Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Student Accused of Taking DirecTV Data Hacker Sites Got Documents, FBI Says

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 06 Jan 2003 14:55:37 -0500

Student Accused of Taking DirecTV Data
Hacker Sites Got Documents, FBI Says

By Mike Musgrove
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 3, 2003; Page E03

The FBI arrested a college student yesterday
on charges of stealing documents from
DirecTV Inc. that describe its technology for
preventing people from pirating the satellite
television service.

Igor Serebryany, 19, was accused of taking
documents concerning DirecTV's
access-card technology. The cards, which
resemble credit cards, plug into a viewer's
satellite receiver and determine what
programming is available to subscribers.

The FBI said the documents were taken from
the offices of the Los Angeles law firm Jones,
Day, Reavis and Pogue, which works for
DirecTV. Serebryany had worked for a
company that made copies of the documents
for DirecTV's legal team, the FBI said.

Serebryany was accused of copying 800
megabytes of information onto two compact
discs and using one of the computers at the
firm's copy center to search for Web sites
used by hackers eager to pirate satellite
service. The FBI said the DirecTV
documents were sent to the operators of at
least three Web sites that specialize in
hacking.

The company began to investigate the theft
after the documents started to circulate on
the Internet. A spokesman for DirecTV said
the company's anti-piracy technology
apparently has not been broken, even though
the information has been posted on the
Internet since the theft in September.

"Just having the information out there doesn't
mean it can be hacked, and we haven't seen
any evidence that it has," said Robert
Mercer, director of public relations at the
company.

Security is an ongoing headache for
DirecTV. Three previous versions of
DirecTV's anti-theft technology have been
defeated by hackers who figured out how to
circumvent the system and receive the
company's signals without paying for them.
"The problem is not trivial, but it's impossible
to put numbers on," said Marc J. Zwillinger,
a DirecTV lawyer.

DirecTV, which has about 11 million
subscribers, spent two years and more than
$25 million to develop a more
hacker-resistant technology, called "P4," or
"Period 4."

Serebryany was charged with the theft of
trade secrets under the Economic Espionage
Act of 1996, which provides for a maximum
of 10 years in prison and a fine of as much as
$250,000. Serebryany apparently did not try
to profit by sharing the documents, the FBI
said, but the law prohibits anyone from giving
away secrets for anyone's economic benefit.

"This is an extremely serious offense," said Assistant U.S. Attorney James W. Spertus, who
is
prosecuting the case. "The fact that he's 19 doesn't mitigate the damage that he's done to
DirecTV."

Serebryany's attorney, Charles Brown, a federal public defender, declined to comment on
the case.
Serebryany is a second-year student at the University of Chicago, and his family lives in
Los Angeles.
Serebryany has worked for the University of Chicago Internet Project, a program that gives
Internet
access to schools in poor neighborhoods.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3545-2003Jan2.html

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