 0% Canadian content, and does not have a waiver from the Canadian government to be imported in despite of that fact. CNN has such a waiver... this is more or less a benefit they got for "being there first", and since Fox News Channel is the youngest of the three there's now no complelling reason for "another news network" to be let in.

            The much more common situation stateside is when a viewer in Texas wants to see Boston Red Sox games all season. Th
            • Fox News Channel is not available to Canada because it has 0% Canadian content My point exactly. It is being censored by government officials who don't want you to see certain things. I have canadian friends who watch it and other channels by doing the address trick. They live near the border.

        • Re:How about paying and pirating? (Score:5, Informative)

          by Lord Kano ( 13027 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @06:20PM (#8894062) Homepage Journal
          DirecTV is known to tolerate a "social hack" that allows access to a service you're geographically prohibited from getting. Simply call them and tell them that you want to change your "service address" but not your "billing address"... they don't bother to verify the service address you submit, and then all of your equipment will have access to the programming somebody at that location would have gotten, including major network and regional sports network programs.

          It wouldn't be possible for them to verify it. Are they supposed to send someone out to the address of EVERY customer every time someone reports a change of service address?

          When I worked for Echostar I used to hint to people to do this without actually saying it.

          For example, the rules for network qualification are based upon 50 year old maps. They don't take into consideration things like new buildings that can block signal in urban areas or new powerlines that interfere with broadcast signals.

          So someone would call in and want to order network programming and their address wouldn't qualify, I'd apologize to them and tell them that I couldn't do it. Often I'd hear things like "My brother lives 3 blocks away and he can get these." I'd check the brother's address and he in fact did qualify for networks. I'd then tell the customer "Yes sir, that address does qualify for networks. If your service address were in that area, you'd be able to get these too." The smart people would pick up on the inflection in my voice and ask if they could have separate service and billing addresses. The obvious answer is Yes they could. They would then proceed to give me a service address that was the same as the "brother's" address and add an "A" or "1/2" to the house number. Boom, they'd qualify for networks. My company was blameless because we can't be held responsible if someone lies to us about their address. And I got the credit for another upsell.

          Echostar has made it harder for people to do this though. They've switched most of their local programming to their "spot beam" satellites. 3 years ago, all of their local networks were broadcast all over the continental US. The only thing that prevented you from getting Pittsburgh's local channels while you were in Las Vegas was the setting on Echostar's computer system. In 2002 they started spotbeaming their locals so for example the Pittsburgh local channels could only be received while IN the Pittsburgh area. If you had a mobile home and you drove from Pittsburgh to Washington DC you can't pick up the signal for Pittsburgh locals anymore. They didn't do this just to comply with SHVIA regulations. They did it so they could pack more channels into the part of the spectrum that they were granted. By restricting the signals in this way, they made it possible to spotbeam the channels for 5 cities in the portion of the spectrum that was originally taken up by 1 city's local channels.

          They've done nothing to stop it because they get sales they otherwise wouldn't have gotten, and it's really the content suppliers who are losing out of money they'd otherwise be entitled to.

          Local content providers don't lose out on anything. Most of the people who do this are living in the "shadow" of some structure that is preventing them from picking up broadcast signals anyway. If you can't watch a channel, you can't see the commercials. The local channel never had you in the first place, they aren't losing anything when you get the channels from another city. Cable companies lobbied congress HARD to get those rules into place. It was about forcing the hand of consumers, and protecting their business model.

          LK
    • One thing the consumer can do is to boycott DirecTV. Get Dish Network. Get cable, or god forbid, get a TV antenna!

  • Sony V Scimeca (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sanity ( 1431 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:46PM (#8893149) Homepage Journal
    Fisher's lawyer ... sued the company for extortion on behalf of seven clients who claimed to have ordered smart card programmers and other equipment for legitimate purposes, and subsequently received DirecTV's threatening letter. But last year a county judge ruled that DirecTV's mailings were connected with litigation, and were therefore privileged; he dismissed the case and awarded DirecTV nearly $100,000 in attorney's fees.
    This reminds me of the EFF's Sony V Scimeca [eff.org] case against the RIAA's extortion tactics, and makes me wonder whether it is destined for a similar fate.

