Three Plead Guilty in Satellite TV Hacking Case

[Team Newbies]

Three men indicted on a single count of violating the federal copyright law pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia Oct. 23.

According to federal prosecutors, the defendants, Jung Kwak of Oceanside, and Phillip Allison and Robert Ward, both of Seminole, Fla., admitted that beginning in March 2008 they hired computer hackers to break the latest Dish Network encryption design so that the line of satellite receiver boxes sold by Kwak would continue to have a market.

Kwak is the owner of Viewtech, an importer of the satellite boxes that allow users to obtain a limited amount of free programming, most of it consisting of ethnic and religious programs. But by reverse engineering smart cards provided by Dish, the boxes could obtain more signals illegally, prosecutors said.

By late 2007, Dish created a new encryption scheme that would prevent the boxes from gaining access to the signal without purchasing a subscription, prosecutors said.

In his pleading, Kwak admitted meeting and paying $20,000 in cash to another person to dissect the Dish smart card. Kwak also admitted he offered a $250,000 reward to hackers to obtain the latest Dish smart card, according to federal prosecutors.

The three defendants face maximum prison time of five years and $250,000 in fines at their scheduled sentencing on Jan. 22.

SOURCE:

 http://www.sdbj.com/article.asp?aID=141924&link=perm

[davergaver]

thats peanuts for kwak

[jed]

not the five years though

[dontno]

I hope this does not mean the end of FTA for us

[stealth]

Sounds like they are serious this time. Of course it did not help that Kwak was his actual name, and he is in the states. I would have my company in a non definitive name like "Satron" and based off-shore.

[®²]

That's for only one charge... there are still other charges before the courts... so it is not over for that threesome, by any means...

[StraySignals]

dat's gotta hurt.

[Ahoorg]

I remember talking to 'the dss guy' quite a bit, way back yonder on the sister forum dss newbies

[SpeedTrap47]

Kwak still has the DiSH and Comcast civil suits to deal with, He'll be left with cab fare...

[rexe]

ya but if he has nothing you cant get nothing, a smart man like him would have cash hidden all over

[SpeedTrap47]

That he has a Federal Suit, an IRS/Customs investigation going on and 2 Civil suits for piracy you can think what you want

[hawkeye32a]

He'll serve NO TIME, He has not been found guilty yet and he can always roll over and make a deal, and I have never heard of one of these guys being dumb enough to be in the states, you only need a front here and do all the other stuff in Korea or where ever they cann't touch you. Did you ever think maybe ,he is just a Fall guy ???

[SpeedTrap47]

Originally Posted by hawkeye32a

He'll serve NO TIME, He has not been found guilty yet and he can always roll over and make a deal, and I have never heard of one of these guys being dumb enough to be in the states, you only need a front here and do all the other stuff in Korea or where ever they cann't touch you. Did you ever think maybe ,he is just a Fall guy ???

No but Kwak, Allison and Ward have PLEAD guilty

[jjbced01]

Why wouldnt they do a front in some other country. Look at thepiratebay.org, they have an off shore platform that is not within the jurisdiction of the US or any international trade acts. Granted you can not move a product through an oil platform, but you can station yourself somewhere close that fedEx delivers and picks up from. In that case you would not have to fear extradition and theres nothing that bev can do to you. The other thing that is confuseing me is why hasnt someone cracked the new cable boxes yet? Theoretically all you have to do is disable the timer in the box that requires an authentication (sp) from the cable provider and your golden. This is a perfect time to do so as sat is down and out for the time being!