DirecTV's Secret War On Hackers

Belch writes "4 or more years ago DirecTV launched its service. DirecTV was one of the very first large distributors of smart card technology in their product. So much so, that Hughes corp. (the primary owner of DirecTV) decided to create their own smart cards. Each receiver has a smart card located inside that is keyed to the subscriber, and actively participates in the decryption of the digital satellite video stream. However, considering Hughes decided on this technology when it was virtually in its infancy, they made several mistakes. The hacker community caught onto these mistakes, and there has been a war between DirecTV and the hacking community ever since. For the past two or more years, it was apparent the hacking community would win this war, completely opening the DirecTV signal. However, over the last 6 months, DirecTV has fought back with a vengeance, displaying the most extensive technical campaign against the hacking of their product..." Click through for the rest of the story.

"Allow me to give you some background.

"One of the original smart cards, entitled 'H' cards for Hughes, had design flaws which were discovered by the hacking community. These flaws enabled the extremely bright hacking community to reverse engineer their design, and to create smart card writers. The writers enabled the hackers to read and write to the smart card, and allowed them to change their subscription model to receive all the channels. Since the technology of satellite television is broadcast only, meaning you cannot send information TO the satellite, the system requires a phone line to communicate with DirecTV. The hackers could re-write their smart cards and receive all the channels, and unplug their phone lines leaving no way for DirecTV to track the abuse. DirecTV had built a mechanism into their system that allowed the updating of these smart cards through the satellite stream. Every receiver was designed to 'apply' these updates when it received them to the cards. DirecTV applied updates that looked for hacked cards, and then attempted to destroy the cards by writing updates that disabled them. The hacking community replied with yet another piece of hardware, an 'unlooper,' that repaired the damage. The hacker community then designed software that trojanized the card, and removed the capability of the receivers to update the card. DirecTV could only send updates to the cards, and then require the updates be present in order to receive video. Each month or so, DirecTV would send an update. 10 or 15 minutes later, the hacking community would update the software to work around the latest fixes. This was the status quo for almost two years. 'H' cards regularly sold on eBay for over $400.00. It was apparent that DirecTV had lost this battle, relegating DirecTV to hunting down Web sites that discussed their product and using their legal team to sue and intimidate them into submission.

"Four months ago, however, DirecTV began sending several updates at a time, breaking their pattern. While the hacking community was able to bypass these batches, they did not understand the reasoning behind them. Never before had DirecTV sent 4 and 5 updates at a time, yet alone send these batches every week. Many postulated they were simply trying to annoy the community into submission. The updates contained useless pieces of computer code that were then required to be present on the card in order to receive the transmission. The hacking community accommodated this in their software, applying these updates in their hacking software. Not until the final batch of updates were sent through the stream did the hacking community understand DirecTV. Like a final piece of a puzzle allowing the entire picture, the final updates made all the useless bits of computer code join into a dynamic program, existing on the card itself. This dynamic program changed the entire way the older technology worked. In a masterful, planned, and orchestrated manner, DirecTV had updated the old and ailing technology. The hacking community responded, but cautiously, understanding that this new ability for DirecTV to apply more advanced logic in the receiver was a dangerous new weapon. It was still possible to bypass the protections and receive the programming, but DirecTV had not pulled the trigger of this new weapon.

"Last Sunday night, at 8:30 pm est, DirecTV fired their new gun. One week before the Super Bowl, DirecTV launched a series of attacks against the hackers of their product. DirecTV sent programmatic code in the stream, using their new dynamic code ally, that hunted down hacked smart cards and destroyed them. The IRC DirecTV channels overflowed with thousands of people who had lost the ability to watch their stolen TV. The hacking community by and large lost not only their ability to watch TV, but the cards themselves were likely permanently destroyed. Some estimate that in one evening, 100,000 smart cards were destroyed, removing 98% of the hacking communities' ability to steal their signal. To add a little pizzazz to the operation, DirecTV personally "signed" the anti-hacker attack. The first 8 computer bytes of all hacked cards were rewritten to read "GAME OVER".

"For more information, visit http://www.hackhu.com."

