HarperCollins paid notorious hacker to develop piracy soft

[Alexander Turcic]

The Guardian reports:

A computer hacker [Christopher Tarnovsky] has told a US court he was hired by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to develop pirating software - but denied trying to breach a rival satellite system. ... The hacker told the court he had been paid on a regular basis for 10 years by Harper Collins, News Corp's publishing business.

While book publishers still allow their business decisions to be dictated by an irrational fear of piracy (with the finger pointed at the ruthless Internet user, of course), HarperCollins felt no shame in hiring one of the "two best hackers in the world" (quote EchoStar) to develop "pirating software" (as admitted by Mr. Tarnovsky) and, in addition, to break competing TV encryption systems (as claimed by the plaintiff ).

Irony knows no bounds.

[Ralph Sir Edward]

Yes, it ranks right up there with "patent trolls" enforcing their patents by sueing big companies instead of letting them "liberate" the IP for free....

[Kingston]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Yes, it ranks right up there with "patent trolls" enforcing their patents by sueing big companies instead of letting them "liberate" the IP for free....

Kinda makes sense I guess, at least from HarperCollins standpoint. It takes a thief to know a thiefs methods.

If you watched or read about Frank Abagnale in Catch Me If You Can you know his story ended (happily) with him working for the feds to catch those perps who were doing what he had done.....this after some serious jail time.

Kind of an unusual method of learning a trade....but effective.

[jimmydare]

This doesn't really have anything to do with the book publishing division (if true) it's about the satellite TV encryption... Forgetting the ethics, it's hard to imagine a book publisher hiring a hacker to do anything. (other than write a book maybe.)