The EFF would be the ones to ask, and I think they're working on this already.
Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defending Freedom in the Digital World
Dish Network trying to kill Pansat and Legal FTA
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The EFF would be the ones to ask, and I think they're working on this already.
Electronic Frontier Foundation | Defending Freedom in the Digital World
I had Dish Network once upon a time also. I never got the "super premium" service, but that didn't stop Charlie from raising the price every year and allowing the programming he did provide to be packed with commercials.
What particularly griped me was the fact that every movie shown was cut and edited to death to allow for more commercials. Then DURING the movie, there would be advertising graphics at the bottom, flashing on and off - usually pushing other programming. What pressure did Dish Network put on these providers top stop this practice? Nothing. When I asked, people there said it was the networks and that Dish Network couldn't do anything about it.
Have you ever tried" ? I asked. "no" they answered.
I have both C and Ku systems. There is plenty of free tv. Last night I caught an HD feed of the Bears/Packers game. Sunday night I had another hidef NFL game,
Add this all to the fact that Dish and Direct are hacking their competitor's signals. This is already demonstrated in court.
Dish wants True FTA out so people have nowhere else to go. It's bloodthirsty.
Sometimes one of my receivers happens to pick up their guide. I look at it and see that nothing has changed. The philosophy of treating customers is unfriendly. The programming is redundant and uninspiring.
They have always wanted to kill my true FTA. Dish Network can stick it where the moon don't shine.
What particularly griped me was the fact that every movie shown was cut and edited to death to allow for more commercials. Then DURING the movie, there would be advertising graphics at the bottom, flashing on and off - usually pushing other programming. What pressure did Dish Network put on these providers top stop this practice? Nothing. When I asked, people there said it was the networks and that Dish Network couldn't do anything about it.
Have you ever tried" ? I asked. "no" they answered.
I have both C and Ku systems. There is plenty of free tv. Last night I caught an HD feed of the Bears/Packers game. Sunday night I had another hidef NFL game,
Add this all to the fact that Dish and Direct are hacking their competitor's signals. This is already demonstrated in court.
Dish wants True FTA out so people have nowhere else to go. It's bloodthirsty.
Sometimes one of my receivers happens to pick up their guide. I look at it and see that nothing has changed. The philosophy of treating customers is unfriendly. The programming is redundant and uninspiring.
They have always wanted to kill my true FTA. Dish Network can stick it where the moon don't shine.
I have quite literally HUNDREDS of hours of Boresight News here..I'm trying to remember which episode it was on.. Give me a few days, I'll find it.
Thanks.
I was referring to the invasion of privacy; Dish obtained customer names via a subpoena issued to dealers. Is the EFF is working on this angle?
Only a few channels from a package I had a few months ago did not have any commercials ...and now I think..perhaps all of them have commercials and lots of graphics at the bottom on some of them. Obviously I did not have a premium package and only used my receiver to watch the news so I ended up setting an off air antenna to watch local channels and that resolved my expensive monthly fee. I agree all channel with commercials should be FTA... Providers are already making the money by airing advertizing.
Here's my opinion on these "surveys". I think if you get one you should NOT under any circumstances respond. Why? First of all you don't have to and shouldn't waste your time doing so, but more importantly it could be bad for our hobby. If they notice that a lot of people watch FTA content (and by this I mean true FTA) instead of subscribing to their services they may try to take action to coerce networks into encrypting that content in hopes that it might force us to purchase their service. They're a large satellite provider and therefore have the leverage to do this. Say for example they find a lot of FTA users watch backhauls from sporting events aired by certain sports networks and therefore these people don't feel the need to subscribe to any pay service, it would be in their interest to pressure those sports networks to encrypt their backhauls and no doubt they would do so.
You don't have to prove your innocence to them and that's probably not really what they're looking for anyway. They're probably just looking for evidence to use in their lawsuits against receiver manufacturers and thus don't even really care to hear anything about legitimate users. So at best if you respond they will simply ignore you and at worst they may use the information as I mentioned earlier to try and force encryption. So, there's no good reason for legitimate users to respond and plenty of reason not to.
