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Satellite: Illegal Satellite Signal Providers Being Targeted in Major Probe
Renfrew County -- There’s a change quietly blowing through the airwaves above all of North America these days, and any pirates harbouring in Renfrew County are bound to be fl ushed out sooner or later.
US and Canadian officials have joined forces in one of the largest international crack downs on television satellite or free-to-air signal stealers, taking down several major illegal signal providers from Texas to southern Ontario, even closing down stores as close as Arnprior selling illegal hardware.
One Renfrew County “expert” warns that as the US marshals and Canadian offi cials are intent on taking down the big players in recent weeks, their eyes will soon turn to the private individuals purchasing the satellite-stealing hardware in the hopes of eliminating or at least putting a massive dent in the television pirating black market.
“But what a lot of people don’t realize is it’s illegal (stealing signals) and that they’re also being taken,” the expert said. “They (private individuals) are being told they can get free cable, but they’re not being told the systems go down every week; I know there’s people here in the Valley still selling some boxes (the hardware for stealing satellite signals) that were taken down last week and won’t be going back up; they’re being convinced to do something illegal and at the same time they’re being taken.”
Long involved in computer and television technology, this county area expert has been hired by several legitimate service providers leading the crack down to help monitor the illegal signals and the pirates designing computer software and/or hardware to steal the signals. As such, this person has signed confi dentiality contracts and must remain unidentifi ed, as well as to protect them from the pirates who may wish retribution -- for the sake of this story, we will call the person ‘Pat’.
“There’s so many boxes out there right now they (the legal service providers) just don’t have the staff to monitor them all, so that’s where I come in,” Pat said. “They are losing, I would say millions of dollars, and I think they are going to try and make some examples of people; the little guy.
“They’ve gone after the big guys; they’re going to start working down the list and the user is going to get it in the end,” Pat added, saying at least four major suppliers of illegal services have been levied with substantial charges and more come down every day for the past few weeks.
The bulk of the investigations are taking place on behalf of a group known as D*SH Network, based out of Colorado, but they are the main signal providers to B*ll Canada and its B*ll Expressnet services. It marks the largest such campaign against piracy Pat has heard of and at this point, to anyone considering taking a chance on free television, is simply warned, “don’t buy.”
“They (illegal providers) are all coming down, one-by-one and the investigators are accumulating data,” Pat explained. “Any time they bring down something like a store front selling these (illegal) boxes, they are getting the computer data with people’s names and credit card purchases; the names of anyone who bought at these places or on-line. One guy they took down here in Ontario had 22 computers with customer data stored on it; they (investigators) got him and I’m sure they’ll start going down his lists soon enough.
“My advice to anyone in Renfrew County is if you’re approached and you’re going to try something illegal, just be aware -- buyer beware,” Pat warned. “They may tell you it’s free TV, but they won’t tell you if it’s not already down, it will be.”
END
Do not panic, if this is true, they are after the BIG boys!
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