Dish vs Coolsat case

[turbosat]

Looks like Dish wins......
MediaBiz

They had fatter lawyers I suppose.....

Edit: I GOOFED--THIS IS COOLSAT (Freetech) NOT Viewsat .

 

[stone phillips420]

now they have the task of trying to collect ahead of them

 

[USDownlink]

Freetech made Coolsats?

 

[USDownlink]

In fact, I'm fairly certain now it isn't Viewsat. Check out what Coolsatusa.com looks like nowadays: Index of /

I hope we have a good collection of factory firmware here, I wouldn't know where else to get it. It's a shame, all told. I bought my first Coolsat 5000 just two months ago, and I couldn't be happier.

 

[DJ Rob]

I had no idea they were going after the manufacturers of FTA equipment. I thought they were just only going after the hackers. I guess we need to buy receivers while we still can before they are all sued.

 

[truckracer]

I in no way whatsoever condone hacking...but Dish wishes they had the monopoly on tv and would probably love to ban the whole idea of even legal free to air.

 

[Tron]

The hypocrites make FTA boxes themselves... For sale in Europe, of course.

 

[tvropro]

Dish's Charlie is himself a pirate from days gone by with VC2 and c band. It was okay for him to do that back then so he could get his gold to create his Dish empire. Now that Dish lost so much because of piracy it ain't right since Charlie is on the other side of the fence. So destroy the FTA manufactures so legal people like us won't have receivers. Then Charlie can force his stupid Dish network down our throats and collect $100.00 a month from us. I don't think so :rant:

Im sure Pansat is next

 

[Derwin0]

I had no idea they were going after the manufacturers of FTA equipment. I thought they were just only going after the hackers.

The problem is the manufacturers that fund the hackers. That's why they went after Freesat, and why Freesat gave in.
The legitimate manufacturers that make recievers, that arn't intended to be hackable, should be fine.

 

[digiblur]

I had no idea they were going after the manufacturers of FTA equipment. I thought they were just only going after the hackers. I guess we need to buy receivers while we still can before they are all sued.

It was rather obvious to folks that the FTA manufacturers were paying the hackers to make firmware. Dish just had to be able to prove it.

The hackers were making exact duplicates of the firmware but with all the added in hack modules. Quite obvious that someone gave them the tools to build the firmware for the boxes. Then the hackers weren't doing it for fun either. It was easy for the hardware guys, pay a guy under the table to make the firmware and get it out fast every time it went down, the least amount of time your boxes were down the word would spread and more people would buy their boxes. It sure did take a while for Dish to prove it though.

Glad they finally did! Kinda pisses you off when you are paying your sub and the other guys are stealing it. But in the end I always knew my subscription wasn't going to go down like theirs.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

It is my opinion that the Coolsats were made to hack Dish Network. If I remember correctly they sent Iceberg a receiver to review that wasn't released yet. He was having a problem with the unit so they sent him updated firmware which had the crack in it. This was directly from Coolsat.

There are many legit FTA companies out there and Dish knows that, they are not going after those companies. They seem to be focused (as they should) on the companies making FTA receivers thats main objective it to steel pay television subscription services.

 

[avg1joe]

There are many legit FTA companies...

Who? The only one I can think of off the top of my head are the folks who make the traxis.

...updated firmware which had the crack in it.

I had a similar experience with my sonicview. I downloaded firmware from their website with the nagra2 crack built in. When I mentioned it here it suddenly went away and an older firmware was posted on sonicview's site. They are being sued now as well. Its unfortunate because they make a nice box.

 

[Mr Tony]

updated title

 

[Mr Tony]

It is my opinion that the Coolsats were made to hack Dish Network. If I remember correctly they sent Iceberg a receiver to review that wasn't released yet. He was having a problem with the unit so they sent him updated firmware which had the crack in it. This was directly from Coolsat.

That was the 8000 and it was released to the public. There wasnt any satellite software in it originally (just OTA) and the only software out there was hackware....but they had done it in two parts
-satellite software
-the "program" to steal

so I could load the satellite software without the "hackware" part in it

 

[zamar23]

Freetech agreed to forfeit all of its liquid assets and inventory to DISH Network and shut down operations immediately.

Is DN going to sell Coolsat STBs now to recover claimed losses? What's the point for a Court to approve the deal to stop selling boxes that can't steal any programming anyway? Is it to hunt FTA boxes development and production in general by example? We don't know, what DN is going after here. More reasonable independent solution seems to be for the company being ordered sold, and recovered monies paid to plaintiffs. Then a new owner would proceed with STB upgrades and new development. Not sure about substance of this approved deal: has DN accepted Coolsat brand name as an asset in lieu of damage compensation only to bury it? Why was that important, when this brand no longer offers hacked receivers?

 

[turbosat]

zamar , they don't want the money--they want Coolsat eliminated. It's revenge, and to make an example for other vendors of fta receivers.

We don't know, what DN is going after here (yes, we do now. They've gotten the hair, skin, meat, now they want the bones).

