Boost Mobile

[Derek K]

But again to my point, it actually was never at all "hard" to obtain hackable satellite hardware, particularly of the DTV variety. Box stores were loaded with the stuff. It only required money, but a few 100 was nothing to someone salivating over getting all of those channels unlocked. Dealers were getting pallets of the stuff and some were separating cards from rx's and hacking themselves or sending them out. They had customers willing to pay ~$1,000.00. Hacking was at one time so synonymous with DTV that it was common water cooler fare.

Again for DiSH I seem to remember there was some kind of a circuit board adapter that would be inserted into the card slot to use a card "emulator," rather than simple hack and reinsertion of stock card. Not simple, not unobtrusive, and not widely deployed. DiSH fought its own piracy though a series of card swaps, but I don't think it was because the cards themselves were being hacked and reinserted like with DTV. DiSH had an advantage in its security being inherently harder to crack. I believe that really the only reason it was at all was from a Nagra insider selling secrets.

FTA was "sold all over the place" but was still never mainstream in any way close to volumes of DTV & DiSH.

Yes but the days of going to Radio shack, Circuit City or even Best Buy to buy hardware for unethical purposes was in the early 2000's

As installations became more complex, and we got into multi room systems with free installation under the lease model, most big box stores went to an installation certificate model. You either went to one of these stores, either signed up in the store and a DIRECTV/DISH installer would being out and install your hardware with a contract, or you bought a piece of paper with an 800 number on it which allowed you to sign up for service. There would be a promotion code on the piece of paper, which would give the store credit for making that sale.

As far as DISH's system eventually being broken, there was rumor going around that it was DIRECTV who broke their system to take the pressure off DIRECTV about doing something about their own issues, With both systems being compromised, there was no more finger pointing. Besides by the late 2000's DISH was the more desirable service to have.

I am not going to get into the different methods out there, but when several FTA manufactures where importing equipment by the hundreds of thousands that was perfectly legal, we will really never know how bad the problem really was at the time.

DISH was never really able to shut down the FTA boxes, or they would have done so. Instead DISH's way of shutting down these boxes was through litigation, and through their signal integrity department which did nothing except threaten people with lawsuits and try to get people to settle with them for a few thousand dollars and then post a press release on their sat scams website.

 

[navychop]

there was rumor going around that it was DIRECTV who broke their system to take the pressure off DIRECTV

Didn't a court make such finding, and then awarded something like $1 in damages?

 

[telstar_1]

Yes but the days of going to Radio shack, Circuit City or even Best Buy to buy hardware for unethical purposes was in the early 2000's

As installations became more complex, and we got into multi room systems with free installation under the lease model, most big box stores went to an installation certificate model. You either went to one of these stores, either signed up in the store and a DIRECTV/DISH installer would being out and install your hardware with a contract, or you bought a piece of paper with an 800 number on it which allowed you to sign up for service. There would be a promotion code on the piece of paper, which would give the store credit for making that sale.

As far as DISH's system eventually being broken, there was rumor going around that it was DIRECTV who broke their system to take the pressure off DIRECTV about doing something about their own issues, With both systems being compromised, there was no more finger pointing. Besides by the late 2000's DISH was the more desirable service to have.

I am not going to get into the different methods out there, but when several FTA manufactures where importing equipment by the hundreds of thousands that was perfectly legal, we will really never know how bad the problem really was at the time.

DISH was never really able to shut down the FTA boxes, or they would have done so. Instead DISH's way of shutting down these boxes was through litigation, and through their signal integrity department which did nothing except threaten people with lawsuits and try to get people to settle with them for a few thousand dollars and then post a press release on their sat scams website.

So are you saying that you can today simply purchase an FTA rx and watch DiSH on it, with relative technical ease? If so, please note that we don't want to discuss any details on how to steal TV in 2026, which would violate terms of this site. If this is so then a yes would be about as far as that could go.

