FTA concern

[Todd Wiedemann]

Hi fellow FTAers !

I frequent many other satellite reception forums having 2 SD Hughes DirecTV receivers, a brand spankin new LG 3200A HD DirecTV/OTA and an FTA receiver.

Being an enthusiast, I'd sure hate to see anything "disappear" from the sky. To that end, many of the other forums have a closed area where FTA digital "finds" are posted.

I've seen no talk here about that, but just wanted to bring it up. With all the "blind" or "smart" searchers out there, I'd be willing to bet that, on one of the most friendly satellite forums, folks around here might want to share in a secure fashion.

Thoughts ?

 

[Mr Tony]

Sounds like a good idea.

I will talk with the admin & the other moderators and see if we can have a "members only" area

 

[Todd Wiedemann]

Sounds like a good idea.

I will talk with the admin & the other moderators and see if we can have a "members only" area

Excellent.

I'd love to be a part of something like that here.

 

[timmy1376]

Do it like they do where you have to grant rights, and have them prove they have a system somehow.

 

[Mr Tony]

Do it like they do where you have to grant rights, and have them prove they have a system somehow.

That has been though of...

Like I say, I need to talk to the other mod and admin and see what we can set up....probably wont be today or tomorrow....but soon we'll have something that will work

 

[ckudrna]

I need to get my system FAST to join the club......If my application is accepted of course.

Can we have a secret handshake?

 

[timmy1376]

\

Can we have a secret handshake?

No because then it wouldn't be a secret.

 

[PSB]

There are two (at least) trains of thought.....

1. All finds should be public knowledge

2. Its better not to talk publicly about finds as the more you talk about them the sooner the channels disappear, although its never been proved.

Another problem is there are other web sites that do similar things, and if their finds end up here it can cause a lot of trouble, as Iceberg says this may take some time, but it would be a great idea for the Satellite Guys.US FTA forum, any more ideas for this forum are greatly appreciated. (unless they cost money, or involve me actually having to do anything (Joke, well not the money part : ))

 

[ckudrna]

2. Its better not to talk publicly about finds as the more you talk about them the sooner the channels disappear, although its never been proved.

This is an issue I have in terms of legal FTA. If anything up their that can be recieved by a stock pansat 2500 or similar device, then why would the broadcasters or intended reciepients of the feed be inclined to remove it to prevent others from viewing it?

This sounds like some information is being transmitted that is not supposed to be seen, and the people responsible for the content will be unahppy to know that other people know about it and are tuning into view it. In principal, viewing anything that the owner of the property does not want you to be viewing or tuning into is theft, and is no different than trying to evade any major sat companies authentication of channels and feeds.

How is "signal theft" defined here? Just becuase it is recieved without modification to equipment does that mean it is "legal"??

Is it OK for my neighbor to watch me take a shower just because I did not put up enough trees / curtains to block the view?

Another problem is there are other web sites that do similar things, and if their finds end up here it can cause a lot of trouble

So if someone posts information about a feed that is going on and the "feeder" finds out, SatelliteGuys.us would be liable for promoting signal theft or other negative publicity? If this is a concern for people tuning into "legal" FTA, I think the term "legal" should be better defined. Just because you do not take any course of action on your equipment to evade encryption technologies does not automatically clear that person from stealing signals. If the signal was not intended to be seen by anyone other than the authorized parties, than how is that not "signal theft". If you do not have permission to take it, and you take it, it is theft.

I know next to nothing about FTA, but from my little knowledge it sounds like signal theft is only classified for signals that require a subscription fee rather than on the basis of if the end viewer has permission to view the signal or not.

 

[mikekohl]

FTA means free-to-air, or otherwise available in a digital format
in an unscrambled mode that can be received with consumer receivers such as the "stock" Pansat 2500 and others. If one wants to research the
Communications Act, you will find that there are no prohibitions in the private personal viewing of such signals. However, such signals are considered along the lines of privileged "information", and public dissemination or other re-transmission of such signals is not permitted without the express permission of the owner of that signal. You might get away with "peeking through an undrawn window" but once you share that information in any way, it somehow crosses the line. Lawyers could argue different interpretations of that forever, but for practical purposes, if a signal is not encoded, it's fair game to be viewed by private individuals within the confines of their home.
Public performance such as showing that signal in a tavern crosses the line, and an area in which the owners of programming rights have enforced those rights in court.

Signals that have been encoded (or scrambled) have legal protection, and there are no circumstances in which it would not be violating the rights of the owner (of the signal) by circumventing that scrambling system. As they say at the top of this forum, "no hacking allowed".

