How large is the Pirate/Hack market?

[Claude Greiner]

How does this relate to Dish? Easy, shelfspace. Piracy does not 'always' equate to losses. On the contrary, it can relate to far greater exposure. Are those fta users really down? I don't know, but lets say they are. Who are they more than likely to subscribe to now? I bet Dish knows fairly well through their number crunchers what the percentage of pirates are also paying subscribers. A business such as Dish, would be failing it's obligation to the bottom line, if one, you didn't try to know this, and two, if you didn't try to maximise the ratio in your favor(one way or another).

I'm not saying what I write here is absolutely true, but it is entirely possible.

I respectfully have to disagree!

There are 4 types of hackers out there...

#1 This group of people will never pay for TV as long as there is a hack out to get it for FREE. The only time these customers will ever pay for TV is if all the hacks are down and they are left with no other options they will subscribe to either DISH or Directv. Getting cable is never an option with this group of people.

#2 These are the friends of the hackers in the above group. These customers are perfectly happy with even analog cable Tv, but because their friends know how to hack they will cancel their Cable and get Free satellite. These customers will be the first to actually start paying again either to Cable or Satellite when the hacked systems go down. Usually their hacker friend can't get to them fast enough, they get frustrated with not being able to watch Tv which causes them to subscribe.

#3 These are the occasional hobbyists. They will have a ligit system with a basic package such as Top 180, but will have a hacked receiver for the movie channels, PPV and Porn. If it goes down, this person could care less because if they want to watch something on a pay channel they will simply call and add it to their subscription

#4 This group of people doesn't have a choice, they live in Canada and they go with a hacked system because they want American Tv and they can't legally subscribe. Some of the smarter ones that don't want to be bothered with servce interruptions will actually go as far as to get a US address and subscribe with credit card autopay.

 

[vurbano]

You're wrong.

MicroSoft has it's OS and application foothold that it has today, in a very large part to early easy piracy. Ask any IT Admin from the early to mid 90's how easy it was to pirate MS products... very. Then ask the same how easy it was to pirate Novell server OS's... not nearly as easy. Novell was pricey, but far superior to MS server OS's at that time. But IT budgeting was at it's infancy, so we had to be very clever to maxmise our tiny budgets. We did it often times by using the inferior product but at a price that we could handle... free. The risks at that time were close to nil. The rewards were huge, you were a God at your company if you were giving your fellow co-workers apps that the old school management couldn't understand the benefits of in laying out the money to justify them. This is how MS and many others got there 'real' userbase built up.

Winzip was an relatively unknown app until Sys Admins realized how easy it was to use for there quite often inept coworkers. Early cracks of this app were rampant. Usage sky rocketed, once again getting it's desirable and necessary 'shelfspace' in the pc users 'supermarket'.

Same for Jasc's PaintShop. MS Word at our company was on 80 plus pc's, while we had three legit licenses. I could name numerous more examples of situations were piracy in the computer world was the sole reason why that software app is where it is today. In fact, where's Novell today? Hardly anywhere that's where. Had they been pirated early and got established and rooted into businesses when the budgets really started to get properly funded and legal departments started to demand legitimacy... they would be far bigger than they are now.

How does this relate to Dish? Easy, shelfspace. Piracy does not 'always' equate to losses. On the contrary, it can relate to far greater exposure. Are those fta users really down? I don't know, but lets say they are. Who are they more than likely to subscribe to now? I bet Dish knows fairly well through their number crunchers what the percentage of pirates are also paying subscribers. A business such as Dish, would be failing it's obligation to the bottom line, if one, you didn't try to know this, and two, if you didn't try to maximise the ratio in your favor(one way or another).

I'm not saying what I write here is absolutely true, but it is entirely possible.

I agree. Its like that with a lot of technologies. Wanna know which HD DVD technology is gonna win in the end? The one you can pirate.

 

[hobojoe]

wow the Canadians cannot see American TV? no wonder hacking seems to be a bigger deal to them. i learn something here every day.

 

[stevo/65]

It is a huge problem

You even have knuckleheads coming here to find answers
on "how to hacking"

It is currently Dishnetworks shortcoming.
Hopefully not for long

_______________

http://www.myspace.com/1_crazymexican

 

[VIPERS-PIT]

You're wrong.

MicroSoft has it's OS and application foothold that it has today, in a very large part to early easy piracy. Ask any IT Admin from the early to mid 90's how easy it was to pirate MS products... very. Then ask the same how easy it was to pirate Novell server OS's... not nearly as easy. Novell was pricey, but far superior to MS server OS's at that time. But IT budgeting was at it's infancy, so we had to be very clever to maxmise our tiny budgets. We did it often times by using the inferior product but at a price that we could handle... free. The risks at that time were close to nil. The rewards were huge, you were a God at your company if you were giving your fellow co-workers apps that the old school management couldn't understand the benefits of in laying out the money to justify them. This is how MS and many others got there 'real' userbase built up.

Winzip was an relatively unknown app until Sys Admins realized how easy it was to use for there quite often inept coworkers. Early cracks of this app were rampant. Usage sky rocketed, once again getting it's desirable and necessary 'shelfspace' in the pc users 'supermarket'.

Same for Jasc's PaintShop. MS Word at our company was on 80 plus pc's, while we had three legit licenses.

All the apps you listed are STILL very easy to key code TODAY. XP PRO, OFFICE 2003 PRO, anything from ADOBE and any other piece of software out there. Including win zip and winrar (my choice).

 

[Stargazer]

Is Dish Network planning an attack on the pirate market soon? It seems like it has gotten very bad. There is a huge demand for particular things lately and the prices are way way up. The highest I can ever remember them. Sure makes it hard for some to get a cheap used receiver.