    Of course, the notion that just because something is connected with litigation it should be immune to anti-racketeering laws is rediculous, the threat of being bankrupted by an legal battle can be at least as coercive as the threat of having your legs broken with a baseball bat, so why should one be legal, and the other not?

    • Of course, the notion that just because something is connected with litigation it should be immune to anti-racketeering laws is rediculous, the threat of being bankrupted by an legal battle can be at least as coercive as the threat of having your legs broken with a baseball bat, so why should one be legal, and the other not?

      Because litigation is the government approved method of coercion. Threatening someone with physical violence (at least, when not applied by the government as when the death penalty is

      • Because litigation is the government approved method of coercion. Threatening someone with physical violence (at least, when not applied by the government as when the death penalty is meted out) is NOT government approved.
        Swinging baseball bats is legal too, its the context that matters - the same is true of litigation.

    • Re:Sony V Scimeca (Score:2, Flamebait)

      by blindbat ( 189141 )
      Because judges are lawyers and don't like to slap even dirty lawyers hands (experience with frivilous lawsuits will show you this).

      Because many lawmakers are lawyers and don't like to slap even dirty lawyers hands.

  • Coerce how? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by h4rm0ny ( 722443 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:46PM (#8893150) Journal
    From the article: ... advocacy groups and lawyers have received enough consumer complaints to prompt the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Stanford Center for Internet and Society to launch an informational website apprising crackdown targets of their legal rights. EFF says innocent people are settling with DirecTV for no other purpose than to avoid costly litigation.

    It seems the coercian involves people preferring to settle than rather than pay the costs for defending themselves. From an article linked to from the above:

    At that point, the settlement price tag jumps to $10,000 -- still less than the typical cost of paying a lawyer to go to trial against a corporate powerhouse in federal court.

    Is it now actually the case that in the US the law is too expensive for people to use? This is how it appears from the stories I read on /. and elsewhere.

    • Re:Coerce how? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Planesdragon ( 210349 ) <<su.enotsleetseltsac> <ta> <todhsals>> on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:58PM (#8893235) Homepage Journal
      Is it now actually the case that in the US the law is too expensive for people to use? This is how it appears from the stories I read on /. and elsewhere.

      It's not "too expensive." It's just "expensive." You can always get a lawyer--quite literally, if you can't afford one, you can get one. Even in civil suits. In each case, talk to the presiding judge and say "I'm poor, I need help."

      That said--any passing student of game theory can appreciate why it would be a very bad idea to insinuate us from the cost of doing justice. If you take $500 from me and don't do what I paid you for, I don't want to spend more than $500 getting it back.

      • Re:Coerce how? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mdwebster ( 158623 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:37PM (#8893463)
        In many parts of the country you will be poorly served by a public defender. This is a cut-and-paste from a blog comment [dailykos.com] talking about an NPR story on Friday:

        Today, NPR covered the situation in Lousiana. In that state, public defenders are paid for by parishes. The money comes from (a portion of) fees collected from traffic violations. That's it. Though there is a minimal amount of state money sent to the parishes, it's done without regard to caseload or need. The sparse funds are then paid out to private firms, mostly through flat-fee contracts, where the firms agree to take on any and all cases for one fixed price.


        The result would be hilarious, were it not so deadly serious. The average public defender there is saddled with over 600 felony cases a year. This includes capital murder cases. In the examples cited today, they covered an attorney who was given 11 minutes to prepare for a murder trial -- on a day when she had to deal with over twenty other cases. When the attorney complained, the judge gave her another hour to prepare, but refused to give her time to find or call experts for her client. Less than eight hours later, her client was sentenced to life behind bars. And that's not an extraordinary case. The attorney went on to the next of her 400+ active cases.

        Louisiana is far from the only state in this kind of situation. In fact, flat-fee justice is spreading as state after state looks for a way to trim costs. After all, people don't call the state up and complain that defendants aren't get a fair trial. Heck no, people want blood. Louisiana, which can't find the funds to pay public defenders, finds more than 300% more to pay district attorneys -- this despite the fact that more than 80% of cases use a court appointed defense attorney. So, on average, each defense lawyer is carrying three times the case load, and facing a district attorney with three times as long to prepare.