Mike

 

[ckudrna]

I guess I was getting at the concept of "tuning in" to broadcasts and feeds of things that although they were not encrypted and not formally protected against any viewing other than people with proper credentials, they were not meant to be seen by others, and if they were to "find out" that these feeds were being seen (on this website or any other method of communication) would cause them to shut it down.

Either way you cut it, if certain people responsible for these broadcasts would turn the switch if they found out others were viewing them, it would be theft of signal from them, as they did not want anyone else to have it, but it was taken anyways.

On this forum and many others online any talk of modifying equipment to "get all the channels" and all that crap is quickly frowned upon and the thread is locked, but a thread where a member suggest a place to talk about current signals and broadcasts of which SOME of these broadcasts may be intended to be private although they are traveling in an unsecured fashion would be entertained.

It can appear that being able to receive signals that are openly available without technically stealing the signals would be no different than signal theft if these signals were meant to be more private in nature.

We all have some trust in our cordless phones that the signal is somewhat private, but it is certainly not illegal to be monitoring these frequencies at which these signals broadcast at. We can "legally" tune into FTA Sat's, but what if the owner of signals and broadcasts had the intention of having information more private?

 

[timmy1376]

If I don't want somebody to take my money, I shouldn't leave it laying in the road. I need to put it in a safe that I only have the combination for.

That's how I see it.

 

[Jesterbbad]

Just received My Pansat 2500 ... Count Me in

Jesta

 

[Mr Tony]

Again
There are some things that need to be worked out before we can attempt to do this. We have run into a copuple of issues that admin & mods are trying to straighten out beforehand

stay tuned.........

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

This is something the FTA staff here and I have been discussion behind the scenes.

There has been talk that other sites are already doing it so it should not be a problem. There have been talk that we shouldn't do it.

I am under the feeling that we can do it and probably do it better then others are doing it. However the big question I think is how BEST to do it. And that is the question I am leaving up to PSB, Mike Kohl, Iceberg and Tom Taylor.

There are lots of options available to us in our forum software.

Do we may a new sub forum and make it available to all verified registered members? (This way search engines do not archive the forum)

Do we make it a supporter only forum (while I would love to get a million $$ in donations it does not sit well with me, we are a satellite information site, not a hold information hostage for money site)

Do we make it a private forum and you must apply for access for the forum?

There are lots of things to think about.

I don't think by having a list up with whats available is spilling the beans. The guys uplinking this stuff know they are sending it up their unscrambled.

The name of the site is SatelliteGuys and we have the best FTA SatelliteGuys on the Iinternet here on staff, we will figure out the best thing to do and give you the best FTA forum anywhere.

As I always say... Stay Tuned!

 

[Mark_AR]

My feeling is if the signal isn't scrambled, then it is fair game. Police use open bands that any scanner can pick up. Fire and ambulance are the same. They also have secure spread spectrum for sensitive info not to be shared with the public.

If you apply this to FTA, then broadcasters 'know' that people are going to pick up their signals and some broadcasters 'hope you do'.

If it were not to be seen, it should be encrypted.

 

[PSB]

Thats the problem, if it becomes too popular or public they WILL encode it, it happened to me in the UK. I was picking up ALL the home games of Glasgow Celtic F.C. every week for about a year, I even threw in my season ticket! No one at work would believe I was getting these live games all with muti camera positions : ) Anyway the general public found out, a local bar started advertising that they would be showing the Celtic games "LIVE", anyway they scrambled the channels soon after, there were 3-4 bus loads of Celtic fans arrived at the bar to watch the game, lets just say the bar was refurbished by the Celtic fans, you would never believe who reads these forums.

 

[Mr Tony]

very true..

I know Lyngsat has a lot of it, but there is a lot that they don't show. Remember, Lyngsat isnt based in the US and the owner of the site cannot see our satellites here, so he relies on people sending in the info.

There is a lot that they dont know about

 

[Todd Wiedemann]

Thats the problem, if it becomes too popular or public they WILL encode it ...

EXACTLY, Peter. That's my fear.

What's that old addage about an ounce of prevention ?

 

[Todd Wiedemann]

There is a lot that they dont know about

No kidding ... I'm a member of some e-mail based lists (that were in upheaval about analog/digital posting recently) but they don't service the enthusiast community as well as a forum with this magnitude of users could.

It's not hard to add a 'subscription' based sub-forum ... I own an HD board servicing my local community, using the same software. I do understand the logistics and what Scott and the mods are going through.