(25 April 2008 1:30 pm)

MUMBAI: Dish claims that News Corp hired a hacker to hack into its satellite network to steal security codes and overload the market with pirated smart cards. The entire process amounted to a loss of $ 900 million in revenue including the system repair costs to Dish.

Christopher Tarnovsky, the hacker, has testified in front of the California court of being hired by News Corp. However he and News Corp have denied penetrating into Dish's security system. He has claimed that he was simply hired to test security.

Tarnovsky who is testifying in Echostar v. NDS, said he was paid $20,000 -- mailed inside electronics sent from Canada.

Tarnovsky also stated that the payments were made from a separate News Corp subsidiary, Harper Collins.
Dish attorneys said Tarnovsky made a device called 'The Stinger' that was able to intrude with any smart card, regardless of which company had designed it.

Tarnovsky admitted using 'The Stringer', but Dish attorneys claimed that hackers and/or NDS employees used it to reprogram at least 50 Dish Network smart cards to which he and NDS have denied.

The suit was brought by EchoStar Communications, which later split into two companies, Dish and EchoStar Corp, with Dish being the primary claimant, in December 2007.

The $900 million suit against Tarnovsky and NDS is expected to last another two or three weeks.