How large is the Pirate/Hack market?

[Claude Greiner]

The problem with FTA is that nobody knew how big the problem really was since there was no shortage in FTA receivers and with competition the prices remained low.

Now since FTA no longer works, alot of people are either subscribing or looking for yellow cards to hack.

The only thing that has changed is that there is a major shortage in hackable cards. Last Summer when this was going on, us dealers could order new equipment from DISH Network and the card was hackable 100% of time. I had to be very careful in who I sold equipment to, to make sure it was going to get activated.

Today the cards coming with the receivers being shipped cannot be hacked, in additon the card that can be hacked cannot be from a receiver that was recently being used.

The only thing the hackers can use is stuff sitting in dealers inventorys from 6-8 months ago and thank god there aint much of that left.

Now I don't support hacking at all, and as a dealer im glad there is nouthing in the product im getting from DISH today that can be hacked because if the unit is hacked it does not get activated meaning I loose a commission payment.

BTW, even the 311's are coming with the new version of cards that can't be hacked

 

[miguelaqui]

Back when blue cards were the thing, I sold a 3900 and a 301. I took the money from the sale and bought a 721 with a yellow card! That's right, a 301 and 3900 got me enough to buy a 721.

 

[charper1]

so you think that sat theft has no effect on our prices? on one hand i see your point its not a phisical item being taken on the other its still revenue being lost.

That's assuming that those people stealing would have bought the same thing legit; most cases they wouldn't/don't. The very same example with downloading; they claim loses based on the assumption that those same people would have bought it if that was their only means of acquiring the item; NOT TRUE!

 

[UpAllNight]

so you think that sat theft has no effect on our prices? on one hand i see your point its not a phisical item being taken on the other its still revenue being lost.

You're wrong.

MicroSoft has it's OS and application foothold that it has today, in a very large part to early easy piracy. Ask any IT Admin from the early to mid 90's how easy it was to pirate MS products... very. Then ask the same how easy it was to pirate Novell server OS's... not nearly as easy. Novell was pricey, but far superior to MS server OS's at that time. But IT budgeting was at it's infancy, so we had to be very clever to maxmise our tiny budgets. We did it often times by using the inferior product but at a price that we could handle... free. The risks at that time were close to nil. The rewards were huge, you were a God at your company if you were giving your fellow co-workers apps that the old school management couldn't understand the benefits of in laying out the money to justify them. This is how MS and many others got there 'real' userbase built up.

Winzip was an relatively unknown app until Sys Admins realized how easy it was to use for there quite often inept coworkers. Early cracks of this app were rampant. Usage sky rocketed, once again getting it's desirable and necessary 'shelfspace' in the pc users 'supermarket'.

Same for Jasc's PaintShop. MS Word at our company was on 80 plus pc's, while we had three legit licenses. I could name numerous more examples of situations were piracy in the computer world was the sole reason why that software app is where it is today. In fact, where's Novell today? Hardly anywhere that's where. Had they been pirated early and got established and rooted into businesses when the budgets really started to get properly funded and legal departments started to demand legitimacy... they would be far bigger than they are now.

How does this relate to Dish? Easy, shelfspace. Piracy does not 'always' equate to losses. On the contrary, it can relate to far greater exposure. Are those fta users really down? I don't know, but lets say they are. Who are they more than likely to subscribe to now? I bet Dish knows fairly well through their number crunchers what the percentage of pirates are also paying subscribers. A business such as Dish, would be failing it's obligation to the bottom line, if one, you didn't try to know this, and two, if you didn't try to maximise the ratio in your favor(one way or another).

I'm not saying what I write here is absolutely true, but it is entirely possible.

 

[Smith P.]

You're vocalize well known 'conspiracy' theory what I heard many years ago, it's looks real, but we don't have any proof.
Just want add other turn in the discussions - sending RF signal to you/your property without your consent it is like polluting your frontyard and backyard ( I'm not telling about medical results of microwaving your body ) with half encrypted messages or using modern terminology - spamming.
I'd like cable co approach - they deliver all info ( video, phone, data ) by one cable and control its content normal way, not by sneaking your property and sending threatening letters as DTV or sending FBI to search your premises as Dish do.

 

[Smith P.]

We don't live in black and white world and same words have different meaning.