Re:finally

but stealing tv is wrong

I am so sick of this attitude! It is not "stealing TV". When you steal something, the person that you stole it from no longer possesses it. An example of stealing TV would be smashing a shop window, grabbing a television set under your arm, and running. This is by no means the same thing.

DirecTV are broadcasting their signal over satellite. Whether you pay for their service or not, it gets beamed into your property. If you have a dish, you will pick up the signal. If you happen to have the means of decoding this signal, you can watch their TV shows. How is this stealing? This is no more stealing that watching the Superbowl at a friend's place because he has DirecTV and you don't. Are you "stealing TV is wrong" advocates suggesting that DirecTV should send agents round to their subscribers houses to issue them with an extra pay-per-view bill for any of their friends who happen to be parked on the couch with a bag of doritos watching the game?

No, this is an outrageous abuse. If DirecTV don't have a business model which can earn them a profit as they beam their signal into EVERYONE'S airspace, then they shouldn't be in business, end of story. Or, as they would say, "game over".

not stealing

I'm noticing a distinct pro-Hughes sentiment here. Personally, I see nothing wrong in recieving signals from the air and decrypting them.

Please consider this for a moment: Hughes is bombarding us with their electromagnetic emissions... why shouldn't we be allowed to receive and decrypt them?

I really don't see how this is much different than DeCSS, which seems to enjoy the support of the Slashdot community.

So... stealing motion picture studios' work is OK, but it's wrong to intercept and decrypt electromagnetic signals broadcast through the air? Signals that are being absorbed by our bodies, with still unknown effects.

I'll buy the idea that people shouldn't 'steal' DirecTV's signal when DirecTV allows me a way to opt out of being hit with their sattelite beams. (Please don't suggest that I wear a tinfoil hat. ;)

LASTLY, I haven't seen any mention of how these counter measures have affected paying customers. I know several legit DirecTV subscribers who had their cards stop working after Black Sunday. How does anyone feel about that?

Is it OK for DirecTV to inconvenience paying customers in the course of their battle with the hackers? How many 'civilian casualties' will be tolerated? And is DirecTV going to be giving these people refunds? Probably... if they spend an hour or two on the phone. The customer's time isn't important anyways, right? As long as they're paying their bill...

NorthSat and DTV

Most of the comments see to be along the lines of "kudos to Hughes/DTV for beating the hackers at their own game and not resorting to lawyers"

Well, That may not be how it actually went down.

In October the guy who ran Northsat in Canada got raided. There was a consent decreee, and as part of his plea bargain he agreed to act as a consultant to DirecTV.

Although DTV had already been busy implementing the dynamic code, many old timers claim that they see dean's hand in the 4 (that's right 4, not one) ECM's that came down starting last sunday.

So it would seem that the legal system allowed DTV to force a hacker to destroy part of his own creation. Not a clear cut case of DTV defeating pirates with their own engineers. Guess he shouldn't have have a bunch drugs and cash in his house when they raided him hehe.

http://www.legal-rights.org/northsat.html
http://www.legal-rights.org/newspapers/northsat. ht ml

Agree - Re:It's not wrong to figure it out...

In fact since most of us DONT get DirectTV and are STILL constantly bathed in its RF emissions Hughes is in the wrong, if anyone is. Mind you, I don't have a problem with them sending the bits to their own subscribers. The fact they they chose a CHEAPER method of distribution to increase their own profits opens them up to this.

Anything being broadcast non-interactively(not two-way like say, a cordless phone), whether tv, radio, or otherwise, is like air as far as I'm concerned. i.e. Not any company's but the peoples.

If the company doesn't like that, make their own customers use over priced less effective measures, like cable, spread spectrum, or other methods.

If the cost of that makes it unprofitable, so be it. The Constitution (Sorry, US centric) gives the right to the PURSUIT of happiness, not the right to it. THere is a difference. Similarly, Hughes can try to make money by giving a service worth paying for. They're not entitled to just because they spent a lot of money.

Think about it. If I fire radiation at your home 24/7 without you asking for it (paying subscribing whatever, and that IS what radio/broadcast energy is) you should have the ability to do whatever you want with it.

They are NOT STEALING. Stealing implies taking something away from someone else. As in they no longer have an object they previously did. These peeople went out and bought their own satellites, smartcards and gizmos. They can fdo anything they want with them.