You don't have to prove your innocence to them and that's probably not really what they're looking for anyway. They're probably just looking for evidence to use in their lawsuits against receiver manufacturers and thus don't even really care to hear anything about legitimate users. So at best if you respond they will simply ignore you and at worst they may use the information as I mentioned earlier to try and force encryption. So, there's no good reason for legitimate users to respond and plenty of reason not to.
OR if everyone took the survey and said we all watched RTN, Whitesprings, etc... that are glad to have their signals ITC, maybe the scrambled stations that are commercial supported would take note.
I'll be dumping E* in just a couple more weeks. When they give me their spheel about 'why are you leaving' I'll tell them I now have a good OTA antenna for my local stations that I don't have to pay $5/mth for, plus I have 2 good HDD DVR units that I don't have to pay a $10/mth lease + $10/mth 'DVR' fee for AND the channels I now have subscriptions to are the EXACT channels I want so I'm not paying $50/mth for 190 channels that I will never watch and never wanted to support.
Then tell them to tell C.E. to roll that up nice and tight and stick it where there'll never be a line-of-sight...
I'll be dumping E* in just a couple more weeks. When they give me their spheel about 'why are you leaving' I'll tell them I now have a good OTA antenna for my local stations that I don't have to pay $5/mth for, plus I have 2 good HDD DVR units that I don't have to pay a $10/mth lease + $10/mth 'DVR' fee for AND the channels I now have subscriptions to are the EXACT channels I want so I'm not paying $50/mth for 190 channels that I will never watch and never wanted to support.
Then tell them to tell C.E. to roll that up nice and tight and stick it where there'll never be a line-of-sight...
14Karat;
It's too bad those poor girls in the CSR boiler rooms are so far removed from upper management. No point in venting on them. Negative feedback from customers never makes it up the food chain. A CSR with more than a year of service is an "old timer" or a supervisor, last I heard turnover runs about 40%. Better to tell them they still make books, and that you know how to use them.
It's too bad those poor girls in the CSR boiler rooms are so far removed from upper management. No point in venting on them. Negative feedback from customers never makes it up the food chain. A CSR with more than a year of service is an "old timer" or a supervisor, last I heard turnover runs about 40%. Better to tell them they still make books, and that you know how to use them.
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This is an issue that could affect many of the members at Satelliteguys as many own Pansat receivers. I checked EFF's website and could find nothing about them working on this issue. They did come to the aid of Coolsat's customers a few months ago, but I can find nothing about Pansat. So, if you Pansat owners receive a "survey" in the mail, do you intend to answer it or throw it in the trash?
I've located at least 1 Boresight episode where the customs raid/seizure on Charlie Ergen's 3 Echosphere locations was mentioned. 7800 Videociphers were seized because of Echosphere was accused of violating the export control act for exporting the Videociphers.
The news article I found actually paints Charlie Ergen in a pretty good light, showing how he was fighting General Instruments and their monopoly hold on the industry.. He was being painted as a hero really.. What he really was doing was violating the export control act.
I'll convert it into an MPEG file and figure out a way to post it youtube or somewhere else so that everybody can see it and make up their own mind whether he was contributing to piracy or was a hero.
The news article I found actually paints Charlie Ergen in a pretty good light, showing how he was fighting General Instruments and their monopoly hold on the industry.. He was being painted as a hero really.. What he really was doing was violating the export control act.
I'll convert it into an MPEG file and figure out a way to post it youtube or somewhere else so that everybody can see it and make up their own mind whether he was contributing to piracy or was a hero.
Hey fellas, have a read from this excerpt from google books:
Cutthroat: High Stakes & Killer ... - Google Book Search
It details these early days of Ergen.
That's exactly the snippet I've got here on video. It shows Charlie Ergen and Larry Dunham testifying...
Ya David, no VC-2's could leave the US country because of the DES used in it. Charlie has been dirty since the beginning. His ways made him the bucks to fund Dish network. Now he's playing God because of his power and money. I for one think enough is enough. Don't bow to Charlies demands.
I also remember from those days Keith Lamonica, he had a TVRO radio show, during the transition into VC, that went on and on about the incident.
