EchoStar Files Suit Over FTA Boxes

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I saw this disclaimer on Viewsat site:

IMPORTANT > We do not provide or condone the use of third party software. Using third party software maybe illegal and void product warrantee. Do not email or call asking about Dishnet, DirecTV, etc. Our satellite receivers are designed and intended for 100% legal use only. We will refuse sale to anyone whom we believe intends to use our product illegally or sell our products for illegal use.
with that it seems to me dish dont have leg to stand on cause as i understood from what i read dish claiming recievers shipped from veiwtech veiwsat with 3rd party firmware on them
 
with that it seems to me dish dont have leg to stand on cause as i understood from what i read dish claiming recievers shipped from veiwtech veiwsat with 3rd party firmware on them

I just bought a new Pansat 2700A an it had on its original software. I cant see no manufacturer shipping their product with illegal software. Maybe they busted some reseller who pre-programmed the receivers with 3rd party software and place them back in Viewsat original package ... that is the only way I see this and it is is so only a dumb jury will side with dish. FTA is a great hobby and let's keep it that way. My wife call me the satellite man for I llove the hoppy. I am glad I am in the Caribbean.
 
Viewsat has always been about hacking.

Lousy motor control, no blind scan.

Oh ya, BTW when Viewsat overhauled the GUI on the Platnium 2000 the new GUI was available with hacks months before the new GUI changes were implemented in factory software available from the viewsat manufacture home page.
 
I saw this disclaimer on Viewsat site:

IMPORTANT > We do not provide or condone the use of third party software. Using third party software maybe illegal and void product warrantee. Do not email or call asking about Dishnet, DirecTV, etc. Our satellite receivers are designed and intended for 100% legal use only. We will refuse sale to anyone whom we believe intends to use our product illegally or sell our products for illegal use.

They are saying that to skirt the issue. I know of companies that say that on their websita and when threy send you the product they put a piece of paper in there with how to get the softweare or they send it to you in an e-mail. When I got the Buzz receiver a while back they sent me an e-mail and had a piece of paper in there...
 
Thats the sad part of this whole issue. Some people feel that if you have X box you're a hacker. I have a few PM's from people asking me for the newest hack for the CS8000. They assume I steal which the closest thing to hack software that has ever been in any box I own has been

-when I had a KUSat 2600a (Digiwave 6800 clone) and I loaded old hack software in it (this is after Dish went Nagra2) to gain USALS and AC-3 output for PBS. That's all I gained
-when I got the CS8000 there was no Satellite software in the box so I had to download hack software. The good part was it was a two piece setup...one to get the sat software (which i loaded) and the 2nd piece was the illegal stuff (which stayed out of the box)

I have worked with many boxes in the last 3+ years and I'd say a fair amount (75%+) you can tell are for the hack market. When a box is on version 1.66 for hack and 1.09 for legal what the heck does that tell you? There are also these fly by night companies that have 3 boxes and that's it. Then they're gone.
 
Wow... way to go Dish! But as many of you have already mentioned, I hope this doesn't kill the true FTA market. Several manufacturers will probably just get out of the market as they don't want to deal with the hacking issues. I'd like to see the 4:2:2 HD market of FTA receivers soon!

This lawsuit does sound like the company Viewtech was buying Viewsats, loading them up for people and then selling them.
 
It is definitely about time for Dishnetwork to take action.

When we had Dishnetwork installed the installer took note of my 90cm dish and motor and the Primestar dish. Then he saw my Traxis 3500. He tried to convience my that I could get "extra" channels for free with my Traxis.

It is pretty bad when installers are trying to convince the customers to steal TV.
 
It is definitely about time for Dishnetwork to take action.

When we had Dishnetwork installed the installer took note of my 90cm dish and motor and the Primestar dish. Then he saw my Traxis 3500. He tried to convience my that I could get "extra" channels for free with my Traxis.

It is pretty bad when installers are trying to convince the customers to steal TV.

Mine stays on G10R most of the time...so I'd quickly say "yep, lots of extra channels on 123W...awesome lineup for the price!"

It is a shame that people rope the FTA folks into the bad apples of the bunch. I've gotten a few messages in the past where people ask if I was hacking to do the uplink reports, nope the DVB NIT and SDT tables are in the clear just like the channels you get off of G10R.
 
Hmmmm.......

When will the really cheap used receivers start turning up? Maybe I'll put a TV in every room.
 
Hmmmm.......

When will the really cheap used receivers start turning up? Maybe I'll put a TV in every room.
Watch out for that. If your name gets on a list - say, a list of people who bought a specific piece of equipment from a dealer who previously sold questionable equipment - you could end up in court. DTV did this to literally thousands of people who bought bottom-barrel priced atmels (for completely legit non-satellite projects) from alleged illegal sat equipment dealers (whose storefronts didn't even look to be satellite related) who were liquidating their inventory due to DTV crackdowns.
 
Its a civil lawsuit, and its typical to throw every possible allegation in. The old lawsuit against Sony for producing VCR's was settled on the basis that VCR's had a legitimate use, time shifting of tv shows, and therefor the product did not make Sony liable for possible copyright infringing purposes. No doubt Viewsat will employ the same strategy in their defence. I'm sure most makers of FTA receivers would pass that test of having a legitimate use. What I find annoying is that the satellite providers fail to take further steps to improve their encryption. There will always be those who exploit any weakness in encryption technology and its time to step up their game.
 
I should note that Nagravision is not part of this lawsuit, currently it is only NagraStar and Echostar.

