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The case involves a colorful cast of characters that includes former intelligence agents, Canadian TV pirates, Bulgarian and German hackers, stolen e-mails and the mysterious suicide of a Berlin hacker who had been courted by the Murdoch company not long before his death.

On the hot spot is NDS Group, a UK-Israeli firm that makes smartcards for pay-TV systems like DirecTV. The company is a majority-owned subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation. The charges stem from 1997 when NDS is accused of cracking the encryption of rival NagraStar, which makes access cards and systems for EchoStar's Dish Network and other pay-TV services. Further, it’s alleged NDS then hired hackers to manufacture and distribute counterfeit NagraStar cards to pirates to steal Dish Network's programming for free.

NagraStar and one of its parent companies, EchoStar, are seeking about $101 million for damages for piracy, copyright infringement, misconduct and unfair competition. The list of witnesses in the case includes EchoStar's founder and CEO Charlie Ergen; several hackers and pirates; and Reuven Hazak, an Israeli who heads security for NDS and is a former deputy head of Shabak, or Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency (the equivalent of Britain's MI5).

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DISH Network awarded $1,050 in NDS card crack case

NDS Group is going to have to tighten its belt. After a mere day's deliberation, a US jury has cleared the company of deliberately cracking the competition's smart cards and circulating the cracks online.

Instead it has been found guilty of cracking only one card, it is thus liable for a hefty $49.69, plus a grand in damages.

[...]

UK-based NDS had been accused of paying hackers to break the security on the DISH Network pay-TV system, and continuing to pay those hackers even when their history of illegal hacking had become known.

The hackers admitted examining the CA system used by DISH and being paid by NDS to do so, but the jury cleared the company of sharing that information.

[...]