Xerox did not have to pay all the scribes who were put out of work by copiers, nor did the guy who came up with carbon paper. Just because you used to be able to make money doing something once does not mean you are entitled to keep making money off it forever.

Oooo.

So, the big nasty corporation solves its problem with hacks of fiendish ingenuity whereupon the 'hackers' bury them in lawyers? *g*

Riiiiiiight....

Re:Stealing? No.

Sooo...

You wouldn't care if I set up a listening post to hear any wireless stuff going on in your house, right? You probably don't care about Echelon and various Internet-based listening posts monitoring your e-mail and where you surf, right?

After all, you are sending your data out over shared space, and if I feel like manipulating it *however I want*, that should be my right.

It's not whether you win or lose...

It's how you play the game. Hughes deserves props for doing this the right way - by outsmarting the pirates. Unlike some other industries who combat piracy by buying laws that take away everyone's freedoms just to protect themselves, or force everyone to sell crippled hardware so that their precious media can't be used in a way they don't approve of, these guys stayed with an existing technology and made it work in the face of rampant piracy. My hat's off.

Nice! Enthralling, Well-written, Engaging Story

Rob and the gang,

Congratualations on a well-written, engaging news story. Clear, concise, interesting with thrilling narrative, factually informative. This entry is a model for all good Slashdot entries.

Thanks.

Re:"Hackers"?

I disagree.

As others have pointed out Hughes is sending the signal to hackers. In fact, they want to send it to nearly everyone, ideally. Furthermore they're sending it as a broadcast radio signal, and that's a public resource.

If you proceed with your logic, you imply that it would be illegal to read billboards on the side of the road (ideally for this argument in the state-owned right of way) if the whim of the owner was that you weren't allowed.

Just as there is a right to free speech, there MUST be in order to actually have such a right function, an equally absolute right to listen. Otherwise you're supporting the opinion that you have a right to free speech, but if the government finds it inconvenient, people who listen can be arrested. (despite the speaker going free) This is a nonsensical propisition you're making, I think we'll all agree.

If a communication is privileged or there is an expectation of privacy (e.g. whispering, talking in a way that cannot reasonably be intercepted outside your home, lawyer-client discussions) I can see making that a minor crime. Generally one that's worse for the government (e.g. tapping w/o a warrant) than individuals.

But sending data across a public medium to virtually the entire continent does not strike me as private. Even the Internet is not private - it's a network of other, smaller networks, and it's hardly possible to believe that communications across it are automatically private. Certainly the most esteemed privacy/encryption experts on the net don't think so.

Once someone recieves such a stream - particularly if it was sent so that they, their neighbors and their countrymen could recieve it - I don't see how it's Hughes' business what's done with it. If they wish to prevent people from seeing it, the best way is to not send it to them at all. The second best way is to heavily encrypt it, but encryption is not a guarantee. It also means that Hughes' business is not TV but decryption software. If someone manages to put out an RE'd version w/o infringing on patents, then that's their right too. We rely on that right to have microcomputers that aren't all sold by IBM.

And furthermore, in Canada, which is what we're discussing, the people there explicitly DO have the right to watch broadcast signals. There's just no two ways about it there. If the law in Pottsylvania were that TV broadcasters had to give out free TV sets to people in order to have a license to broadcast then Hughes would have to either stop broadcasting to them, or start handing out the sets; it doesn't matter if the law is different than US law, sovereign states have the right to have different laws.

This story is very incomplete....

