Student Charged in DirecTV Theft

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

{ note they said:

" DirecTV said that the documents, though confidential, did
not provide a roadmap for reverse-engineering the new chip.
"The card is designed so that even if you know everything
about it, you still can't hack it," said Marc Zwillinger,
the lead lawyer for DirecTV's anti-piracy efforts."

djf

 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/03/technology/03PIRA.html?ex=1042174800&en=6
c78d302b05b60c9&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

Student Charged in DirecTV Theft
By JENNIFER 8. LEE


WASHINGTON, Jan. 2 — A 19-year-old University of Chicago
student was arrested in Los Angeles today and charged with
stealing trade secrets from DirecTV, the nation's leading
satellite television provider.

Federal prosecutors said that Igor Serebryany of Los Angeles
would be charged under the rarely used 1996 Economic
Espionage Act with stealing the documents — which described
the latest technology to control access to DirecTV — and
releasing them on the Internet. He faces a maximum sentence
of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

Prosecutors said Mr. Serebryany, a sophomore at the
University of Chicago, stole confidential papers about
DirecTV's latest generation of satellite television smart
cards from the law firm of Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue. Mr.
Serebryany, who worked for an outside document preparation
company, was imaging papers for a civil lawsuit over
DirecTV's card technology.

Jones Day represents DirecTV in a lawsuit against NDS, the
company that designs encrypted satellite cards for DirecTV.
According to prosecutors, Mr. Serebryany sent hundreds of
digital documents to three satellite pirate Web sites in
September and October.

The confidential documents contained technical
specifications for DirecTV's Period 4 generation of
satellite smart cards, as well as correspondence between NDS
and DirecTV discussing the card's architecture and design,
according to DirectTV. The technical details about the card
are valuable because the three previous generations of
DirecTV access cards have already been hacked by pirates.

Satellite television smart cards, which slide into set-top
boxes, contain computer chips that decrypt signals from
DirecTV's satellites. Hacked satellite television cards
override the encryption technology, allowing a viewer to
receive the satellite signals free.

While prosecutors say Mr. Serebryany did not profit
personally by releasing the documents, the Economic
Espionage Act prohibits the release of information to
benefit others. "This is a very serious crime which we will
prosecute aggressively," said James W. Spertus, an assistant
United States attorney.

Satellite piracy is a huge underground industry estimated in
the tens of millions of dollars. Many of the pirate vendors
are based in Canada where, until this year, the legal status
of pirating American satellite television was ambiguous.
Dozens of Web sites are devoted to satellite piracy. Many of
them serve as public forums for discussions on how to
reverse-engineer the Period 4 technology.

DirecTV said that the documents, though confidential, did
not provide a roadmap for reverse-engineering the new chip.
"The card is designed so that even if you know everything
about it, you still can't hack it," said Marc Zwillinger,
the lead lawyer for DirecTV's anti-piracy efforts.

DirecTV has been plagued by piracy. The company has 11
million paying subscribers, but industry analysts estimate
that an additional million or more households illicitly
receive DirecTV signals. To combat the piracy, DirecTV spent
$25 million on research and development of Period 4, which
it introduced last year. The company is also spending tens
of millions of dollars to mail the cards to subscribers.


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