News Corp's subsidiary NDS Group and the DISH Network have been involved in a lawsuit for a few years now. The DISH Network tries to get it right since they believe that the NDS Group was spying on them for a long time. Yesterday a hacker, Christopher Tarnovsky, testified that the NDS Group hired him to make a so called 'stinger'. The main goal behind this was to reprogram DISH's network cards, the company's lawyers think. If this is true, it could have costed DISH $900 million in repair costs and lost revenue.
Last Wednesday Tarnovsky said that his first payment was $20,000. The money was hidden in a box full with electronic devices and sent from Canada. Tarnovsky testified that he was paid to develop pirating software, but denied it was used to penetrate DISH's security system. Of course NDS denies Tarnovsky's statement and calls it 'reverse engineering'.
Tarnovsky, called "one of the two best hackers in the world", said he was paid on a regular basis by Harper Collins. Collins is a publishing arm at NDS and it is expected he will have to open all registers soon. The hacker's statement makes it more easy to believe DISH's point of view and will cost NDS millions of dollars.
