Gizmodo: News Corp

News Corp. Hires Hacker to Break Into Dish Satellite Network, Steal Security Codes for Pirate Cards

matt buchanan — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:30:00 EDT

This is classic corporate espionage/sabotage at its finest. Dish Network is accusing News Corp.—which used to have a 39 percent stake in DirecTV and still provides its security tech—of hiring hacker Christopher Tarnovsky to break into Dish's network, steal the security codes, and use them to make pirated cards to flood the black market. It sounds insane, but Tarnovsky admitted in court he was paid James Bond villain style, with $20,000 cash payments mailed from Canada hidden inside "electronic devices."

He says that he was just hired to write pirate programs to make DirecTV's own network more secure, but one of his projects for News Corp., the "stinger," can talk to any smart card in the world. Another hacker claims that he bragged about using the stinger with News Corps.'s people to reprogram a bunch of Dish's cards, but Tarnovsky claims he's being set up to take the fall.

Dish says the hack attack has cost them over $900 million. Either way, this whole thing is some serious material for a TNT movie of the week. [Reuters via Valleywag]

News Corp Set-Top Box Becomes DVR: Just Add External Hard Drive

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 16:55:00 EST

How much simpler can it get? You take the HD satellite set-top box already sitting in someone's living room, perform a quick firmware update, plug an external hard drive into the USB jack and voila, it's a bleedin' DVR. Voila is right, though, since this News Corp-owned software fix is currently only available to Canal+ satellite customers in France. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no such thing for News Corp's DirecTV customers in the US, right? Nah, letting people keep their existing hardware is so un-American. It's bad for business, I tells ya! Press release after jump.

CANAL+ Chooses the Latest Generation of NDS Middleware to Transform Subscribers' Set-Top Boxes into Digital Video Recorders
¶ Highlights: ¶ — CANAL+ GROUP has deployed the latest generation of NDS' MediaHighway(R) middleware, allowing subscribers to easily transform their HD set-top boxes (STBs) into HD digital video recorders (DVRs) ¶ — CANAL+ and CANALSAT subscribers in France can now add an external hard drive via the USB port on their HD STB to have a fully functional HD DVR ¶ — CANAL+ has also deployed NDS' MediaHighway to support its latest dual-tuner HD STB
LONDON & PARIS —(Business Wire)— Feb. 26, 2008 NDS (NASDAQ:NNDS), the leading provider of technology solutions for digital Pay-TV, today announced that CANAL+ GROUP, France's leading Pay TV provider, has chosen the latest generation of MediaHighway(R) middleware to enable subscribers to transform their HD STBs into DVRs. CANAL+ launched its first HD STB two years ago and currently there are about 250,000 HD satellite STBs installed in subscribers' homes.

CANAL+ subscribers can connect an external hard disk to their HD STB via the USB port. Only external hard disk units which meet the requirements of CANAL+ for performance, stability and security will be integrated to provide the service. On its website, CANAL+ GROUP publishes a list of approved hard disks that are now available to buy in retail outlets.

As part of the adoption of the new version of MediaHighway, the middleware has automatically downloaded new software to each HD STB. The HD STBs now detect the addition of a new external hard drive and format the drive for use as a DVR. Subscribers may use more than one external hard drive if they wish.

CANAL+ has kicked off a marketing program to encourage customers to upgrade to HD and DVR functionality.

In addition, NDS today announced that CANAL+ has deployed NDS' MediaHighway to support its latest satellite dual-tuner HD STB for the French market.

MediaHighway is the market-leading middleware for digital pay TV worldwide. There are currently over 76.4 million NDS middleware clients deployed, and there are over 10.4 million NDS-powered DVRs in viewers' homes around the world.

"MediaHighway was the only middleware that enabled CANAL+ to offer its consumers the choice of industry-leading pay-TV solutions it required. MediaHighway has demonstrated yet again that it can handle complex requirements," commented Caroline Le Bigot, NDS Vice President, EMEA.