I saw the arising of DBS piracy as a sort of follow-on to C-band piracy, though that had been largely squelched by 1994 when DTV debuted. There was definitely a public mindset linking satellite to hacking. Then DTV debuted and it was much the same paradigm of buying a system for, typically $100s, wherein to that mindset the viewing then ought to be for free. That it turned out to be easily hackable only fueled all of that along. So then DiSH comes out, also initially wanting $100s to buy in, but then it wises up and starts the move to 'leased" hardware, which discouraged piracy both by the low entry cost and the non-owning of the system. Then the increasing demand for multi-room viewing along with the hardening of systems against hacking pretty much spelled the end of it on any kind of broad basis.

 

[telstar_1]

Didn't a court make such finding, and then awarded something like $1 in damages?

To my memory a guy at Nagravision, which was DiSH's security provider, sold out a hack on what was otherwise considered a very secure system for a sum of $50,000.00. I don't recall the money as having come from DTV but rather from a hacking interest.

 

[Derek K]

So are you saying that you can today simply purchase an FTA rx and watch DiSH on it, with relative technical ease? If so, please note that we don't want to discuss any details on how to steal TV in 2026, which would violate terms of this site. If this is so then a yes would be about as far as that could go.

I saw the arising of DBS piracy as a sort of follow-on to C-band piracy, though that had been largely squelched by 1994 when DTV debuted. There was definitely a public mindset linking satellite to hacking. Then DTV debuted and it was much the same paradigm of buying a system for, typically $100s, wherein to that mindset the viewing then ought to be for free. That it turned out to be easily hackable only fueled all of that along. So then DiSH comes out, also initially wanting $100s to buy in, but then it wises up and starts the move to 'leased" hardware, which discouraged piracy both by the low entry cost and the non-owning of the system. Then the increasing demand for multi-room viewing along with the hardening of systems against hacking pretty much spelled the end of it on any kind of broad basis.

I explained that already. Dish pretty much killed off the FTA boxes, not by securing their signal, but rather suing the FTA equipment manufacturers. It later came out that the FTA manufactures where going on the pirate TV sites, writing and releasing the files to load on to a thumb drive to program the FTA box. Once the software was no longer being updated and released on a regular basis, it was game over.

I can tell you during the late 2000's there was a lot more FTA boxes on the market than satellite equipment that could be used for other purposes.

I do not know if any satellite service today in the united states that has a hacking problem today.

Again all satellite piracy these days is pretty much non existent. With the jail broken fire sticks out there and other illegal IPTV services, the focus is going after the IPTV TV providers and shutting down their streams and services. Password sharing for streaming services is also high up on the list these days also.

I don't want to discuss piracy on this site either, as long as we don't discuss how to program a smart card, or where to buy and modify equipment, I don't think there is an issue

 

[telstar_1]

Well, all right, but this does contradict my instincts as to what went on. To state that there (at one time) were more FTA rx's tuning DBS providers' signals than providers' own proprietary rx's in homes seems wildly off.

 

[jsmit86]

I'm so old that I can remember when this thread was about Boost Mobile!

 

[Arctic_fox]

Boost is nothing more than a scam. we tried getting the $ 15.00 a month plan advertised on dish. good luck with that as it will not happen the store don't sell the plan and if you need a new phone going on the dish network they also will not sell you the $ 15.00 a month plan. i just told em to kiss my ass and we will be kicking dish itself to the curb.

 

[HipKat]

Boost is nothing more than a scam. we tried getting the $ 15.00 a month plan advertised on dish. good luck with that as it will not happen the store don't sell the plan and if you need a new phone going on the dish network they also will not sell you the $ 15.00 a month plan. i just told em to kiss my ass and we will be kicking dish it-self to the curb.