 

[stogie5150]

Coolsat was a dead brand anyway. Hackers have come to hate them over the last year or so. Plus they were behind the k-box, another hack box that came with the Ethernet thing already installed ready to steal, so to speak. They split with the original "coders" that were writing the software, so DISH may not have even got the right bunch.

We true FTA'ers know that Coolast was dead after the 4/5/6000 receivers stopped being made. The 6100/7000/7100 were just shadows of the great box that the 4/5/6000's were.

Besides, I HOPE DishNet doesn't think its gonna scare more
box makers away, there's probably two more lined up to take Freesat's place. There's just too much money in it.

 

[melgarga]

Exactly. Going after Coolsat was an unnecessary move. The rollout of N3 eliminated them from the playing field. The HD boxes never did the Turbo mode, and the company (mgmt) and manufacturing (contracted) had a number of reorganizations, so in the end for Nagra 3 decryption they were done for anyway.

Echostar has not been so quick to swing the axe, and it's been after the small time or down and out players. Viewsat is like Coolsat in that thier product line no longer poses a threat. The newest exploit requires IP connectivity and a subscription.

Dont fel too sorry for Charlie and his losses..... As long as Echo equipment was needed they were still a leg up on the competition and for every package or PPV that he didnt get paid for, neither did Comcast or DTV, but he did have the basic subber, until the FTA exploit became so widespread. "Business is good" might not be the most accurate statement, but the hacked service hurt DTV and cable far worse, and in big biz, that logic actually makes things show up in the plus column.

The current exploit, card sharing, requires a subscription. The industry knows about sub sharing, multiple IRDs on one account at different locations, and does little about it. The card sharing concept is very similar so I dont expect a big push for it's resolution anytime soon, unless it's some half-assed token gesture to apease stockholders.

Detection of the FTA based systems is possible, but it is a zero growth industry and should burn itself out in time, although Echo's move to all MP4 will likely breathe some new life into it.
Detection of the home LAN, or neighborhood WAN/wireless or VPN setups will be much more of a challenge, but we are back to the same math, -10 for Comcast, -10 for DTV, -9 for Charlie, and it's possible that loss is even less for Echo if you factor in card sharing replacing the (already counted as lost) sub sharing setups.

Fortec, Traxis, Coolsat, Viewsat etc, none of these companies manufacture anything, it is all sub-contracted out to Asian engineering and manufacturing facilities. The Blackbird and the Fortec were some of the front runner FTA hack boxes. The Traxis is likely just a Coolsat 4000 or similar clone. It is possible that some 3rd party FW would have allowed it to be used for signal theft too. Hell, when you can use modified Pansat FW to make a DP 301 or a DTV (DSS) box receive DVB FTA signals anythings possible.
Personally I'm waiting for the ATSC to DCII hack...... would be nice alternative for those FP and ZK channels.......

 

[tvropro]

Personally I'm waiting for the ATSC to DCII hack...... would be nice alternative for those FP and ZK channels.......

An all out DC2 hack will never happen at least publicly. It would have already if it was going to. DC-2 has been the most secure system for years. The reason the pie plates were hacked because of the amount of money to be made. As the masses jumped off c band and went pizza that opened the door for piracy. C band isn't important so the hackers won't spend any time with it.

I do believe that someone somewhere has DC2 hacked and has kept it to themselves for years. Since it's based on the old VC2 technology there was a building block to build on.

ATSC is based on DC2 it may be possible to use it to watch ZK.

 

[melgarga]

LOL. Yeah, it was just my twisted sense of humor comming out. I am certain that if DC II was ever compromised every 4D sub would be cancelled instantly and there would be no more consumer level access to subscribed signals to reverse engineer after an upgrade. They may not have done the same thing back in C band's hay-day, but they have littile to loose (sub revenues, lawsuits, etc) now. Being digital, and other than being non standard (imagine that from Motorola! well GI but who's counting...) I dont know how much in common DCII has with VCII. Videocipher video was never scrambled. It was (is) a bastardized AM signal that needs additional processing to be seen with a std issue analog C band receiver. Not difficult, and not encrypted by any means. The audio is digital and is encrypted. The moniker "Videocipher" was a misnomer and one of the biggest "jokes" ever played.
Although, an indepth discussion on ATSC to DCII probably belongs in a Mad Scientist thread all to it's own, yes I agree, the formats are strikingly similar. Some of the CECBs have serial db9s on the back and what may be USB pinout on the pcb. FW access and FW modifications are two different things though. Then the whole mess would have to be bussed to a DCII compliant tuner chip, all for a few ZK channels.
For FP the unit has to have been "authorized" at some point, whatever that means in terms of flags or registers set in FW. With enough resources/data it could be a fun project since ZK and FP are legally free to air channels. If such a project was sucessful and became public and widespread, that would likely be the end of those channels too. Not to mention Motorola beating some poor bastard to death with the DMCA and proprietary systems patent infringments...sheesh!