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Rupert Murdoch-linked pirate website targeted rivals, online file shows
Jamie Doward and Mia de Graaf The Observer 1.4.2012.
DATELINE: 1/4/12
A computer piracy website, secretly supported by one of Rupert Murdoch's companies, openly promoted advice on how to hack BSkyB's rivals, according to documents obtained by the Observer. Emails obtained by this newspaper also reveal that a senior employee of NDS, the Murdoch company, insisted he was personally responsible for setting up The House of Ill Compute (Thoic) site. NDS says it paid Thoic's chief hacker, Lee Gibling, for information allowing it to monitor and prosecute software pirates legitimately.
But the documents provide a new perspective on potentially toxic allegations that resurfaced in a BBC Panorama programme broadcast last week – more than a decade after they first materialised – and which triggered a ferocious rebuttal from Murdoch and his News Corp empire.
The allegations come as the media regulator Ofcom assesses News Corp's near-40% holding in BSkyB following the phone-hacking scandal that saw the closure of Murdoch's News of the World newspaper. At its peak in 2000, Thoic claimed it was receiving as many as 3m hits a day.
The website's first "ezine", a downloadable magazine, was published in 2001 and shared with the Observer by one of its members. It features two articles about how to hack Sky rival OnDigital's SECA software system, which was developed by a French broadcaster, Canal Plus, as a rival to NDS's technology. OnDigital, later rebranded as ITVDigital, was set up by terrestrial broadcasters Granada and Carlton in 1998 and went into administration in 2002.
The articles, by a hacker known as Barrell, describe the programming necessary to facilitate the hack and explain the need to phone OnDigital so that the company could send a signal to the hacker's set-top box.
Barrell advised: "The way to guarantee this is to phone od [OnDigital] while logging and say any of the following, your card is not working, swap a channel, upgrade your package etc. PLEASE PLEASE do not all phone od as soon as this guide is released, stagger it over a few days, weeks, otherwise od will think something is up when a few thousand people start phoning up."Another article, "Installing a chip in a CFT2100 box", explains how to "decrypt" the pay TV networks of cable operators NTL and Telewest, so that viewers can watch them for free. An email, dated 5 February 2001, sent to Gibling, and copied to Ray Adams, NDS's head of security, shows Thoic's members discussed how hackers could learn in its online forums to program software allowing them to hack into cable television.
NDS, which built the software for Murdoch's pay TV platforms around the world, admits paying Gibling tens of thousands of pounds and providing him with computer equipment, but insists this was for his help in tracking computer hackers so that it could protect its own security systems.The company's supporters argue the focus on Thoic is disproportionate because pirated OnDigital cards were being offered for sale on other internet forums and online sites. They also argue claims that the collapse of OnDigital was due to software piracy are wrong because a multitude of factors, not least the high price it paid for live football rights, were really to blame.
But NDS's critics are likely to ask how it was ignorant of the fact that technical guidance on how to hack Sky's rivals was being openly promoted on the site or, if it was aware, what steps it took to inform its rivals.
NDS points out numerous courts have rejected allegations it was responsible for TV piracy.Adams told Panorama that "Gibling developed it [Thoic] and developed it himself" and he "would have arrested" Gibling if he had known OnDigital's code had been published on the site. But in one email, sent on 9 February 2000 to his NDS colleagues, Adams insists: "I created Thoic and still consider it my baby."
Gary Walker, a moderator in the Thoic forums who went under the handle BigBird, confirmed the site regularly released OnDigital codes, allowing the system to be hacked. "I think there is a case for a public inquiry into what happened," Walker said.
NDS said: "It is simply not true that NDS used the Thoic website to sabotage the commercial interests of OnDigital or indeed any rival."
It added: "Like most companies in the conditional access industry – and many law enforcement agencies – NDS uses industry contacts to track and catch both hackers and pirates. This is neither illegal nor unethical. The information NDS has gained has often been shared with our competitors and non-pay-TV customers and law enforcement agencies."Last month News Corp and a venture capital firm announced the sale of NDS to Cisco in a $5bn deal.
Adams did not return calls.
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
Last modified: Sunday, April 1, 2012
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Previous stories
Media Ownership
BSkyB denies order to pull F1 story undermines Sky News's independence
Reining in the media barons
"Taking on the Media Barons": restraints which Labour says could be imposed immediately
Hacking scandal prompts Unite call for review of UK media ownership
Ofcom steps up test of James Murdoch's fitness to keep BSkyB role
Ofcom steps up test of James Murdoch's fitness to keep BSkyB role
Before it's too late: action on media ownership
Sunday’s Sun will be more of the same
Rupert Murdoch to launch Sun on Sunday newspaper 'soon'
Northcliffe to axe two Kent weeklies in wake of failed deal
A Chance for Change
Submission on Media Pluralism to Ofcom
News Corp subsidiary probed in Australia
James Murdoch resigns from Sun and Times boards
Ofcom media plurality review gets more than 45,000 submissions
Why I believe it's all over for James Murdoch
Campaign grows to oust Murdoch
Phone-hacking: building the campaign for change
Parliament debates media ownership
News International to sell Wapping site
Wapping and the Miners' strike - making the connections
Down the Lane
Brooks goes down in flames
Lord Justice Leveson's inquiry: A chance at last to expose hidden collusion
Murdoch blinks
Really the End of the World?
News Corp's BSkyB bid referred to regulator
News of the World to close amid hacking scandal
Backlash for Jeremy Hunt over BSkyB deal
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