This does not seem to me to be a very effective solution for Netflix. According to the article:

"Some Netflix users are reported to have received a message asking them to confirm they live with the account owner by entering a code included in a text message or email sent to the subscriber."

What's to stop someone from calling up, texting or emailing the real subscriber, asking them to check the message, getting the code and continuing to watch? It might delay things, but not for long. Unless they plan to use an IP address in the detection, I can't see how this will help. And even then, the real subscriber could just claim he or she is over at a friend's house and wants to watch something. Nothing says you have to be home when you sign in. 

I just don't think this will be anything other than a nuisance in the end. And it doesn't appear it will solve the problem.

This reminds me of the old "numbers" game they used to play with C-band satellites. 

For those not familiar with those huge dishes in people's backyards, before digitization, every channel - including Showtime and HBO - were on separate satellite transponders and scrambled. But there were already groups and satellite dealers who would regularly get in a set of long numbers from some source or other that you could type into a receiver to unlock each channel, getting it to come in perfectly. They almost always worked, but the pain-in-the-you-know-what was that they were changed every month or even every week, after which you had to go find the new ones to get the signal back. 

It was piracy, certainly, but that didn't stop many people from doing it. I remember owners calling one guy in particular asking "if the numbers were in." It sounded like a gambling den if you didn't know what they were talking about. Eventually, the companies caught on and changed the way they sent out the signal, effectively putting an end to the practice. Once Motorola's 4DTV was adopted, it was over. 

It was a crazy cat and mouse game and it went on for a year or two, but when it worked, it opened a whole new world of hundreds of U.S. channels most back then could only dream of. 

Much has changed since that time, but one thing hasn't - the larceny in people's souls still drives them to try and get something for nothing. And Netflix has its work cut out for it.

The Denver Five was great. And then there was a west coast package that included stations in San Francisco, Seattle, and L.A. if memory serves. Great for time shifting. Those days were incredible before the little dishes came in and destroyed that industry forever. (And don't forget the Wild Feeds, which was one of the greatest things ever, where you could tape the feed of a major network show being fed to the network or Canada with no commercials in the middle of the night. Those I really miss!)

For those who never got to experience C-Band, here's a look at an old Satellite TV Guide from 1984 and a sample page or two from the magazine. 

 

 

MJ Vancouver wrote:

Interesting now they spelled out most of the channel names back then, such as Arts & Entertainment. That channel doesn’t exactly what I’d call “arts” anymore!

This was a loooong time ago in the very early days of original cable TV in the U.S. Back then, a lot of stations had a very different idea of what they were about. You're right about A&E long abandoning that mandate. But if you think that's bad, check out what's currently airing on The Learning Channel!

What I'm "Learning" is never to watch it and expect to learn anything! Even the History Channel's old mandate is too often in its past. (Kind of ironic, if you think about it!)  

I never had the pleasure of having a C-band dish. A friend of mine was a C-band dish hacker (hardware and software) and I always enjoyed watching the wild feeds.   At the time I didn't have the real estate to set one up.  Once I did, it was DirecTV/Dish and I took up that hobby with a vengeance.  At one point I had a dish farm in the backyard pointed at 7 satellites. 

And that's the thing.  For me it was a hobby, mainly to be able to say "I've done it".  I never bothered with cards.  I was getting into emulator boards and atmel technology.  The side benefit was watching the real food network and TVLand.  On DTV, before the spotbeams, it was also really cool watching local channels from all over the U.S.

Of course when the encryption tightened up.  It was game over.  Since the equipment was already in place, I kept my legit Bell Satellite service until I moved in 2018.  Strangely enough, in my new place there is a satellite dish but I never even tried it.  Just went with Rogers.  I guess I've become an old fart who just doesn't want to mess around with hardware anymore.