Canal Plus accuses Murdoch unit of aiding piracy

Charles Slane

Here's a great story from FT.com

http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3BR59IPYC&live=true&tagid=ZZZLZDL1B0C&subheading=media,%20entertainment,%20%20sport

It's quite an amazing accusation. Here's the gist of it -

"Canal Plus, the pay-television subsidiary of Vivendi Universal, has filed a lawsuit against NDS, the smart card business controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, alleging that it facilitated piracy operations against the French group's digital TV services....."

".....Canal Plus said NDS had "spent large amounts of money and resources to extract the code from Canal Plus' digital TV smart card, and then provided the code to a web site frequented by counterfeiters. After the code was published on the internet, criminal organizations flooded the market with counterfeit cards."

Talk about sharp business practice !!!

Tony

Hi Charles, I had heard this story some time ago but obviously could not publish it here for libel reasons. The story goes that Murdoch used Mossad to carry this out.

The plot thickens :-)

Regards Tony

DMC

Those crazy Israelis!

Blade

This has been going on for years, it was to draw all the Internet hacker shmackers away from messing with Sky cards. All the top hackers as I said here before were set up in different businesses or distracted in various ways from hacking Sky. I'm surprised it took this long for it to come out. BTW it's a lot bigger than canal + so I'm sure there'll be a lot more **** coming out about them now that the balls' rolling.

BTW: Did you notice any particular web site disappearing all of a sudden?

chernobyl

Lots of sites have been disappearing, like the dudez and Ro but i had assumed thay were just moving about.

Tony

Originally posted by Blade
This has been going on for years, it was to draw all the Internet hacker shmackers away from messing with Sky cards. All the top hackers as I said here before were set up in different businesses or distracted in various ways from hacking Sky. I'm surprised it took this long for it to come out. BTW it's a lot bigger than canal + so I'm sure there'll be a lot more **** coming out about them now that the balls' rolling.

BTW: Did you notice any particular web site disappearing all of a sudden?

Just like the "old" days Blade :-)

Blade

Oh yes!!

This is gonna be massive,

FYI: Check out the 21 page law suite on the special web site canal+ setup just for this at:

http://www.actiononecanalplus.com/

JMCC: I see your about, can you come to #boards.ie if you see this MSG

chernobyl

This was obviously an internal breach from NDS top guys, but why did they never go after the Conax systems?
Could NDS themselves not beat Conax?

Blade

I'll quote what I said earlier Chernobyl:

BTW it's a lot bigger than canal + so I'm sure there'll be a lot more **** coming out about them now that the balls' rolling.

chernobyl

I have completely lost faith in the Sat hack scene now, we are never going to see Irdeto/Seca/Via v2 hacks now.

So i can thank NDS for my free viewing for the last few years.

Blade

Shares for NDS down 26% and dropping, also read NDS's response:

NDS Brands Canal + Lawsuit Baseless:
http://www.nasdaq.com/asp/quotes_news.asp?symbol=NNDS%60&selected=NNDS%60

chernobyl

This would require insider info on NDS work and NDS i would have tought is locked down from this kind of breach.

If it is true, i would not want to be that guy, Israel is a great place for "hitmen for hire".

Mossy Monk

Newsnight on BBC2 now is going to be doing a piece about it

Blade

Mossy Monk: Nice one I just caught it on time, thanks.

Chernobyl: Don't worry there'll be lots more piracy about, after all Sky weren't exactly the guys who started it all

Lots of sites have been disappearing, like the dudez and Ro but i had assumed thay were just moving about.

Yah but I was talking about a particular site or two who had obvious direct links back to Sky.

PacMan

TH**C ???

Charles Slane

It's all go really -

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,666621,00.html

Murdoch's firm are counter-claiming.

Let the games commence !!

Charles Slane

And now -


"Murdoch security chief linked to TV piracy site

John Cassy, David Leigh and Kevin Maguire
Thursday March 14, 2002

Evidence in the hands of the Guardian suggests that a former Scotland Yard commander who represents two of Rupert Murdoch's companies provided funds to a website that enabled counterfeiters to produce forged smart cards used to defraud ITV Digital, a principal rival in the pay TV market....."

The full story is on -

http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,667078,00.html

jmcc

Originally posted by Charles Slane
And now -


"Murdoch security chief linked to TV piracy site


http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,667078,00.html

This is getting very close to conspiracy to defraud. It may become a police matter in the UK very quickly especially as the article above claims to have e-mails that indicate that Ray Adams, head of NDS security, a UK national working for a UK based company was funding a UK national running an website directly concerned with supporting piracy which was affecting a UK terrestrial service.

Regards...jmcc