Alright, while the story above is 'correct', it's something like reading chapter 6 of a 12 chapter novel, and claiming to understand everything. Alot more has been going on than is shown here. In the beginning, as it were, was the F card. This card was a dumb eeprom, and was hacked so fast it must have made DTV's head spin. The video stream at this time was un-encrypted, and you merely had to convince your receiver to show the channels. This lasted about a year or two, and then a new card began appearing, this was the H series card. This card had a dedicated ASIC on it for decryptiing scrambled content. It was also a 'smart' smartcard, in that it tried to think about commands that were sent to it, and had some basic functions (read, write, compare, etc) that could be called on. Eventually, DTV mailed out new cards to all valid F card owners, and completely removed the older card from service. They also switched to an encrypted video stream, and that was the end of the F card. This new H card was trickier to deal with, but at this time Hughes, who owned DTV, had made another mistake. This was the same card used in some european digital satellite systems, and a great deal of information was alreayd available on it. Hacking it (and these people were hackers, in that they had to reverse engineer a 'black box' device only by watching how DTV interacted with it, even if they used their knowledge for less than stellar purposes.) took less time than DTV would have thought. This is what went on for the years leading up to this story, in that the hackers would enable some new security hole, and DTV would send down an update to close it. Eventually though, DTV realized that there were an unlimited number of holes that could be opened, due to a flaw in the memory checking on the card, (large values would roll back over to zero) and that the programming hardware needed to work with these card had become cheap enough to be a mass market. About this time, DTV went quiet, and the community that hadgrown up around priating DTV satellite signals began to get fat and lazy. When DTV started up again, this time patching the firmware in the receivers to test the H cards unique ID against a list of known bad ID's, and to lock out bad cards if they were found, alot of people were caught by surprise. It was easy enough to overcome this problem, in that you could copy a valid, subscribed cards ID onto an unsubscribed card. Called cloning, this technique had definciecies that had been known for some time, in that part of the cards unique ID was stored into a write once area of the cards EPROM, and couldn't be changed, only masked. Since DTV seemed to have stopped sending down card updates, cloning became popular. In fact, it became the way of doing things. Looking back, it is easy to see how DTV set everyone up for this, allowing cloning to become rampant, because they knew how to kill it. When DTV started up the updates again, some of the original hackers warned heavily against cloning, saying this was tge beggining of the end. Most people, however, were content to simply update to the latest way of activating their cloned card, and content to ignore the number of updates piling up on their card. Once the updates were complete, those early hackers really began to scream about what was going to happen, but still no one listened. And, in the end, it did happen. What DTV did was send down a packet of information, that said: Take this address, and store it in this new location. Then, using the basic features of the card, compare that adress we just stored to an adress at this memory location. If they match, do nothing. If they don't match, set this memory pointer to location X, instead of location Y, where X is a specific part of WRITE ONCE memory. Another packet came along, and said, write some stuff to this memory location (the 'GAME OVER' in this case). If the memory pointer had changed to a write once area, too bad. If not, it was harmless. What was the card comparing? the ID reported by the card and the ID actually valid for the card. This type of kill was instant and deadly. It was also 100% safe, in that anyone using a clonned card was garunteed to be priating the service, and the packet would not, under any circumstance, hurt a valid subscribers H series card. It was so deadly because the area written too is part of the cards boot process. When it first receives power, the card no longer starts in a valid state, instead spitting out useless garbage. There is no way to write to this memory location again, and there is no way to change the cards boot process, because it happens before the interface comes up. I don't believe a magic bullet killed kennedy, but this magic bullet certainly killed all these cards. Well, all is not lost, because a while back, DTV ran out of valid ID's for a H series card, and had to make a new card, dubbed HU. This card is much trickier and much smarter than the H card, but it may also have flaws that can be exploited. Only time will tell, but in a sort of ironic twist, this is again a card from europe. Maybe the american hackers will get another helping hand from oversees, and maybe not. Primitive hacks for it have already started appearing, and the game of tit for tat is already being played out, as DTV shuts down early HU hacks. Don't hold your breath though, the card has remained unhacked in europe for some time. I hope this clears up some mystery. AS DTV did well this time, but they've made huge mistakes int h past that onlye ncouraged hackers to use their knwoledge to priate the system, it was, if you will, a sort of contempt. It was so easy, it was like DTV was daring you to do it.

Re:finally

If you want to design and build your own DirecTV-compatible dish and receiver from components, and write software for it that decodes the video stream, then hooking it up to your TV set and watching for free is not theft in my book. The signals are, as you point out, passing through your property, and you were smart enough to figure out how to do something with them. Enjoy. Hell, get Dish Network too, while you're at it.

But taking DirecTV's own receiver, only made for the purpose of viewing their service by subscription, and then modifying it for free service is theft, plain and simple. By your standard, there should only be free broadcast service (over-the-air commecial TV), because anything else is and should be open for the taking to anyone who can hack a receiver or get their hands on a modded card.