        Virginia, a state that pays all defense funds from the state, might look better on the surface, but Virginia uses flat fees in another way. Attorneys are paid for the type of case. For example, $395 for a class "B" felony. That rate doesn't change whether the client pleads guilty or innocent, and it's no different whether there's a plea agreement on the first day, or months of work leading up to a trial. So, where is the incentive for the lawyers? Plead everything. Fast.


        Tell me you still think justice will be served with a public defender ...

    • Re:Coerce how? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:00PM (#8893243)
      It's especially expensive that DirecTV gets to file the lawsuit in the court of their choosing, you'd have to send a lawyer to that destination in order to just motion for it to be moved into your hometown.
      • If that's true (got proof?), then you are right: the crux of the problem is in requiring people to travel. If you commit a crime in a certain area, then you should only be liable for it in that area in terms of court. No court should have jurisdiction over a crime that occurred outside its normal area.

        I think the same should apply for civil lawsuits. Did someone do something to make you mad? Then you have to sue them in the county where that occurred. This would, I know, hit corps especially hard, sin

        • Re:Coerce how? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ultranova ( 717540 )

          That said, I am generally against piracy of cable. I don't think that the arguments that apply to music apply to cable in even the smallest regard. If you steal cable/satelite access, then you deserve to be punished if you are caught.

          How could I possibly be stealing satellite signal when it's broadcasted to my home whether I want it or not ?

          If a newspaper company would mass-mail their newspaper to everyone in an area, and I wasn't a subscriber, would I be a thief if I read it ? It did came in from my ma

          • Okay, I hadn't seen it from that perspective. Like the sibling post, you argue that satelite is a broadcast signal.

            While I can certainly agree that it is broadcast, I think th similarities between cable and satelite are deeper than your sibling poster thinks (of course I could be wrong--it happens).

            First, satelite does go to great lengths to establish a physical infrastructure. Just because there aren't wires to your home doesn't mean that they haven't spent a lot of money trying to make a service (whic
      • It didn't matter to me, They sent me a letter a year ago. I bought some smartcard equipment to reasearch and impliment a linux secure login system like this [linuxnet.com] for example...

        After consulting a lawyer I sent them a VERY RUDE letter and even dared them to sue me or do anything in court as I was going to counter sue for 10X whatever they were asking plus damages...

        I heard no response cince. but if they try anything I will be taking them for a HUGE amount of money and bad publicity as I will make it very publi
        • Exactly what would be the basis of your counter claim? Perhaps you should go do some reading about this stuff before you end up having an example made out of you.

          Even if they didn't manage to win against you, all they need to do is show the document "If you sue me, I will sue you for 10X!" and your goose is cooked. It's likely the judge will just say "Sir, you can't sue someone just because they sue you." and throw it out. Even if it didn't come to that, simply showing the court your letter would demonstra
        • I know it's offtopic, but: Since you were sued, I assume you were in the US. What kind of reader were you using and where'd you get it? I've been looking for one to do the same sort of secure login system (except on FreeBSD).
    • It tends to be, for civil cases. They are very different from criminal cases. The biggest difference is the burden of proof. In a criminal case the burden is beyond a resonable doubt. That means that all you need to do to be found innocent is to create a reasonable doubt that you comitted the crime. In the case of a weak porsecution case, you might not need to present a defense at all.

      Civil cases are to a perponderance of the evidence, meaning which ever side has slightly more evidence for their case than

  • Alot of them are goign to switch companies (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nevek ( 196925 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:47PM (#8893158) Homepage
    Directv just shut down the P3 Stream, this is going to send alot of people to Dishnetwork because the P4 card has not been fully "explored" yet.

    The canadian sattelite company Expressvue, used to go to peoples houses and offer them money for their "grey dishes" they then would overcharge them for their inferior service..

    Expressvue ended up selling all of the "Liberated" units to dealers in Toronto. Damn hyprocrits.

    Some of the actions taken by these sattelite companies to curtail pirating is worse than pirating itself.

  • Too bad for him (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:48PM (#8893166)
    Instead, he claims, he was no better than a 'bag man for the mob'; coercing people into paying money for stealing services when he had no proof whether they had really done so."

