john@hp-pcd.UUCP (john) (08/12/84)
If they really want to get serious about cracking down on illegal pickups then they should call on the professionals...The Russians. The Soviet bloc countries have always had a problem with people watching tv shows that come across the border and have developed techniques to stop it. For instance a certain West German station had a nightly newscast with a clock that showed on the news set. The East German station installed a different clock on their nightly news cast. Then the police would go around to the schools with pictures of both clocks and ask the kiddies to point to the one from the nightly news cast. I can just see HBO pulling off the Sting of the year on illegal pickups. They can make up a fake commercial that would be irresistable to most Americans. " Send $9.95 for the Ron Co Phone Tapper. Make all your calls from your neighbors phone number. Call 1-800-123-4567 Mc and Visa accepted." They brodcast this at a special time and have all the known ground stations substitute a "technical Difficulties" slide for the commercial. That way only the illegal subscribers will see it and call in with their Visa numbers. They can then bill them for the normal HBO subscription charge. John Eaton !hp-labs!hp-pcd!john
wa263@sdccs7.UUCP (bookmark) (08/24/84)
<- bug snack [Regarding interception of pay-TV signals without paying] Though it is true that ill-filtered local oscillators will emit some tell-tale radiation which others can pick up without necessarily entering your house, this is almost irrelevant. Just as bootleg frequency-conversion equipment may be manufactured and sold, appropriate filters (perhaps used with frequency converters that put all channels into VHF channel 4) can also be obtained and used by people of small technical sophistication (people like us can probably *build* 'em). Thus, enforcement of laws against recievers still requires invasive search techniques. If you want to argue about super-duper-sensitive monitoring equipment (no doubt the NSA can come through with the know how for the FBI), I wish you to consider that this is *in itself* a rather invasive technique (not to mention really expensive). Besides, as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Katz vs. United States (1967) (a fascinating wiretap decision, which I will post in a few days when I've had time to type the relevant parts), such a method of investigation, though it violates no physical barriers, IS a search/seizure under the law, and subject to the restrictions of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, including the warrant requirement. And how, I ask, will they get a warrant to sweep your house for the emissions of well-shielded local oscillators when they don't know you have one? Informers! Window Peeping! Fishing Expeditions! Pliant Judges helping cops search with otherwise unjustified warrants under the "reasonable belief" exception the Burger Court just gave us! Wheee!!! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I remain unconvinced by intellectual property arguments. Analogies to housebreaking, assault, car theft, etc, which note that the law doesn't require that you go to extreme lengths to protect your self or property (analogous to good encryption) are flawed in a basic way. No man is required to ignore or refuse anything which invades his peace (his *mund* for all you who want the ancient icelandic concept-name). If you are sitting in your backyard a block from the college ampitheatre where the Grateful Dead are playing a concert, you are not required to refrain from listening because you didn't buy a ticket. If you look out and see someone sunbathing nude on his front lawn, you are not a peeping tom unless you've deliberately circumvented some otherwise sufficient barrier in order to view the sight. Radio waves (carrying intelligence or not) which enter the precincts of your private property unasked are like other uninvited sensory stimuli. You should be able to interpret them without shame. (No, I don't think that the fact you need a radio makes them special. A radio is a tool, JUST LIKE A WRITTEN LANGUAGE. If someone throws a note over your backyard fence, you can pick it up and read it, right? Well, you had to go to use an artificial (if nearly universal) construct called a written language to do that. A radio isn't any worse than an OCR hooked to a voice-synthesizer would be.) When a mugger bashes someone over the head, he's invading the other person's space. When ON-TV broadcasts their shows, they're invading yours. The pay TV services are in the position of someone who communicates with others via the medium of a giant billboard in their front yard. If they don't want others to read their sign, then they should put the message in cipher so those "others" won't be able to understand the message. They shouldn't go around demanding that all the "others" wear blinders (and be whipped if they don't) to protect the contents of their sign. AS I SAID BEFORE, I'M AGAINST THEFT && REPRODUCTION OF BROADCAST MATERIAL FOR PROFIT (LIKE VIDEOTAPING MOVIES FROM HBO AND SELLING COPIES). But that kind of thing can be dealt with without searching for unauthorized antennae. bookmark