Strategies For Combating Signal Piracy

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A Good Sunday Read

C/P

By Graham Pollock

Signal pirates have turned to the easy access of the internet and portable hard drives to help households gain access to pay-per-view channels for free. Despite these developments cable and satellite companies are far from throwing in the towel.

Swapping out legitimate smart cards for illegally
decrypted access cards to steal satellite TV
signals is now an outdated method of crime.
Signal pirates have turned to the easy access
of the internet and portable hard drives to
help households gain access to pay-per-view
channels for free.
Despite these developments cable and satellite
companies are far from throwing in the towel. Instead they
are rolling out new, high-tech crime fighting tools and
investing in market intelligence and investigative
programmes at unprecedented levels.
Like the initiation of Web 2.0, seen as a second
generation of development and design for the internet,
these new technologies and programmes are designed to
build a stronger line of defence to maintain signal integrity
and thwart the secondary and illegal market that makes
signal pirates rich.
The goal is to thwart pirates from directing customers to
websites where they can download decryption information
into a thumb drive and then plug it into a set-top receiver in
order to obtain thousands of free, premium channels,
including sports packages, movies, pay-per-view events and
adult subscription stations.
New technologies are constantly designed to stay ahead
of the pirates. Unfortunately, many of those solutions are
compromised within months of being launched. For
example, pirates are now developing web-driven solutions
that will automatically restart receivers that are blacked out
by signal providers, without the consumer ever having to
leave his easy chair.
And so it goes, an age old game of cat and mouse. As
fast as new technology evolves, criminals find a way to beat
it and steal signals, and revenue.

Decrypting the problem

It is not illegal to sell free-to-air receiver boxes, which can
be used to access programmes like free public television or
foreign-language stations. The receivers are often marketed
to immigrant populations, interested in dialling into
programmes from their home countries.
But the line of legitimacy is crossed when someone offers
decoded cards or directs them to websites that will provide
the software necessary to decrypt the incoming signals.
Often times system installers work in concert with decoders
or hackers to drive legitimate customers to illegal signal
piracy with the promise of more content for a one-time fee.
“It’s not unusual for installers and decoders to co-mingle
their illegal profits with money from one of their legitimate
businesses which is a money laundering scheme that
raises the level of the crime”, says Vaughn Volpi, Vice
Chairman of PICA Corporation, a 26-year old global brand
protection consultancy.

Business is booming

The simplicity of downloading black market decryption
information from the internet has emboldened pirates. It
has become a multi-billion dollar industry and some
estimate that illegal programming is beamed into more
than one million homes in the US alone.
Piracy is truly a global plague, further evidenced by the
free-wheeling signal theft that is occurring in Canada,
despite courts having deemed it illegal for Canadians to
watch American satellite TV. The loss in revenue is massive
because the demand in Canada is huge and illegal decoding
technology and decrypted access cards are readily
available. “On average Canadians pay about 20% more for
access to US television programming”, says Paul Kocher,
President and Chief Scientist for San Francisco-based
Cryptography Research, Inc.
“It’s a huge problem,” Kocher says. “A couple of million
Canadians get access through the black and grey markets
because the programming is not legally available in
Canada.” “All that money drives cyber thieves to work even
harder to beat the system”, Kocher says.
Signal piracy is a significant crime worldwide. In the US
dealers can be sentenced for up to five years in prison and
up to $100,000 per violation for selling illegal decryption
devices. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US also
allows authorities to seize the equipment they are using to
perpetrate the crime. End users can face up to a year in
prison, but most companies prefer to focus their attention
on the distributors and hackers, says Leonardo Hernandez,
Senior Vice President of Special Operations for PICA.
“Pursuing end users is a time consuming and expensive
process with minimal end results”, Hernandez says. “That’s
why PICA’s Special Operations Unit focuses on identifying
the significant organisations that are causing the most
damage. Success in finding one of these operators often
opens the door to many others.”

Defeating the pirates

Signal pirates are a tight-knit community, and many know
one another. It’s a world that is largely invisible to many
consumers, but their business expands exponentially
through word-of-mouth from satisfied customers. Because
many consumers view getting free TV signals as a
victimless crime, these thieves’ businesses continue to
thrive. For them, the risk is low and the reward is great.
High-tech safeguards play a critical role in helping
companies maintain control of their signals, but one tried
and true, yet venerable security measure that remains
constant, and successful, is a robust boots-on-the-ground
investigation and intelligence programme.
“The only efficient way to consistently net the big fish is
to invest resources in an aggressive global market
intelligence campaign designed to identify and monitor the
organised rings of hackers who are perpetrating these
crimes”, says Volpi.
Professional investigators work for the companies
to gather information, determine the scope of the
criminal organisations, calculate their losses, and then map
out an enforcement strategy that often leads to civil or
criminal charges.
Despite difficult times, many companies are not skimping
when it comes to security, though many are not out in front
of the problem, says Cryptography Research’s Kocher.
“We’ve seen overall security spending going up,” Kocher
says. “But it’s more reactive and less preventative
spending. It seems like companies wait until problems
become more acute before getting help.”
Cryptography Research has been in the pay TV
security business for a decade. The company has
developed a new system it calls CryptoFirewall, a
separate, hardware-based element that safeguards
cryptographic keys and computations from attack. The
technology is being used in more than 50 million devices
and has not been compromised.
The combination of a good technology solution and
vigilant monitoring of the illicit marketplace provides the
one-two punch necessary to knock out signal piracy. Pirates
often pursue the path of least resistance and will focus
their efforts on easier prey if a company is aggressive in
protecting their signal rights.