If the Cambridge Five had played their games in the modern day South Africa, they would, in terms of the new Act, have been branded with very popular Hollywood-offences such as espionage distributing false information to the state, which could have secured them visit to Polsmoor Prison for up to 25 years…

In the modern area of access to information (see Act 2 of 2000) and constitutional transparency, this new bill comes across quite strangely as very restrictive. A number of commentators have worriedly pointed out that the very wide definition of “state information” (currently defined as “information generated, acquired or received by organs of state or in the possession or control of organs of state”) could inhibit Mr John Doe’s access to government information.

Mr Doe should be very worried because he could suddenly find that some of his records can now be withheld from him in terms of the suggested act and it would now become Mr Doe’s problem to prove that he is otherwise entitled to this information whilst government departments dream up all kinds of excuses in terms of this bill as to why Mr Doe would NOT be entitled to the information. The Bill also allows for the protection of certain commercial information and if one takes that the government is in effect the big daddy of some very large corporation in our country (think Telkom, Eskom, Transnet and the likes), this could make for difficult times for the competition commission and other players in those markets.

It would be interesting to see how the modern technologies play up against very old-fashioned tools such the bill under discussion. The recently launched Wikileaks service provides a platform for private citizens to expose and publish dishonest, corrupt or otherwise sensitive information online about any government or corporation. The purpose of the Wikileaks site is to provide a safe haven where documents can be anonymously uploaded and then afterwards discussed online for verification purposes.

Interestingly enough, this Bill also criminalises the conduct of any South African citizen who contravenes the provisions, irrespective of where in the world this happens.

As Wikileaks so succinctly sums it up:

”
The first ingredient of civil society is the people’s right to know, because without such understanding no human being can meaningfully choose to support anything, much less a political system. Knowledge is the creator of every political process, every constitution, every law and every regulation. The communication of knowledge is without salient analogue. It demands recognition as the founding guide of civilization.
“

It seems as if this Bill tries to swim against the tide of freedom of information, despite the advances in technology and the way in which society is working with information.

Submissions on the Bill have already closed and the Parliamentary Committee is currently considering the submissions.

The Protection of Information Bill is available online at: http://www.info.gov.za/gazette/notices/2008/30885_376.pdf.

The South African section of the Wikileaks page can be found here: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Category:South_Africa

One would be able to excuse the Californian judge reading papers filed in the case of EchoStar versus NDS for thinking he is reading a spy novel, since that is exactly what it sounds like!

In essence, NDS, partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation group, was the manufacturer of smartcards for an American pay-tv company, who found themselves in a spot of bother when the smartcards were hacked and distributed over the internet, leaving the pay-tv company feeling like the SABC, with the nightmare of thousands of pirate viewers. Without a not-so-clever “it’s the right thing to do campaign”, the pay-tv company was forced to replace all their clients’ smartcards at a cost of several million dollars.

This posed a serious dilemma for NDS, since the pay-tv company started looking around at some other companies to manufacture their smartcards and encryption technology – the main contender of which was involved with EchoStar. In order to tackle this dilemma, NDS (allegedly) went about a campaign to compromise EchoStar’s smartcards and encryption technology.

The (alleged) campaign plays out like a serious spy-novel, in great 007-fashion. NDS (allegedly) recruited some of the hackers who initially hacked the NDS smartcards from Bulgaria, Germany and Canada and set up a top-secret facility in Israel with the (alleged) express instruction to break the encryption of the EchoStar smartcards. Other staff on the facility’s payroll included the former Shin Bet (Israel’s secret service) deputy-head, a former US Navy Intelligence Officer, a former Scotland Yard commander and an alleged terrorist.

The campaign started to unravel in 2000 when US Customs agents found US$40 000 worth of cash stashed inside electronic equipment such as DVD players and the like, shipped to one of the (alleged) hackers (an engineer on NDS’ payroll) in California from Canada via Texas. Just prior to that, a german hacker, who had been able to get hold of the encryption codes and schematics for the EchoStar system (and who NDS confirmed they offered a job, which he had rejected) disappeared from his home and was later found dead, hanging from a belt in a local park. The death was ruled a suicide, however there was indications of foul play, such as the deceased feet touching the ground when he was found.

EchoStar realised that their smartcards had also been hacked when they met the pay-tv company who wanted to switch from NDS to EchoStar. EchoStar claims that NDS was behind this hack in order to discourage pay-tv companies to switch from NDS to EchoStar.

During all of these events, EchoStar wasn’t the only company faced with hacked smartcards. The French company, Canal Plus, also instituted action against NDS for allegedly hacking its smartcards. This case was eventually dropped when Canal Plus’ holding company and NDS’ holding company struck a deal in Italian pay-tv services, which included a condition that Canal Plus drops its claims against NDS.

On the flip side, NDS is denies all of the allegations and maintained that they were reverse-engineering EchoStar’s smartcards in order to understand their competition without distributing the information. In an email statement to wired.com, NDS declared: “The hacking of EchoStar was the result of inferior technology arising from inadequate investment in research and development by [EchoStar]. NDS, on the other hand, invests heavily in research and development … we reinvested over 30 percent of our revenues into R&D — the result is that we have zero piracy and the platforms of our customers are completely secure.”

Strangely enough, this case has received very little media attention in the US, a country where most of the media companies are somehow linked to Murdoch’s empire. The case is expected to last another two to three weeks in the US Central District Court of California.

* apologies for the (alleged) in the article – at this stage none of the allegations have been proven in court and since br!ghtshark is no 008, he’d better play it safe at this stage.