Archive for the ‘News Corp’ Category
“I never got money for reprogramming Echostar cards. Someone is trying to set me up,” said Christopher Tarnovsky with regards to the allegations leveled against him.
News Corp claims hackers only assisted in internal network security
The world’s “second best hacker” says he was hired under the table by media conglomerate News Corp, which owns the Wall Street Journal, MySpace, Fox News, and DirecTV.
Christopher Tarnovsky, testifying in Echostar v. NDS, says he was paid $20,000 — mailed inside electronics sent from Canada — to break into DISH Network’s satellite system and steal security codes necessary for pirating DISH Network’s satellite signals. EchoStar communications, which owned the DISH Network before a split in December of 2007, alleges that hackers from NDS Group, owned by News Corporation, employed hackers to flood the market with smart cards for satellite receivers designed specifically to steal paid DISH content. Both EchoStar and DISH, as separate entities, are plaintiffs in the case.
The suit alleges that the smart cards cost DISH $900M in lost sales and network repairs.
Tarnovsky says that while he was employed to develop “pirating software,” it was not used against DISH or any other rival – instead, it was designed to secure DirecTV’s network.
DISH attorneys said Tarnovsky constructed a device called “The Stinger” – which Tarnovsky admitted to doing – that was able to interface with any smart card, regardless of which company it was designed to work with. Tarnovsky says his actions with The Stinger were aboveboard, but DISH attorneys claimed that hackers and/or NDS employees used it to reprogram at least 50 DISH Network smart cards.
“I never got money for reprogramming Echostar cards,” Tarnovsky testified. “Someone is trying to set me up.”
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