    If only he hadn't blown the whistle, he could have had attractive career opportunities at the RIAA.

  • It's an open standard, silly. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:52PM (#8893191)
    DirecTV's lawsuits are aimed at people who bought ISO 7816 Smart Card equipment from vendors who also distributed DirecTV's access control software, or otherwise published information about how to get around it.

    See, this is the slippery slope. In court, it's okay to present evidence that somebody purchased something as proof that the person used that item. However the ISO 7816 Smart Card Standard is more or less "dual-use" equipment. It's an ISO standard, afterall, so it's used in other applications like credit cards, security systems, and ID systems.

    That's DirecTV's mistake. They can't quite get courts to accept their claim that the only use of Smart Card equipment is to emulate their cards. There are other uses, so you can't presume that without another piece of proof. Since DirecTV doesn't have that other piece, the lawsuit is over and they lose.

    Sure, a majority of people who suddenly got interested in ISO 7816 were people who wanted to hack DirecTV... but how is a court to know whether it has a member of that majority, or the minority who had legit other uses in front of it? Without additional proof, the presumption that it was a legit use goes uncontested, and the court rules for the defense...

  • A Good Step (Score:5, Insightful)

    by osewa77 ( 603622 ) <naijasms@gma[ ]com ['il.' in gap]> on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:53PM (#8893203) Homepage
    When people speak out on issues like this, it helps managers in big corporations to .. err ... be careful to clean out their closets. What you don't want people to know about, don't do. Don't hide behind your 'corporate position'.

  • Constructive dismissal (Score:5, Interesting)

    by debrain ( 29228 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @03:53PM (#8893205) Journal
    If you quit because you were doing something illegal in your job, you typically (but not always; it's state legislation) have whistleblower status. Sounds like he may have been racketeering.

    Mind you, it isn't illegal to accuse people of doing something illegal or trespassing if you have suspicion that they indeed were. I'm really curious as to where the limits to the "use" of the law meet the "availability" of it.

    When Big Business can win by costing too much to litigate against, you are deprived of the fundamental rule of law, by being unable to meet legal remedy.
    • When Big Business can win by costing too much to litigate against, you are deprived of the fundamental rule of law, by being unable to meet legal remedy.

      Welcome to America, the land where your rights are tied to size of your bank account.

  • No way to prove anything (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:03PM (#8893263)
    Playing the devil's advocate, when it comes to satellite signals, theres no way to prove a damned thing. Its just like radio, its not like the local rock station knows what you do with the signal they put out on the airwaves, and neither does direct when you hack them. What they do know is that there are people with 6 receivers being billed at their address (im canadian so i dont know direct's details, bell did the same thing). Basically they give you the same programming on another receiver dirt cheap, and people it ends up being 6 houses with 1 receiver paying 10 bucks for all the programming.

    Again, in all fairness to Directv, i dont think they have any real goals in eliminating legitimate techie uses of smart card stuff, but they couldn't care less about eliminating it if did get rid of all piracy. But they'll never get rid of it.

    "Piratability" of the satellite is its main selling point. At Future Shop (where i believe the teenagers there make a commission) sold my father on Bell over Starchoice on the grounds that Bell gives you everything minus PPV for 6 months, and then you just find a friend at work or something who does satellite cards and get it all free. A girl my father didn't even know, a representative for the store sold stuff based on piracy.

    I don't think star choice would be dying in canada like it is now if it could be pirated as easily as bell. Its completely unhackable, or let me say not even worth the trouble when bell is so easy.

    Directv has interests in money. There is no money in eliminating piracy - its suicide - all new subscribers and even most directv folks will go to dish for the free wrestling. Directv has an interest in money, and extorting it from anyone is probably the most profitable way of going about it. If this guy didn't realize it, he's a moron. And if he honestly believes directv won't keep this held up in court as long as possible, he is also a moron.

    *anonymous coward steps down from podium*
    • in me says that bell does the minimum required to make sure the PPV people don't freak out and pull their content. This allows them to gain a monopoly share with a pirated dish. Over the next year or two as they now effectively dominate the market, you will see them crack down on pirating and ultimately release a "new" reciever free to everybody - this upgrade will include callback authentication of services effectively rendering pirating impossible.