I try to stay out of these type discussions here, but in this case I can't help it.
Since I purchased 2 Pansat receivers in the past 2 years, I can't help but wonder if I will get a survey. If I do, I have no intention of answering it. If they have their spies out there taking photos, let them. I'm proud of my BUDS and my Primestar dish.
I think we all should collectively ignore them. Let them waste time and resources better spent elsewhere. The Dish customers are ultimately paying for it. They should be outraged too.
Since I purchased 2 Pansat receivers in the past 2 years, I can't help but wonder if I will get a survey. If I do, I have no intention of answering it. If they have their spies out there taking photos, let them. I'm proud of my BUDS and my Primestar dish.
I think we all should collectively ignore them. Let them waste time and resources better spent elsewhere. The Dish customers are ultimately paying for it. They should be outraged too.
Since reaction to one of my editorials started this discussion, I guess it is time for me to chime in. While it is true that you do not have to answer "surveys" from pesky legal people (unless they are attached to a subpoena), the bigger picture to worry about is what they might do with the results of the survey without the participation of honest FTA owners.
All of this is a "fishing expedition" by DISH Network's legal staff in order to build a case to make a later argument that Free To Air receivers are primarily designed for theft of services such as theirs. Suppose that more than 50% of responders to such a survey answer it in manner that implies they are on the "dark side", having modified their equipment. DISH may manipulate the results of such surveys in such a manner that if you do not respond, they assume you are guilty of what is suggested. We don't know if such a survey is from telephone or mail responses, or what questions might be asked. But if they can compile statistics that suggest that more than 50% of receivers have been modified, some judge will be easily convinced to allow further legal processes that could eventually result in certain digital satellite equipment to be banned from further import or sale because over half of previous units were used in an illegal manner. An argument to claim that you may be using your equipment in a totally legal and legitimate manner could fall on deaf ears if such a determination is judged.
Hopefully things will not go this far, but it appears that their legal strategy is to sue somebody at the manufacturer level, in an attempt to recoup some of the costs necessary to convert their badly compromised security system to something that actually works. We do not want a legal precedent to go this direction, so think long and hard about ignoring an information request, and document how you answer such an inquiry. If you are being bothered by such a request, they already have your name and contact information. A barrage of truthful answers telling them that you are using your equipment solely for the reception of non-encrypted non-subscription services surely cannot help them get the 51% that they want in their argument, and would stop this legal angle in its tracks.
All of this is a "fishing expedition" by DISH Network's legal staff in order to build a case to make a later argument that Free To Air receivers are primarily designed for theft of services such as theirs. Suppose that more than 50% of responders to such a survey answer it in manner that implies they are on the "dark side", having modified their equipment. DISH may manipulate the results of such surveys in such a manner that if you do not respond, they assume you are guilty of what is suggested. We don't know if such a survey is from telephone or mail responses, or what questions might be asked. But if they can compile statistics that suggest that more than 50% of receivers have been modified, some judge will be easily convinced to allow further legal processes that could eventually result in certain digital satellite equipment to be banned from further import or sale because over half of previous units were used in an illegal manner. An argument to claim that you may be using your equipment in a totally legal and legitimate manner could fall on deaf ears if such a determination is judged.
Hopefully things will not go this far, but it appears that their legal strategy is to sue somebody at the manufacturer level, in an attempt to recoup some of the costs necessary to convert their badly compromised security system to something that actually works. We do not want a legal precedent to go this direction, so think long and hard about ignoring an information request, and document how you answer such an inquiry. If you are being bothered by such a request, they already have your name and contact information. A barrage of truthful answers telling them that you are using your equipment solely for the reception of non-encrypted non-subscription services surely cannot help them get the 51% that they want in their argument, and would stop this legal angle in its tracks.
Good argument Mike, but knowing Charlie he will probably manipulate the survey for his benefit and not ours. Dish is dirty and plays dirty pool. He needs to change his encryption with his own millions and call it a night, not expect Pansat to fund it by flexing his legal muscles. He could take all this money being spent on legal and use it towards a secure system instead. Direct tv was pirated and is now secure. If they can do it so can Dish.
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