DeeEssEss estimates 200,000 pirates were sent reeling by Sunday's attack. This week, your card is dead.'' Immediately following the attack, hacker community leaders issued pleas for patience. They said the brightest engineers were working on solutions. And so the game continues. Just this Wednesday, Arizona authorities arrested a former law officer and six other people for allegedly operating a satellite television hacking business.
Charges are also pending against four other people.
The thievery is nothing new. Cable TV providers have dealt for years with a similar problem boxes sold in the black market that unscramble the encrypted cable programming signals. So far, most law enforcement actions have targeted manufacturers, dealers and distributors not the end-users. Marsocci said DirecTV was preparing a project to educate consumers on the seriousness of signal theft. Story Copyright 2000, The Associated Press.