If that's the case, forget pay-per-view (what - life without Wrestlemania?), forget all the premium commercial-free services like HBO - and forget pretty much any reception at all anywhere other than in and near urban areas.

There's a big difference between fair use and theft of service. I should be able to record off my DTV, time-shift as I like with my VCR or Tivo, and not rely on analog streams to do so if everything I have is digital. But there's nothing inherently wrong with paying to get that signal into my house to begin with, so long as I can re-use what I paid for. A different point entirely.

- -Josh Turiel

You know, I think I'm with DirecTV on this

On one side, you have folks who hack the hardware to get free service.

On the other side, you have a company that sells a dish and programming, at pretty reasonable prices compared to cable rates, and wants to get paid for their goods.

Given that's it's at an interesting intellectual game at best to figure out how to hack a DTV smart card system, and theft of service at worst, it just appears that DirecTV has figured out how to win the cat and mouse game once and for all. Good for them. If DirecTV was the only form of television service available (ie., a monopoly), I'd look on theft of service a little more tolerantly, but there's all sorts of TV alternatives out there - broadcast, cable, and other satelite providers.

This is different from, say, the i-Opener hack because the i-Opener hack was fundamentally about hardware. Buying the box did not incur an obligation to use the service (due to a mistake on Netpliance's part), and the hack didn't allow you to steal their service - it allowed you to re-purpose the hardware. That would be like hacking a DirecTV box to work with Dish Network instead. A cool, "because it's there" hack.

So if DirecTV won the war, more power to them. There may be a fine line between hacking and theft at times, but hacking a DTV smart card for free service is definitely on the wrong side of that line.

Besides, stuff like descramblers and smartcards are usually what spammers are filling my emailbox with, and I hate spammers! :-)

- -Josh Turiel

Re:Three Cheers for Hughes!

As a DirecTV subscriber (who pays for the stuff) I agree 100%. Obviously the Hughes engineers are some damn smart guys, and the TV pirates (let's use the right terminology here - /. gets caught up about "hackers" not being evil enough that it's ridiculous to call the pirates that) are not as smart.

I have zero respect for these pirates. They could be applying their skills to the next piece of free software, while instead they're just trying to get free TV. What a waste.

Nice to see, for a change

Damn but it's nice to see a company that's willing to fight on the technical ground rather than running to its lawyers at the first sign of trouble. That's downright brave and honourable, there.

Say what you may about the real and supposed sins of DirecTV and its crackers, they were fighting the war on its technical merits rather than with hordes of lawyers. That's good stuff. It's nice to see a company with the integrity to defend itself within its market and its product rather than look for protection from above.
--G

If this is true...

...it is a thing of beauty... Not because of who won or lost, but because of the elegance with which it was done!

[someone should forward this article to the "Beautiful code" guy!]

Three Cheers for Hughes!

First of all, let's point out here that what this little story refers to as "hackers" are actually "pirates".

Secondly, what the Hughes technicians did was far more worthy of the term "hack". It stands out simply because it was the "big nasty corporation" who turned the technical tables on the crackers, and defeated them.

The whole thing smacks of genius - the subtlety, (in sending out the updates in a fragmented manner), the timing (ambushing the pirates a week before one of the biggest US TV events), the technical brilliance - all these are trait too often missing in so-called "hackers".

Respect to the Hughes guys.

D.

Good job, but we're still pissed about HDTV-CP!

It's interesting. This morning's prevailing opinion of Hughes/DirecTV is that they engineered a cool hack and beat TV pirates at their own game.

Yesterday, we were discussing how we can hack new DirecTV tuners to allow HDTV resolution on analog ports.

Does anyone else appreciate the irony of both events happening in the same week?

Re:For hackers its just a game

Ummm... bullshit! I know more than one legitimate DirecTV subscriber who was knocked off by these ECMs.

Taking out the hackers in only one of Hughes goals with these ECMS. The other was to destroy ALL H-cards, thus forcing their paying customers into upgrading to the HU cards.

But I'm sure they're _real_ sorry for whatever inconvenience they've caused people.

