Dish network tells court News Corp unit hacked it

[nlk10010]

Too bad News Corp. doesn't have an interest in D* anymore. Maybe Charlie could have traded for a satellite.

Honestly, though, it must be that "reverse engineering" is legal (otherwise the News Corp. attorney wouldn't mention it). Of course there must also be an extremely thin line between that and (illegal) hacking.

 

[ripnbigc]

Bad news is we won't see FXHD, SpeedHD, anytime soon.

 

[Mr Tony]

merged threads

 

[jacmyoung]

Without knowing many of the facts in this case, on the surface it does appear that E* may actually have an upper-end in this litigation (perhaps a first). To be honest, the best thing that could happen is for News Corp to agree to share their DVR patents they obtained when they acquired ReplayTV and (hopefully) in order to make the TiVo lawyers go away.

That was my first thought too but does News Corp still own the ReplayTV patent now the ownership has transferred?

 

[tsduke]

Judge Urges Settlement In Dish Network Dispute With News Corp. Unit

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6550455.html

 

[drdroo]

D* went after a bunch of people for owning perfectly legal and commercially available smart card programmers on the 'possibility' that they 'could steal service' by reverse engineering/modifying their card (and encryption) to facilitate *maybe* stealing service as a result.

The DMCA does apply regardless of if you're 'in the sector' or not. Reverse engineering someone's conditional access system definitely is the same concept they were suing over, no matter the intent. The theft of service was merely one count amongst reverse engineering in their lawsuits.

Apparently D* (or at least their parent and encryption provider) is no better than the people they were trying to sue, if anything they're much worse.

 

[flyingsquirrel]

Bad news is we won't see FXHD, SpeedHD, anytime soon.

This suit does NOT have anything to do with channel Carriage. I believe this suit was filed in like 2002 or somthing. SINCE THEN, the following HD carriage deals have been negotiated with FOX:

National Geographic (half-owned and distributed by Fox)
Big Ten Network (half-owned and distributed by Fox)
All Fox Owned and Operated local stations
Many, if not all, Fox Regional Sports Channels
Fox Reality Channel
More that I am not thinking of

FHHD and Speed are tied up in one of two other disputes between Fox and Dish:

1) Fox is mad that Fox News Channel was removed from the lowest AT tier
2) Fox wants E* to carry Fox Business Channel in SD and HD. E* wants no part of either. This dispute is as much political as anything else. Ergen is a high profile Liberal. Fox News and Fox Business, are, well .... not liberal.

Those two are also related.

As I understand it, NDS is not in the same division of News Corp that the Fox entities are. Fox is an American Corporation controlled by Rupert Murdoch, an American Citizen.

NDS is more closely related to BskyB, the european Satellite provider. Also part of the News Corp "web", but kinda on the other side of the world.

The reason that Dish posits that NDS hacked Dish is as follows (from one of the above entries):

1) In the 1990s, D* security was non-existant. NDS was, I believe, the provider of that system that D* used. But I could be wrong.

2) D* was talking to E* about using E* security, which at the time was a lot better than what NDS had developed for D*.

So, what did NDS do? According to Dish, they hacked Dish to show D* that E*'s system was no better than NDS's system.

If this is actually what happened, this could be an open-and-shut case and the damages awarded Dish could be upwards of $500 million, and they could be trebled.

My guess is that in the room are federal agents, and that one or both parties could be brought up on charges of violating the DMCA by the feds, or by the programming providers.

I can't believe this went to trial. But now that it has, it's going to be messy and a lot of fun to watch.

 

[RVD420]

Well if you read the lastest on Multichannel news you will see things are not looking well for NDS

For instance, an NDS engineer from Haifa, Israel, already testified Thursday that he’s part of the firm’s “Black Hat” squad that hacked Dish’s security cards; while Nagravision’s chief testified that he employs a Canadian hacker that was once prosecuted for piracy by NDS.

 

[mike123abc]

For instance, an NDS engineer from Haifa, Israel, already testified Thursday that he’s part of the firm’s “Black Hat” squad that hacked Dish’s security cards;

Didn't they use an electron tunneling microscope to read the roms, which later got mysteriously published on the internet?

 

[llzel]

yes and the guy that leaked it was prosecuted

 

[jacmyoung]

...Apparently D* (or at least their parent and encryption provider) is no better than the people they were trying to sue, if anything they're much worse.

First off this has nothing to do with D*.

Secondly did D* win those cases? If so it seems an open shut case for E* too. The difference is D* was after individuals, E* is after the big fish.

 

[harshness]

I guess this begs the question of whether or not NDS is currently violating the DMCA with any of their customers/competitors.

 

[drdroo]

First off this has nothing to do with D*.

Secondly did D* win those cases? If so it seems an open shut case for E* too. The difference is D* was after individuals, E* is after the big fish.

