satellite hacking

[KeLviN]

there was a short segment on fox 11 news last night about a bunch of CA "satalite TV hackers" that got arrested (6 of them) for stealing satelite tv. estimated damage; 50 mil. (uh-huh....sure) any one know someone that got rolled? mosst of the guys i know that "borrow" sat tv are middle aged men that have little compuer experiance...

and how do the get the figure of $50 mil in damage when their equipment is PASSIVELY recieving data?

[blackwave]

did they bring up captain midnight?

[KeLviN]

nope. just a 5 min segment on how a couple CA people and a couple canadians got arrested. they showed some of their equipment. smart card reader/writers, cards, dishes, and adapters......

[blackwave]

ugh.. "dss kiddies" ... certainly different than satellite hacking..

[KeLviN]

not necissarily, they had some pretty specialized equipment...
alot of people don't consider themselves hackers, but do the sattelite thing like a hobby...

[blackwave]

Originally posted by KeLviN
not necissarily, they had some pretty specialized equipment...
alot of people don't consider themselves hackers, but do the sattelite thing like a hobby...

dss is not a hobby, it is an ILLEGAL market for those who aren't willing to pay for an authorized subscription and depend completely on a few people with actual skills that put the hardware/software together and sell it online... the good thing is that it is a volatile market and most of the thieves get burned in the end since they are unable to keep up with the changing technologies that are presented to them... or the scams they must avoid.

[^Dash^]

What did they intend to do? Get free HBO?
I think they should've find something a bit more safe for their age!!! In time the brain atrofiates....

[TCPCrash]

Hey !!! its so cool to hack a Sat TV :) i know some people who dreams to hack a Sat TV :D

[Stalker]

I entered this thread hoping to find a discussion about hacking orbiting satellites and changing their orbits etc... Anyone know of an example of this? It's just a matter of time before someone sniffs the signals going back and forth and cracks the weak 15 year old encryption on some old comm sat. I think you'd find info on this from a ham radio forum or something...

Hmm...

[blackwave]

Originally posted by Stalker
I entered this thread hoping to find a discussion about hacking orbiting satellites and changing their orbits etc... Anyone know of an example of this? It's just a matter of time before someone sniffs the signals going back and forth and cracks the weak 15 year old encryption on some old comm sat. I think you'd find info on this from a ham radio forum or something...

Hmm...

If you missed defcon 4 you missed a decent presentation, this is one of the presentations that I actually wrote down notes :) :

Dan Veeneman -Hacking satellite systems, along with current notes, revisions, and links to other sites. An excellent overview of how satellites are controlled, the economies of operation, design considerations, and the security strengths and weaknesses of different generation satellites. "Satellite Vulnerabilities: Present and Future", will talk about controllingsatellites, jamming and spoofing, GPS systems, future LEO systems, etc.
Their Homepage! Read it! No Audio Available! Let me know if you recorded it.

Check out this link:
Satellite Vulnerabilities
http://www.decodesystems.com/defcon4.html
which has this link:
Hypothetical Attacks
http://www.decodesystems.com/attacks.html

... this should give you enough info to search for something you may find of more interest. :)

[Stalker]

Many thanks for the linkage (gotta love the interweb). :)

[caffeine20]

when people mention "sattelite tv hackers" it brings to mind images of espionage and spys. where in reality, half of canada is sitting in there underwear watching porn via a hacked HU card, they bought online for 100$. 50 million is ludicrous. ide like to see proof of every dollar.


no offense canada, thee are plenty of us here in the states too.

[blackwave]

Originally posted by caffeine20
when people mention "sattelite tv hackers" it brings to mind images of espionage and spys. where in reality, half of canada is sitting in there underwear watching porn via a hacked HU card, they bought online for 100$. 50 million is ludicrous. ide like to see proof of every dollar.

FYI: Satellite hacking is not the same as DSS pirating...

[caffeine20]

i understand that, i should have directed my answer directly at what started this thread.

which odviously sounded like a DSS hacking ring that was busted.

fortunate for the govt. most hackers dont have the equipment needed to hack into, and or change onboard programming. I.E. orbital patterns and stabalizing patterns.

[GackMan]

Originally posted by caffeine20
half of canada is sitting in there underwear watching porn via a hacked HU card, they bought online for 100$. 50 million is ludicrous. ide like to see proof of every dollar.

well... by your estimation if 1/2 of Canada is horking the signal for free - then that is 16 million people riding the kosten loss pr0n train.

@ an estimate of $50 per month (if they only did it for one month) that would be $800,000,000 (US, not Canuck) in revenue they could never recover.... every month.

yeah yeah... it isn't 16 million people.

but to get to the figure of $50 million you only need a million people doing it and that is if you are figuring it monthly. over a year if 85,000 people are watching for free @ $50 a month loss to the provider then you get your 50 million with beer money left over.

[fddy]

FOX New channel IS FULL OF BULL SH##.
They love to hype news. Just a annother propaganda machine.


:eek:

[KeLviN]

i dont watch netwerk news cuz i dont watch shock tv. i watch cnn, and balance it out with bbc.

[pyrophite]

Originally posted by KeLviN
i dont watch netwerk news cuz i dont watch shock tv. i watch cnn, and balance it out with bbc.


i get my news from MTV and my balance is the cartoon network. :D

[Neural]

My aunt works in the space and communications division of what was formally known as Hughes Aircraft. I think they're Boeing now. Anyway, her role is project manager for satellite assembly and she had told me that modern satellites are massively encrypted and the encryption keys are kept in a vault that needs to be accessed by two key holders. Transponder codes are transported to and from the vault by armed guards.

If you want a primer on communicating with satellites I'd probably suggest looking at www.amsat.org (http://www.amsat.org/) to learn how to communicate with amateur satellites. I know that a few satellites offer voice communication and packet communication.

[blackwave]

I have heard that even to this very day (even post-w-a-r) there are some poorly secured satellites out there that shouldn't be. but that is all i heard, and they could be lies... all lies.. dark lies...

[Splatter]

I think the daily show got it best with there little bit about what fox news really was (The republican news network) One sided news for onesided people :P (not to be bashing republicans but it was funny)

[erehwon]

Originally posted by blackwave
I have heard that even to this very day (even post-w-a-r) there are some poorly secured satellites out there that shouldn't be. but that is all i heard, and they could be lies... all lies.. dark lies...

I'll 2nd what blackwave said, I have heard these rumors of a number of poorly secured satellites floating around.

Mind you I have no idea if this is real or not, The GAO hasn't given me a "Get out of jail free card" to investigate this further...