I don't know where you get your information, but they did not destroy all H cards last Sunday. My trusty old Sony SAT-B2 receiver came with an H card, and it still works fine. But I'm a legitimate paying DirecTV customer. Are you sure your friends were really legit?

As soon as I can convince my wife to allow it, I'm gonna upgrade to the Sony SAT-T60 receiver with TiVo -- recording the MPEG streams straight off the satellite is very cool, and I'm dying for that 14-day advance program guide. (I was very annoyed with DirecTV for cutting the guide from 3 days to under 2!) Maybe I'll sell the old Sony receiver after that; the remote codes may conflict with the new Sony, plus the SAT-T60 actually has two DirecTV tuners in it! (But the second one won't work until TiVo gets their act together and updates their software to handle it...)

Re:"Hackers"?

The point is that the signal is broadcast to *everyone*, not just paying customers.
You're not /stealing/ it, you're merely using a signal in a way that goes against what the originator intended.
I don't see this as 'theft' in any way - denying *potential* profits, yes, but not theft.

IMO, Hughes did the Right Thing.
The crackers cracked their signal, so they cracked the crackers cracks. I think that's pretty nifty.

--K

Re:It's not wrong to figure it out...

It's true that DirecTV doesn't have as much money as they otherwise would; but it does not necessarily follow that anything has been stolen from them. Many other events could result in them not getting as much money - an economic slowdown, a competitor with a better product, or even a nasty rumor that their satellites are really being used to track people for the sinister purposes of Major League Baseball. Just the fact that they don't have as much money doesn't make it stealing.

In the normal understanding of a "theft of service", somebody is still out of some physical quantity that they would otherwise have charged for and that they do not just hand out to all and sundry. Theft of cable TV service, for example (and according to the TV industry at least) steals from your neighbors by degrading their picture quality (a measurable, quantifiable thing). Spam is a theft of network resources and hardware resources on a mail server that your ISP charges you to maintain. Trojans or worms are thefts of service in almost the same way, by consuming network bandwidth and host processing power which somebody paid for and somebody else is getting charged for.

But receiving unauthorized satellite broadcasts doesn't deprive anyone of something they are being charged for. Your neighbor's signal is not any more degraded, DirecTV doesn't have to spend any more money than they would have otherwise to achieve national coverage, and the producers of the TV content are already getting paid by DirecTV under terms that were mutually agreeable to both of them. From all of these people's perspective, things are just the same as if you didn't have a DirecTV at all.

This doesn't mean that I disapprove of Hughes' actions in this case - I think they are entirely within their rights to police their hardware under any means that are permissible under the contracts they have with DirecTV subscribers, assuming that they have such contracts (although I don't think they have the right to modify the customer's lawfully purchased software or hardware without the customer's permission in the absence of a contract allowing it). I just don't think Hughes should be surprised when other individuals make use of the bits that DirecTV is flinging around so profligately, considering that those bits would just "go to waste" anyway.

I have to add, though, that it's nice to see a company whose initial response was not "send in the lawyers". Duking it out hacker a hacker is the way to go on this, and so much more entertaining for the rest of us without DirecTV or the inclination to hack one.

Re:It's not wrong to figure it out...

I'm curious as to how this is really a theft of service. When that term is applied to spam, for instance, the theft occurs when spammers use up the bandwidth of their relays and the time and hardware of the targeted ISPs. In that case you can point to the extra costs that were required based on the actions of the thieves.

However, this satellite broadcast is streaming through all of us all the time. Does just possessing the knowledge to decode these ambient bits somehow make a person a thief? I'll agree that it's unfair to the legit DirecTV subscribers to have to pay for a service that some are getting for free, but I don't agree that decoding bits that are normally present in the environment is theft.

Re:If this is true...

Exactly! DirecTV did fall back to lawyers for a bit, but in general they did the absolute correct thing--fix the damned problem. Mad props to the proigrammer/team that handled the multipart code. If only more companies would respond to security threats and other flaws by fixing them instead of legally snuffing out their discoverers.

Re:"Hackers"?

You have no right to make a profit.

Nobody can steal that which you have given them for free.