      The current recievers are a joke to crack, although I que

  • My Advice: (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Sophrosyne ( 630428 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:19PM (#8893366) Homepage
    Don't use their products. If they want to screw people around with underhanded tactics in the name of a couple bucks- find someone else to deal with.
    Sure it is their livelihood, and I bet it feels bad for them when someone gets something from them for free... it's one of the risks they took when they started their business dealing with an unlimited "resource" like microwaves (I think that's what those satalites use right?). If they want to fix the problem- make better hardware, better software.
    Sometimes it's better for a company to spend a little more at the beginning in order to avoid the consequences down the road of being cheap .

  • If they would SELL the services in the first place (Score:4, Insightful)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @04:43PM (#8893497)
    There would be less of a problem with a "need" to have hack-cards if DirecTV would only sell the services in the first place. Mainly, network feeds. I'm pretty much barred from getting DirecTV because I want it to have CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox. The local affiliates have a policy of "we don't grant waivers", and on top of that, they are not full affiliates anyway (pre-empting prime-time network shows willy-nilly and never re-showing them. If DirecTV could find some way around the local broadcasters' censorship and send network content in the satellite signal, that would be a big plus.
    • There would be less of a problem with a "need" to have hack-cards if DirecTV would only sell the services in the first place. Mainly, network feeds. I'm pretty much barred from getting DirecTV because I want it to have CBS/ABC/NBC/Fox.

      Funny, I've had local channels via DirecTV's satellite service for about a year now, and it looks like they have more packages with local broadcasting than without.

      http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/packages/Landing.ds p [directv.com]

      The local affiliates have a policy of "we don't grant
      • Funny, I've had local channels via DirecTV's satellite service for about a year now, and it looks like they have more packages with local broadcasting than without.

        I've never wanted the local channels. I've wanted the network feeds for the major networks that you can get with the waivers. The so-called "local" channels are too distant to bother to broadcast a strong television signal, but they do have blanket "no-waiver" policies.

        That's the reason I've had cable for years: the so-called "local" stations

  • Let freedom ring (Score:3, Insightful)

    by max born ( 739948 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @05:01PM (#8893609)
    In the bigger picture DirecTV should have no right to control information it beams over public airways. Unfortunately, the television industry, like the record industry before it, will die a slow and litigious death.

    I urge everyone, download DirecTV programs to your hard drive, convert to mpegs using transcode, [uni-goettingen.de]and distribute on gnutella [gnutelliums.com].

    That'll learn them.

    Let the world change. Out with old.

  • It is on their property.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Mr. Cancelled ( 572486 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @05:06PM (#8893648)
    I've always had a really hard time trying to side w/the satellite providers on the issue of piracy.

    I mean, in the case of cable piracy, you're exploiting a service which you're paying for the priveledge of. In other words, you wouldn't have cable if someone hand't hooked it up and ran wires.

    It's the same with stealing electricty. It's not just laying around on your property waiting to be used... You have to pay for the priveledge of having electricty, just like you have to continue to pay in order to use it.

    But with satellite it's different. They're shooting their signal across my land, so to my twisted way of thinking, there's not a lot of difference between me putting up an antenna to catch on-air broadcast feeds (ie, NBC, ABC, etc), and me buying a receivier and antenna to receive the satellite waves that are there for the taking.

    I know there's a lot more to it from the legal point of view as well as from the ethical standpoint, but to me it's hard to really call someone who just buys the equipment and sets it up in their own home a criminal. They didn't run a line to illegally tap into some companies pay-for-use system. They didn't splice into someone elses services.

    They simply installed the neccesary equipment to receive what's already on their property.

    In one sense, I have to say that I can't really see why the satellite companies don't just sell the equipment and then make their money in premium services and advertising (as tv networks have been doing for some time now, with amazing success!). Give the standard programming away, and charge those who want more (this could probably be acconplished by encrypting certain streams, and sending out the free ones as unencrypted or something. I'm not satellite techie, but it seems fairly straight-forward).

    In other words, give the razors away, and sell razor blades.

    Of course the capitalist side of me says "That's no way to run a business", and thinks of all the backend licensing and copyright work that would be involved in order to make something like this happen.

