

Cable modem hacking author indicted on federal conspiracy, wire fraud - jamesbritt
http://press.oreilly.com/pub/pr/2448

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tptacek
If you just read this ORA post, you get the impression he was indicted for
writing a book. But that's not what happened at all. TCNISO sold cable modem
programming devices, and then (it was alleged) provided technical support to
users of those devices specifically to steal cable Internet service. They
apparently made more than $1MM doing it.

Harris was himself alleged to have solicited information from cable Internet
users around the country specifically to bypass cable Internet restrictions
--- and while researching circumvention techniques isn't and shouldn't be
illegal, actually using those techniques to get unauthorized access clearly is
illegal.

------
tptacek
One more thing: this question about whether "hacking cable hardware 'you own'
is evil" is crazy talk. We aren't talking about people running their own
software on a locked-down platform (clearly should not be illegal). We're
talking about people stealing network bandwidth. When you steal music, at
least everyone else who wants that music doesn't have to pay more for it, or
get crappier music.

------
blasdel
The US Cable ISPs make no attempt whatsoever to stop cable modem hacking. They
could:

    
    
      * Fingerprint / forcibly upgrade your firmware
      * Restrict routing to unauthenticated modem MAC addresses
        * All they do is give you a walledgarden config
        * The subscriber MAC address database is global and lock-free
          * The only real authentication is locally in Layer 2
            * so you can sniff-and-trade
      * Change the locations/names of their config files regularly
      * Stop shipping Motorola-based modems to customers
    

Many European ISPs do a lot of this stuff, but piracy is still totally
possible there, just more of a pain.