Just because you came up with some "clever" business model that involves charging people money for services, that does not entitle you to compensation from people who figure out how to provide this service for themselves.

I am deeply disturbed to see this bullshit perpetuated by someone outside the US. Previously, I had been operating on the assumption (obviously false) that "the right of a business to make money" was confined to the US.

Once again, for the slow ones: you do not have a right to make a profit, no matter how clever you may think you are, and no matter how long you've been making a profit in the past. If someone out there catches on to your scheme and bypasses it, you lose.

(With all that said, I have to applaud the hackers who work for DirecTV. Unlike certain other industries, they didn't resort to dirty tricks or underhanded legislation -- they simply used what they had, and ingeniously too. I'm not ranting against DirecTV here -- I'm ranting against all those who thought that the H-card hackers were "stealing".)

"Hackers"?

For all the noise that /. makes over the user of Hacker vs. Cracker, one would think that stealing services would fall into the latter category. While I think that the reverse engineering and cleverness involved in cracking the smartcards is quite impressive, I see no noble motivation, just stealing a service that is quite expensive to develop and provide. The real Hackers in this story work for Hughes.

Actually, I *can* do most of those things perfectl

To answer your questions.
YES.

1) yes. Actually, I am 100% allowed by law, in Canada, to listen to your analog cellular calls. Cellphone companies tried to change this, but the crtc was firm: you have no reasonable expectation of privacy by transmitting on public airwaves using standard modulation.
Now.. with Digital phones, and specifically, with Encryption this changes. Under Canadian law, encryption wrapping the conversation indicates that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and someone violating that woudl be violating your rights.
Note that the only reason it's protected is because it is encrypted AND because it is a conversation. Satellite broadcast is not the same thing.

Taking photographs, again. If what I see is visible from somewhere I'm legally allowed to be, I'm allowed to take photographs of it. I can photograph anything that can be seen from somewhere I'm allowed to be, especially a public street or my own property.

And regarding 'shotgun' mikes, it depends. If I can hear the conversation of you yelling at your wife, and I'm simply using the mike to amplify it, then I am within my rights to record it. If I can't hear you at all, and use the mike to snoop on you, then that's illegal, because you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Stealing? No.

Sorry... I have to draw a line here. Perhaps it's my Canadian blood talking.. but...

I respect that they put up the satellite, and started the TV service.. however....

THey are broadcasting signals over PUBLIC airspace, including INTO MY YARD. If I feel like putting up a dish to capture that signal and manipulate it *however I want* within my own property, that should be my absolute right (though the law may not agree). If they don't want me to receive the signal, don't broadcast it into my yard. PERIOD.

THe airwaves are PUBLIC.

Re:Stealing? No.

Actually, no, I wouldn't care. Seriously.

I firmly believe that if you broadcast something on public airwaves, then you have no right to expect privacy. I *know* when I use my cordless phone that anyone who wants can listen in.

I also know that when I transmit cleartext data over the internet (like this slashdot post), it is going into a network that I have *no control* over, because I don't own it. I *assume* that someone is listening in. If I want nobody to listen to my conversations, I use encryption, hoping that deters them somewhat, though I'm still aware someone could be intercepting it and decrypting it if they are capable.
As for manipulation...

If I'm broadcasting through your network, and you want to sniff my info and manipulate/decrypt it, and there is no standing agreement that you won't ever do this... go right ahead. If you *DO* anything with that information outside your own brain/house.. THEN I'll have a problem with it, but not because you intercepted it.

Re:"Hackers"?

In Canada it is completely legal to decrypt the DirecTV signal. Because of antiquated laws governing the sale of content in Canada, we are not allowed to purchase the programming from Hughes. Instead we are forced to purchase from one of two local companies that offer a smaller selection and that force us to pay for unwanted Canadian content.

In Canadian law however, it is legal to decrypt a satelite signal provided that it cannot be legally paid for. We cannot legally purchase and pay for the DirecTV stream and thus we are legally and morally entitled to decrypt and watch the DirecTV stream.

So whereas Americans who attempt to decrypt the signal can indeed be considered "crackers", the Canadians that have been victimized by the Canadian government and Hughes are "Hackers". We have done nothing wrong and are being punished for it.