 

[kelboy]

You're vocalize well known 'conspiracy' theory what I heard many years ago, it's looks real, but we don't have any proof.
Just want add other turn in the discussions - sending RF signal to you/your property without your consent it is like polluting your frontyard and backyard ( I'm not telling about medical results of microwaving your body ) with half encrypted messages or using modern terminology - spamming.
I'd like cable co approach - they deliver all info ( video, phone, data ) by one cable and control its content normal way, not by sneaking your property and sending threatening letters as DTV or sending FBI to search your premises as Dish do.

wow you must really burn through the tin foil at your "premises"...

 

[Bill R]

Well I don't believe D* has been hacked

That is likely true, but DirecTV still has a BIG problem with account stacking. Part of the problem is of their own making. There is no limit to the amount of receivers on an account and they don't monitor (or enforce) a phone line requirement. There have been several big busts (over 50 receivers on an account) but there still is a lot of it gong on (with a lot smaller number of receivers on an account).

 

[Tom Bombadil]

So do E* hackers want receivers with blue cards or yellow cards, or does it matter?

I thought the yellow cards were supposed to make it more difficult to be hacked, yet a lot of the eBay action is on 301s, which I thought had the yelow smartcard.

Has anyone read any estimates of the approx size of the illegal E* market?

And is E* still sending out EMCs and how effective are they? I remember reading a couple of years ago that the EMCs were taking out a lot of hackers. And that a lot of people buying hacked receivers were getting wiped out by EMCs to the point of where it was such a pain to recover from EMCs that people were giving up on it.

From the sounds of things, it seems like the hackers are much more successful than I thought they were.

BTW: I'm not asking in order to evaluate whether I should buy a hacked system. I buy legal licenses to everything. Don't have a single piece of music or software in the house without a license.

 

[Smith P.]

Dish had show those numbers, but it hard to believe in millions hackers figure.
They could publish number of manufactured receivers and current number in subscriptions, minus in refurbishing process. But it's easy to scare us with big cannon, then provide real statistics.

 

[Derwin0]

Evidently people want a 311 with a certain ROM revision, as almost every ad for a 311 mentions that particular ROM number.

After giving away one of my 311's for nothing, I'm tempted to ebay the other one to help offset a 622 purchase, but alas I probably won't, as the wife is making noise about putting it into the basement when I finish it.

 

[Stacy A]

I have an old Dish 6000 with both modules that I would like to sell on ebay, but ethically I won't because I know exactly what would be done with it. It's a sad case because the money I could make on it would pay for signing up for a 621 and buying a 211 (since Dish won't let you get 2 upgrades within 12 months).

 

[Stargazer]

It is always going to be a cat and mouse game. I am surprised that they have not been into Directv yet unless some hackers wisened up and figured out how to not get the information to leak online and keeping it more to themselves now.

 

[ilkevinli]

I doubt it. There is way too much money to be made on a DTV hack. Im sure if there was one, it would be for sale by now. Also those that are not in it for the money are in it for the glory and we would have heard of it by now.

It is always going to be a cat and mouse game. I am surprised that they have not been into Directv yet unless some hackers wisened up and figured out how to not get the information to leak online and keeping it more to themselves now.

 

[GaryPen]

so you think that sat theft has no effect on our prices? on one hand i see your point its not a phisical item being taken on the other its still revenue being lost.

It is potential revenue that is not being realized. No revenue is lost.

E* incurs no more costs by beaming to 13 million legit subs and 2 million pirates than it would beaming to 15 million legit subs.

Mot likely, even if the 2 million pirates were cut off, most of them would not subscribe, and of those that did, only a small amount would subscribe to big money packages.

 

[GaryPen]

Evidently people want a 311 with a certain ROM revision, as almost every ad for a 311 mentions that particular ROM number.

I see the 2700's with blue cards aren't worth diddly. Too bad. I've got 3 of 'em to sell!

 

[navychop]

It's still stealing. Under the law, it's not just depriving someone of something- it's also a matter of gaining something improperly.

 

[GaryPen]

I didn't say it wasn't stealing. Of course it's still stealing.

 

[Smith P.]

OK, I found atleast a few millions pirates here

 

[hobojoe]

they prob mean fta dishs