Three Plead Guilty in Satellite TV Hacking Case

Three men indicted on a single count of violating the federal copyright law pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Anthony Battaglia Oct. 23.

According to federal prosecutors, the defendants, Jung Kwak of Oceanside, and Phillip Allison and Robert Ward, both of Seminole, Fla., admitted that beginning in March 2008 they hired computer hackers to break the latest Dish Network encryption design so that the line of satellite receiver boxes sold by Kwak would continue to have a market.

Kwak is the owner of Viewtech, an importer of the satellite boxes that allow users to obtain a limited amount of free programming, most of it consisting of ethnic and religious programs. But by reverse engineering smart cards provided by Dish, the boxes could obtain more signals illegally, prosecutors said.

By late 2007, Dish created a new encryption scheme that would prevent the boxes from gaining access to the signal without purchasing a subscription, prosecutors said.

In his pleading, Kwak admitted meeting and paying $20,000 in cash to another person to dissect the Dish smart card. Kwak also admitted he offered a $250,000 reward to hackers to obtain the latest Dish smart card, according to federal prosecutors.

The three defendants face maximum prison time of five years and $250,000 in fines at their scheduled sentencing on Jan. 22.

— Mike Allen

For Immediate Release
October 23, 2009 United States Attorney's Office
Southern District of California
Contact: (619) 557-5610
Three Plead Guilty to Violating Digital Millennium Copyright Act

United States Attorney Karen P. Hewitt announced that Jung Kwak, 33, also known as “Mr. Viewsat,” of Oceanside, California, Phillip Allison, 35, also known as “thebroken,” and Robert Ward, 54, also known as “TDG” and as “thedssguy,” both of Seminole, Florida, have tendered pleas of guilty to conspiring to violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The three defendants were charged in a one-count indictment handed up by a federal grand jury sitting in San Diego on July 9, 2009.

In connection with their guilty pleas, the defendants admitted that beginning in or about March 2008, they determined to hire computer ****ers to break the latest DISH ******* encryption scheme, known as Nagra 3, so that the line of satellite receiver boxes sold by defendant Kwak would continue to have a market. According to the indictment, and in connection with their guilty pleas, the defendants admitted that Mr. Kwak owns and operates Viewtech, Inc., in Oceanside, California. Viewtech imports “free-to-air” or “FTA” satellite receiver boxes and sells them to the public through a ******* of retailers under the brand name “Viewsat.” According to the indictment, there is a limited amount of free programming available by satellite to owners of Fta Receiver boxes, much of it consisting of ethnic and religious programming in numerous languages. Yet, millions of Viewsat FTA boxes have been sold to the public. The popularity of FTA boxes is due to the fact that they are designed to make it a simple process for a purchaser to obtain subscription-based satellite television, such as that offered by ****star’s DISH *******, for free. DISH ******* licenses copyrighted works from the copyright holders, encrypts the signal, and sells the right to view to DISH subscribers. Subscribers to DISH ******* programming obtain from DISH a “***** card,” which is inserted into a DISH satellite receiver box. The ***** card decrypts the programming that the subscriber is authorized to view. Over the years, DISH has changed its encryption algorithms and employed other countermeasures to attempt to defeat theft of its signal. To illegally decrypt the DISH signal, the FTA boxes must appear to have DISH ***** cards. That is done by reverse-engineering DISH ***** cards and creating computer code which, when downloaded to an appropriate FTA box, will emulate the existence of a ***** card and trick the system. In the past, as DISH encryption and countermeasures were defeated, the code has been posted on the Internet and made available for download to anyone.

In the late fall of 2007, DISH announced that it had created a new encryption scheme and would start shipping new ***** cards to its customers. As the new encryption scheme was deployed, owners of FTA boxes would no longer be able to view DISH programming without a subscription, and sellers of FTA boxes would lose their market.

The defendants admitted in their plea that Mr. Kwak authorized Messrs. Allison and Ward to locate persons to work on cracking Nagra 3. Mr. Kwak agreed to provide funding and a substantial reward for success. Messrs. Allison and Ward admitted that they solicited a third party to join the scheme. Mr. Allison admitted purchasing a specialized microscope to be used in dissecting and analyzing ***** cards for the third party and was reimbursed by Mr. Kwak. Mr. Kwak admitted meeting with and paying $20,000 in cash to the third party for photographs of a dissected ***** card purported to be a Nagra 3 card. Mr. Kwak also admitted that he offered a reward of $250,000 if the EPROM (eraseable programmable read-only memory) for the Nagra 3 card could be obtained.

The defendants tendered their guilty pleas before United States Magistrate Judge Anthony J. Battaglia, subject to final acceptance of the pleas by United States District Judge Janis L. Sammartino on January 22, 2010, at 9:00 a.m.

This case was investigated by Special Agents of the Cybersquad of Federal Bureau of Investigation in San Diego.

DEFENDANTS Case Number: 09cr2646 -JLS
Jung Kwak Oceanside, California Age: 33
Phillip Allison Seminole, Florida Age: 35
Robert Ward Seminole, Florida Age: 54

Why the move, thought this would be Fta news..

I guess you are right, i'll move it back.

__________________

Please don't PM me with fta related questions, ask them in open forums so others can benefit from them too.

I thpught it was started thinking i was wrong, just checking:]

bummer

he's so used to you telling rumors dMac1! LOL But you're always where you belong!