-

DirecTV is very cool about this whole situation.

Honestly, DirecTV is very cool about this situation. They even have a guy on alt.dss.hack that TALKS to the hackers and actually goes about in conversation with them. They truly look at this as a game of chess, and I was always intrigued by the complexity of the "war" at times.

To show you how cool things have become... The latest trend in DSS is using emulation software on a PC to intercept the signal and then sending it to your reciever. It truly is an innovative solution!

I swear, words like ECMs (Electronic Counter Measures) that literally destroy cards, and Unloopers (thinks that fix "looped" or destroyed cards") really make this feel like some hollywood hacker movie. But it's not. It's for real! Damn, that is just too cool!

-Nick

So the hackers got hacked.

This is the perfect solution to a nagging problem.
Direct TV sells a service. They make money from
the sale of this service, and they provide the
infrastructure, the broadcast, the hardware, etc.

Then, a bunch of kids decide that they want what
DirectTV has, but not at their terms. So they steal
the service. Yes, they stole it. Hell, they
admit it in the article.

So what does DirectTV do? They beat the hackers at their
own game. They outplay, outsmart, and outfox them.

Bravo. They protected themselves and their market
share in the best way possible. In the end, we
can all appreciate the beauty of this particular hack.

Re:finally

Actually, you *are* taking something from them. If you subscribe to thier service, they know what channels you are capable of watching, and can tell the actual HBO people (for instance) that they have 18 million viewers and want to be billed as such (I can only think that as the number of viewers increases the actual cost to the provider decreases due to an increase in effectiveness of advirtising). So its not JUST your monthly billing statement that they are losing out on.

So if they increase thier profits by having more subscribers, you *are* stealing from them, in a very real sense.

Dirk

And so it begins.

It appears that hackers are now considering a piece of hardware that sits between the DSS receiver and the smart card [hackhu.com]. It would emulate the damaged area of memory and, presumably, prevent that area from being written to again. You didn't really think the game was over, did you?

Re:So the hackers got hacked.

what if this happened in the software world? Where ID did this to quake, and somehow quake had an update, and they end up updating in such a way that the pirate/cracked versions are destroyed. Would people be screaming about their privacy being violated?

Re:For hackers its just a game

if you read a lot, you will see that there is a way around this, emulation, basically what happens is that a PROM gets written to, by using emulation to emulate that PROM, we can reverse all the bits DirecTV's toggled back to the original, it is not theortical, it is already out there, those who were smart to get it early are not crying now. But I am sure DirecTV will come up with a smart idea, in the console world, it is possible to write game that can detect different kind of emulators. So they might write code that can detect an emulator. i.e, Emulators usually don't emulate bugs in hardware. ;) It is amazing how a bug in hardware can be used for useful things. :D

Recent Law has Changed

At one time in America, it was legal for you to hack and decode any signal that was sent onto your property. I can't remember the name of the act that allowed this, but if an electronic signal was sent onto your property, and you could decode it, listening/watching it was your right.

This is why the old C-band dishes never had prosecutions for descrambling, or why you could listen in to Cellular Telephone conversations. And this would apply to DirecTV too, except it didn't exist when this law did.

Sometime in the mid 90's, a new Radio Telecommunications Act was passed which banned the eavesdropping on cellular telephones and any other signal entering your property that needed to be decoded. Thus, now the old C-Band hackers had become pirates, and the new DirecTV decoding was illegal.

The question is this - do you have the right to translate signals that are travelling onto your property - signals which you did not request?

The old law said yes. The new one says no.

Poetry in code

This is true hacker war at its best. The DirecTV hackers vs. the DirecTV programmers. I bet both sides had a great time, and enjoyed the game. The "GAME OVER" message was an especially nice touch.

Someone said that they're within their rights to "illegally" descramble DirecTV's content, because it's broadcast over public airwaves. True, but then, isn't DirecTV also entitled to broadcast whatever they want? If you just happen to be foolish/1337 enough to be running a hacked card, well, thanks for coming out, better luck next time. DirecTV didn't physically destroy the cards, so I don't think the hackers have any grievance in that respect...

Nicely done, on both sides. I think this deserves an entry into the hacker hall of fame.