    But still... I have a hard labelling those who choose to freely receive what's already being broadcast to them as criminals. The day there's no more rape or murder in the world, that's the day I'll start considering satellite piracy a real crime.

    Not trying to troll... Just thinking out loud...
    • >Give the standard programming away, and charge those who want more (this could probably be acconplished by encrypting certain streams, and sending out the free ones as unencrypted or something. I'm not satellite techie, but it seems fairly straight-forward).

      This is how it works in Europe.

      Unfortunately, in North America, things are generally screwed up so badly between laws and moronic satellite companies that everyone is screwed.

      For example, Canadians have been barred for a lifetime from paying a cen

    • Or, to turn it around... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by gillbates ( 106458 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @10:07PM (#8895018) Homepage Journal

      Why doesn't DirecTV owe me damages? They are irradiating my property with microwave radiation without my consent.

      I'm sorry, but this is a classic case of IIA (Idiots In Action). These guys are like the kid who hits his baseball through your window and then calls the police claiming you stole his baseball. And "of course" you're guilty - you're in possession of "stolen property". But who put it there?

      The reason why I'm unsympathetic is because DirecTV set themselves up for piracy - there's no physical control over the infrastructure, and the signal is available everywhere. Did they really believe that their signal wasn't going to get hacked? The military learned a long time ago that when it comes to broadcast commo, key control is of the utmost importance. How DirecTV thought they could maintain a secure distro channel when they passed out keys to the general public remains a mystery.

  • New Job Offer (Score:5, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Saturday April 17, 2004 @05:24PM (#8893752)
    he was no better than a 'bag man for the mob'; coercing people into paying money for stealing services when he had no proof whether they had really done so.

    I understand that SCO has just made him a job offer.

  • Finally (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 17, 2004 @05:28PM (#8893782)
    Someone referring to the blindly aggressive tactics of corporations as "the mob", I love it!

    You know why? Because it's accurate.

    Human beings are not as complicated as they might wish themselves to be. Gatherings of men in one context are going to be just like gatherings of men in another. It always seems to end up badly whenever we allow power to go to the hands of a few. Over and over and over and over again.

    It's what human beings turn into whenever they get the opportunity. Hence the Constitution, and all the other lessons history has forgotten. We're just doing it all over again, just more thoroughly with the aid of technology. What does the future have in store for us? Maybe we can all see it in our peripheral thoughts in a hazy kind of way. THat something just isn't right. Pass the Zoloft.

  • "Everything is permissible..." (the ethics of /.) (Score:4, Insightful)

    by superultra ( 670002 ) on Sunday April 18, 2004 @12:20AM (#8895493) Homepage
    I know I'm generalizing the slashdot community here, but I find it quite amusing that when someone posts something about how they freely download MP3s or games, a dozen anonymous cowards respond with some attempt at "You're stealing my job" or "You're a thief." The pro-piracy comments are often modded as trolls.

    And yet, here, the highest modded comments on DirecTV stories are generally those that include some kind of variation of, "They're putting the airwaves in my backyard, I just happen to be catching them in my satellite dish!" Or, "It's not technically illegal to just capture it from the airwaves!" I think it's safe to say, this being slashdot, that some of these people are software engineers or the like. I wonder if these software engineers feel the same way about people in foreign countries who break no laws in their own countries but still pirate software.

    Just because you can do something, even if it is not illegal, doesn't mean you should. I know this is unpopular to say, but you're still receiving something that the producers intended to receive compensation for. They are doing something, even if that is just retransmitting. Whereas FM radio and local stations do not expect compensation, DirecTV does, so the analogy that it's "in the air" doesn't really make sense ethically. If you think it's too much to pay for, patronize someone else or don't watch the TV. Just because DirecTV is a big company, or it's easy to take advantage of a service they're providing, doesn't mean it's right. Saying they're a big company and citing their scrupulous tactics is merely a justification, an excuse. It doesn't make stealing right. It might be cool to show off to your friends, it might even be legal, but receiving something you didn't pay for when the party providing the service fully expects compensation is stealing. I know DirecTV does some very questionable things, but like for like doesn't accomplish anything. Patronizing a competitor who does not utilize those tactics is ultimately far more effective than merely stealing service.

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