 

[SatinKzo]

Last I knew they had done a pretty decent job of shutting out alot of it. The big demand seems to be for old dish receivers and FTA's that can use a card reader.
I think it just one of those things that is gonna be cat/mouse still for quite a while. No matter how much people don't want to admit it.

I just have visions of E* engineering dept having tons of modded boxes and FTA stuff sitting around testing ways to prevent them, but not killing subs equipment.

 

[hobojoe]

not that its going to matter but they don't even bother to use security screws! i think they could come up with a security code that expires weekly. when your box calls in it gets the new code for the next week. let them try searching codes every week!

 

[Stargazer]

Not everyone is or can be connected to a phoneline so that is not a good solution. I think they already use security screws as you mention. They have keys that change constantly.

 

[hobojoe]

when i said security screws i meant to hold the case on. i have a 301/7100/7200/501/508. and all just have philips screws. and your right i'm a full time rv'er and that solution would cause me to loose authorization constantly.

 

[rglore]

Now that Dish had enabled some of the more advanced security features in the new N2 cards, all of the people using FTA receivers with hacked firmware available on the internet are now shut down. The way it was going, there would have been more thieves than subscribers in about a year, 99 percent of FTA sales were to people stealing Dish and BEV programming. The numbers still using hacked cards are quite low and not a big priority at this time. It could be years before widespread signal theft is again a problem.

 

[kenny911]

Word is that the pirates have compromised dish once again and fta is working once again.

 

[SatinKzo]

Yeah, I read the same thing, but not all boxes, just certain ones (don't know, didn't take time to read it very throughly). Supposedly a non-card fix too. I don't know how fast the files are ported to other receivers but it looks like dish will be having a busy Monday. I already see that FTA box bids on ebay are going up pretty quickly! Of course just when I was looking to add a second receiver to my setup (No biggie, the main page post makes me want to see what SatelliteAV is offering)

I still would like to see dish's anti-piracy testing department(visions of FTA boxes and stuff all over testing ECM's etc)

 

[nsaspook]

It's a battle that the providers will always lose with the current system. You have a system where the open and encrypted text along with the key is known. All you need is to crack the hardware. Because of the large amount of traffic that is generated by a video system and the ability of overseas companies to use ion beam analysis on the cards while they are working to get around any hardware firewalls inside them, the current system will be cracked within about 3-6 months after any change if someone pays the cash.

What if one of these guys did a little hack job for you for about a years pay.
http://www.strategiestm.com/conferences/esmart/06/speakers.htm

 

[kenny911]

Their is a dirty little secret and thats that the fta manufacturers pay people to come up with cracks so they can sell receivers.

 

[SatinKzo]

Unfortunately, I don't think it's that big a secret. There's a reason why fixes only come out for a certain box first.

 

[Stargazer]

I think Dish Network is in on it. Heck maybe Directv is too. They probably make the receivers or have them made to sell to those that do not want to pony up the money for a subscription. They make the money one way or another. Dish does have experience with making receivers for a long time now going back to the early c-band days. Dish and Direct have control over hitting the cards when they want, especially if they release the crack if they know how to hit it. Everytime they hit it they can drive the demand up for the boxes again after they sell them off cheap being used ones or a new type of box that they would have to buy. It will be the same thing with MPEG-4. They will want to swap everyone out to MPEG-4 so all the FTA'ers will have to buy new boxes.

 

[sA :: Shaggy]

I think Dish Network is in on it. Heck maybe Directv is too. They probably make the receivers or have them made to sell to those that do not want to pony up the money for a subscription. They make the money one way or another. Dish does have experience with making receivers for a long time now going back to the early c-band days. Dish and Direct have control over hitting the cards when they want, especially if they release the crack if they know how to hit it. Everytime they hit it they can drive the demand up for the boxes again after they sell them off cheap being used ones or a new type of box that they would have to buy. It will be the same thing with MPEG-4. They will want to swap everyone out to MPEG-4 so all the FTA'ers will have to buy new boxes.

Hey you might have something there, take a peak at this (from the dishnet site)

Equipment sales. For the three months ended June 30, 2006, “Equipment sales” totaled $114.7 million, an increase of $35.5 million or 44.8% compared to the same period during 2005. This increase principally resulted from an increase in sales of non-DISH Network digital receivers and related components to an international DBS service provider and non-DISH Network digital receivers sold to other international customers, partially offset by a decline in sales of DBS accessories domestically.

Cost of sales — equipment. “Cost of sales — equipment” totaled $84.5 million during the three months ended June 30, 2006, an increase of $25.8 million or 44.0% compared to the same period in 2005. This increase primarily resulted from an increase in sales of non-DISH Network digital receivers and related components to an international DBS service provider, an increase in the number of non-DISH Network digital receivers sold to international customers and higher 2006 charges for slow moving and obsolete inventory, partially offset by a decline in costs associated with sales of DBS accessories domestically. “Cost of sales — equipment” represented 73.6% and 74.0% of “Equipment sales,” during the three months ended June 30, 2006 and 2005, respectively. The decrease in the expense to revenue ratio principally related to an increase in margins on sales of non-DISH Network digital receivers and related components, partially offset by lower margins on DBS accessories and higher 2006 charges for slow moving and obsolete inventory.

Source http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=68854&p=irol-SECText&TEXT=aHR0cDovL2NjYm4uMTBrd2l6YXJkLmNvbS94bWwvZmlsaW5nLnhtbD9yZXBvPXRlbmsmaXBhZ2U9NDMyMjYzNyZkb2M9MSZudW09MzQ=

 

[Mr Tony]

The international company is probably ExpressVu

 

[Pepper]

Echostar also sells FTA receivers in Europe.