If the card had been cracked by a private individual, then they would probably be doing prison time.

How valuable does a company need to be before its staff are exempt from criminal prosecution?

The way NDS treated DISH is exactly what they face themselves every day. Stakes are high and what they did should be considered quite modest, compared to simplier things like tech thieft or spying on competitor.

BTW, NDS may as well be called Israel, Jerusalem based esp. if talking about their security part of business.

My old mate Rupe' wouldn't be up to anything dodgy!!

I believe the true answer is zero. According to the DMCA (http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf):

"3. Encryption research (section 1201(g)). An exception for encryption research permits circumvention of access control measures, and the development of the technological means to do so, in order to identify flaws and vulnerabilities of encryption technologies."

Hacking isn't against the law; using the hack to 'steal' pay TV (or any other) service is.

My childhood best friend Jeff Carr, who died this past August just a week past his 42nd birthday, did 40 months in a Federal Pen for his involvment in hacking the Video Cypher II (VC2) system on the big C-band dish systems in the mid to late 1990's.

Not sure if any of you remember Jeff, but he told me all about this deal with NDS and how they got the competition's (DISH) card hacked and then released it to cause them trouble and make NDS look good in comparison.

So the previous comment on an individual getting about 4 years for Video hacking is right on the money.

NDS just got a F***ing slap on the wrist for this.