About CANAL+ GROUP

CANAL+ GROUP is the leader in Pay-TV in France with more than 10 million subscriptions to a wide range of offers including CANAL+, CANALSat and the former TPS. Within its offer, CANAL+ LE BOUQUET, the first multi-channel premium offer in France, available via satellite, cable, digital terrestrial television and ADSL networks, features six premium content channels built around the leading premium general-interest channel, CANAL+. CANAL+ GROUP also produces a range of channels dedicated to subscribers' favorite themes which include films (CineCinema), sport (Sport+, Infosport), news (i>Tele), series (Jimmy), documentaries (Planete) and programs for young people (Piwi, Teletoon). CANAL+ GROUP distributes CANALSAT as well, a multichannel offering available on satellite, cable, ADSL, DTT through a minipack and adapted for third generation (3G) mobile telephones. CANAL+ GROUP is also a major producer of French pay-TV channels and, through StudioCANAL, a significant contributor to the financing, acquisition and distribution of films. A pionner in new technologies, CANAL+ GROUP is the first Pay TV operator to have launched HD programs via satellite in Spring 2006 and have today the largest offering in the French TV market with more than 10 HD channels.

About NDS

NDS Group plc (NASDAQ:NNDS), a majority owned subsidiary of News Corporation, supplies open end-to-end digital technology and services to digital pay-television platform operators and content providers. See http://www.nds.com for more information about NDS.

News Corp. President Confirms No iTunes Breakup for Them

Matt Buchanan — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 10:05:17 EDT

Looks like a massive walkout on iTunes by the networks isn't happening: News Corp. President Peter Chernin has stated that they will not pull their content from the store. News Corp. seemed to be the most likely to follow NBC's defection if anyone, given their own reported unhappiness with iTunes' pricing and 50/50 split ownership of Hulu with NBC. Since ABC's not going anywhere (courtesy Disney incest), the only other major network power that could walk is Viacom (CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, etc.), and they're probably staying put too. Do you feel cold and alone, NBC? [Reuters]

The name of News Corp and NBC Universal's ...

Adrian Covert — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 18:50:10 EDT

The name of News Corp and NBC Universal's new YouTube killer is...Hulu? [Krunker]

"Mad Dog" Murdoch to Teach a Generation How To Read The News

Wilson Rothman — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 10:11:50 EDT

Tickled with the fact that there are over 100 million users of his MySpace networking site, but irked that members of the Ritalin generation only spend like two seconds on their pages each day, Rupert Murdoch (or at least, his company News Corp.) is planning to launch MySpace News.

According to Reuters, the service will be a combination of Google News and Digg, both aggregating the most popular news stories around the Web and adding "a social element to traditional news consumption by giving readers the ability to determine what becomes the top news on MySpace." In other words, in spite of there being 25 categories and 300 subcategories, it still might end up "all K-Fed, all the time." If it does, you have only the kids to blame.

Something is definitely going on. Follow the jump to see what happened when visited news.myspace.com.

By a not terribly wild guess, we determined that the URL of the new site will be news.myspace.com. This morning, the following dialog box confirmed our guess:

Keep checking that URL, because the MySpace News beta may start today. Just remember, News Corp. didn't make its name by giving people the news; it made it by selling ads. The more you participate in MySpace, the more exciting you will be to advertisers. That, according to the story, is Murdoch's main motivation. If you don't think you're being targeted, pay attention to the word "target" in the following quote:

"Many advertisers have expressed interest in the service, which allows them to target the MySpace community in a more direct way," Brian Norgard, co-founder of Newroo, a company purchased by News Corp. last year, which created MySpace News' technology, said in an interview.

Go ahead, it's okay to sell your soul. All we ask is that you vote for a Gizmodo story or three each and every time you're on MySpace News. Thanks in advance. – Wilson Rothman

MySpace to test news service to boost ad revenue [Reuters]

More Execs Bring the Hate for YouTube

Matt Buchanan — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 19:25:48 EST

Fresh off the Viacom slap, NBC Universal's Jeff Zucker and News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch lined up to take their shots at GooTube.

Zucker whines that "YouTube needs to prove that it will implement its filtering technology across its online platform. It's proven it can do it when it wants to." It sounds strange, considering NBC has an official deal with YouTube, but not when you consider how wishy-washy NBC has been, pulling clips not officially uploaded by the channel.

Murdoch's criticism is more of the same old, same old: "How do you monetize it?" It's still the question du jour for sure. Then again YouTube's founders, who each walked away with over $320 million seem pretty monetized. – Matt Buchanan

NBC blasts Google's YouTube over copyright [CNET]
Murdoch the latest media mogul to take on YouTube [CNET]