It kind of does though, it is all the same deal nowadays if memory serves. D* is merely a licensor of NDS's encryption technology. Which also makes me wonder if maybe Kudelski should be going after NDS instead of E*?

My point was namely that NDS is apparently admitting they reverse engineered E*'s encryption technology. For D*'s lawsuits against individuals, they sued customers for allegedly reverse engineering encryption technology from NDS in violation of the DMCA. "Theft of Service" was an entirely different count. As far as I know, in the DMCA, reverse engineering a conditional access system (even for the sake of doing it) is prohibited, regardless of how trivial the technology or the reasoning in doing so.

I appreciate the irony. D* claims one who has a device that in and of itself cannot be used to defeat their encryption technology as the 'dark horse', yet their encryption company (under the same umbrella) willfully funded the reverse engineering of competition's signals without remorse. It's just a fun game where the gun owner is an instant murderer, yet NDS shoots someone and they're a hero in their own eyes.

E* can and should go after the bigger fish. I do hope E* is successful in this. Canal+ went after NDS for something similar if memory serves back in the early 2000's. I forget what the result was though.

 

[drdroo]

I guess this begs the question of whether or not NDS is currently violating the DMCA with any of their customers/competitors.

I wouldn't be surprised. There are other encryption providers out there that NDS needs to 'keep track of'.

 

[RVD420]

It kind of does though, it is all the same deal nowadays if memory serves. D* is merely a licensor of NDS's encryption technology. Which also makes me wonder if maybe Kudelski should be going after NDS instead of E*?

My point was namely that NDS is apparently admitting they reverse engineered E*'s encryption technology. For D*'s lawsuits against individuals, they sued customers for allegedly reverse engineering encryption technology from NDS in violation of the DMCA. "Theft of Service" was an entirely different count. As far as I know, in the DMCA, reverse engineering a conditional access system (even for the sake of doing it) is prohibited, regardless of how trivial the technology or the reasoning in doing so.

I appreciate the irony. D* claims one who has a device that in and of itself cannot be used to defeat their encryption technology as the 'dark horse', yet their encryption company (under the same umbrella) willfully funded the reverse engineering of competition's signals without remorse. It's just a fun game where the gun owner is an instant murderer, yet NDS shoots someone and they're a hero in their own eyes.

E* can and should go after the bigger fish. I do hope E* is successful in this. Canal+ went after NDS for something similar if memory serves back in the early 2000's. I forget what the result was though.

The End Result of Canal+ going after NDS was Rupe bought out Canal+ at a premium price to drop the lawsuit.

 

[drdroo]

The End Result of Canal+ going after NDS was Rupe bought out Canal+ at a premium price to drop the lawsuit.

That'd explain why it kinda 'went away'.

In all seriousness, E* should buy Tivo, not for THAT reason necessarily, but just because owning Tivo's IP would allow Dish to add some features as well as still make money from the existing business (like they are with Sling).

 

[nsaspook]

It kind of does though, it is all the same deal nowadays if memory serves. D* is merely a licensor of NDS's encryption technology. Which also makes me wonder if maybe Kudelski should be going after NDS instead of E*?

My point was namely that NDS is apparently admitting they reverse engineered E*'s encryption technology. For D*'s lawsuits against individuals, they sued customers for allegedly reverse engineering encryption technology from NDS in violation of the DMCA. "Theft of Service" was an entirely different count. As far as I know, in the DMCA, reverse engineering a conditional access system (even for the sake of doing it) is prohibited, regardless of how trivial the technology or the reasoning in doing so.

I appreciate the irony. D* claims one who has a device that in and of itself cannot be used to defeat their encryption technology as the 'dark horse', yet their encryption company (under the same umbrella) willfully funded the reverse engineering of competition's signals without remorse. It's just a fun game where the gun owner is an instant murderer, yet NDS shoots someone and they're a hero in their own eyes.

E* can and should go after the bigger fish. I do hope E* is successful in this. Canal+ went after NDS for something similar if memory serves back in the early 2000's. I forget what the result was though.

I think this case is foolish. Both companies have "black hat' NDS Offices Kudelski Group operations in countries where theres no DMCA and there is a large hole for crypto research in the US. US Code : Title 17, Section 1201. So the mere fact at a company hacks another providers cards means nothing. It's the dissemination of the work thats in question.

 

[Stargazer]

Looks like Dish Network is looking to pay off their Tivo fine.

 

[nsaspook]

I think this case is foolish. Both companies have "black hat' NDS Offices Kudelski Group operations in countries where theres no DMCA and there is a large hole for crypto research in the US. US Code : Title 17, Section 1201. So the mere fact at a company hacks another providers cards means nothing. It's the dissemination of the work thats in question.

Bingo!