No, the store does NOT sell the plan. You have to call the Dish Boost number (855-940-4893) and set up a tech visit to switch over to the $15.00 plan, so no, it's not a scam. The best you can get from the store is $25/line

 

[Foxbat]

You have to call the Dish Boost number (855-940-4893) and set up a tech visit to switch over to the $15.00 plan

Does the Dish Tech need physical access to the phones? That would be a problem for the 2nd line on our Boost account.

 

[HipKat]

Does the Dish Tech need physical access to the phones? That would be a problem for the 2nd line on our Boost account.

He does, so he can set up the SIM/eSIM. Is that person in another area?

 

[Bobby]

Does the Dish Tech need physical access to the phones? That would be a problem for the 2nd line on our Boost account.

Fox Jr?

 

[Foxbat]

He does, so he can set up the SIM/eSIM. Is that person in another area?

Yes, some distance away. It would complicate things, I guess. We loaded the eSIMs ourselves when we switched to Boost last year, and I was able to move to my new iPhone without any assistance. But, like you noted, we're paying the $25/mo rate, not the Dish Founders rate.

I was hoping that Dish could just "flip a bit" on our existing Boost Pre-Paid accounts to make it happen, but I can understand if there is special programming behind the scenes that ties the two services together which would necessitate a more significant change.

Fox Jr?

Foxbat, Jr., yes.

 

[JSheridan]

No, the store does NOT sell the plan. You have to call the Dish Boost number (855-940-4893) and set up a tech visit to switch over to the $15.00 plan, so no, it's not a scam. The best you can get from the store is $25/line

Hey Buddy! How ya been doing?

The only reason I'm butting in here is to say that our store offers the $15 special Dish customer price and we do the sims, number transfers and set-up right here in the shop. That's probably because we're also a Dish retailer.

 

[Arctic_fox]

Hey Buddy! How ya been doing?

The only reason I'm butting in here is to say that our store offers the $15 special Dish customer price and we do the sims, number transfers and set-up right here in the shop. That's probably because we're also a Dish retailer.

i wonder how many have this plan in store i called 6 stores around me and nothing... i pay verizon $ 25.00 a month for truly unlimited data and i get a free fold 7 thanks to my job. none of the stores around me carry the dish t.v. service.

 

[HipKat]

Hey Buddy! How ya been doing?

The only reason I'm butting in here is to say that our store offers the $15 special Dish customer price and we do the sims, number transfers and set-up right here in the shop. That's probably because we're also a Dish retailer.

Yeah, you're a Dish retailer. I mean the Boost stores, specifically.

How's things going?? I'm looking at retiring at the end of the year, though I might go through the winter.

 

[HipKat]

i wonder how many have this plan in store i called 6 stores around me and nothing... i pay verizon $ 25.00 a month for truly unlimited data and i get a free fold 7 thanks to my job. none of the stores around me carry the dish t.v. service.

Again, you have to call Dish, not a Boost store, to get the $15.00 deal

 

[Arctic_fox]

Again, you have to call Dish, not a Boost store, to get the $15.00 deal

Again it would be interesting to see ho many offer it... one of the stores near me carried the 50.00 and 60.00 plans and none of the others. the 15.00 plan would not work for me since i'm a data whore

 

[HipKat]

Again it would be interesting to see ho many offer it... one of the stores near me carried the 50.00 and 60.00 plans and none of the others. the 15.00 plan would not work for me since i'm a data whore

It's unlimited talk, text, and data. Yes, premium data caps at 30GB. I stream all day, every day, and don't come near that much usage. In 2 weeks, only 3.5 GB using SXM, YT Music, and Spotify throughout the day
Why don't you just call the number I listed and get the information for yourself instead of complaining to a bunch of random message board users?

 

[JSheridan]

Yeah, you're a Dish retailer. I mean the Boost stores, specifically.

How's things going?? I'm looking at retiring at the end of the year, though I might go through the winter.

Dude, you can't retire, you're still a youngster! I've transitioned to much more computer and phone work in the store and many fewer roofs and dishes. You don't sound like the kind of guy who would be able to just sit around.