I think the question is how can Dish go after the FTA companies who are not legit while not harming the legit FTA market (and hobby)

Its not an easy question and its not one that I have an answer for. I can only hope and prey that when they flip over to all MPEG4 they have a method to keep the hackers away.
 
mpeg4 will kill off all of them for a while.. alot of new purchases would need to happen.. 8PSK (DVB-S2) will kill off a looooooot more.. since few FTA boxes in the US support it.. Tubro-8PSK kills all but the ones specifically made for hacking..
 
I saw this disclaimer on Viewsat site:

IMPORTANT > We do not provide or condone the use of third party software. Using third party software maybe illegal and void product warrantee. Do not email or call asking about Dishnet, DirecTV, etc. Our satellite receivers are designed and intended for 100% legal use only. We will refuse sale to anyone whom we believe intends to use our product illegally or sell our products for illegal use.

In Michigan, its illegal to purchase fireworks that go higher than 6 feet along with some other provisions on things that go boom like fire crackers.

Yet, as your driving down M69 and enter Indiana the first bill board you see is an advertisement for fireworks that are illegal in Michigan and the place is conviently located at the next exit.

So you buy your fireworks that are illegal in Michigan, and the last thing they do after you checkout and they take your money is ask to see your Michigan drivers license and make you sign a piece of paper saying you will not light them off in Michigan

The point here is that the fireworks store knows dam well your going to take the fireworks back to Michigan and light them off, yet they still take your money because its perfectly legal because their store is located about 20 feet south of the michigan border with Indiana.

Sure there are some michigan customers who intend to light off them off in Indiana, but 99% of their michigan customers are buying fireworks for illegal purposes in Michigan.

What keeps the Fireworks store out of trouble is the fact he is in Indiana. If he where to go into Michigan, and write a receipt as if its sold in Indiana then there would be an issue.

The same thing is true for Viewsat, sure they are selling a legal receiver and if they truely cared about preventing piracy they would manufacture their receivers in a way to prevent illegal software from being loaded on the receiver.

The fact of the matter is here, which will be proven Via Discovery that Viewsat is also the one responcible for writing and distributing the illegal hack software on the internet.

Lets face the facts here, all this so called Free to Air Hobby started right around the same time when the first hack software became available. Before Illegal Hack Free to Air, very few people would even want to buy a Free to Air Receiver. You could not even give them away


I predict 3 intresting things to happen in the next few weeks....

A) This is not the first lawsuit, yes this was the most important one but I would expect to see several other Free to Air Manufactures also sued.

B) Next thing that will happen is that Echostar will ask for an injunction preventing the Free to Air manufactures from selling their equipment.

C) Once Echostar has all the Free to Air manufactures on pins and needles and are afraid to release any of their illegal software, expect to see one massive ECM.
 
In Michigan, its illegal to purchase fireworks that go higher than 6 feet along with some other provisions on things that go boom like fire crackers.

Yet, as your driving down M69 and enter Indiana the first bill board you see is an advertisement for fireworks that are illegal in Michigan and the place is conviently located at the next exit. <<SNIP>>
Claude we have the same thing in Minnesota (all the good stuff is illegal here). Exit 16 in Wisconsin (Baldwin) had Fireworks City or something like that and they send out mailers all the time and advertise on Mpls stations.

Lets face the facts here, all this so called Free to Air Hobby started right around the same time when the first hack software became available. Before Illegal Hack Free to Air, very few people would even want to buy a Free to Air Receiver. You could not even give them away[/b]
There are a fair amount of people that I know who bought FTA boxes before this whole thing started

B) Next thing that will happen is that Echostar will ask for an injunction preventing the Free to Air manufactures from selling their equipment.
How they gonna do that? The boxes have legal firmware in them. So now all of a sudden the legal fokls (us) are screwed too? F that.

C) Once Echostar has all the Free to Air manufactures on pins and needles and are afraid to release any of their illegal software, expect to see one massive ECM.
and a week later they'd be back. Unless DIsh & Bell change the encryption NOW it will continue to happen.
 
That will be great. (I am going to need more dishes or a Dish like Iceberg has) :D

I am waiting for the Fortec Passion, that may be the last FTA receiver that I truely need. :)
 
Claude I agree with you on your point B, I think this would be their ultimate goal. Once they have all the sellers afraid to sell a fta receiver, what will we have left that is legal to watch? Al-Jazeera? Piracy is wrong, and if that viewtech guy is guilty he will pay, but I just don't believe it's as big a problem as they claim. I'm afraid they are trying to destroy the hobby and this is just the beginning. What they can't get with claims of piracy, they may go after using the 'digital copyright act' law.
 
What I find annoying is that the satellite providers fail to take further steps to improve their encryption. There will always be those who exploit any weakness in encryption technology and its time to step up their game.
They are literally in a cat and mouse game. As soon as they do another ecm the hackers start working and usually have that ecm fixed in a few days, weeks, or in rare cases, months. I think they are doing about the most they can within reason - they are hindered, in part, due to the fact that they have to stay in compliance within the mpeg 2 stream to keep their hardware functioning...

I think, based on what I've read of hacking, which ain't much other than a few other forums elsewhere on the internet, the latest Direct TV signals and Powervu signals haven't been hacked for many years... So maybe Dishnetwork should team up with Direct TV or Powervu to get their encryption instead of sticking with Nagravision... Powervu would be the better option since lots more hackers are probably working on trying to hack direct tv than are trying to hack powervu since powervu doesn't have nearly as many channels up there, and the hackers could be in more serious trouble if caught since powervu is mainly used by the armed forces based on what I've read about it.

Stealing from the army would probably have pretty stiff penalities, I'd imagine.
 
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