There is a growing trend within the satellite television viewing europeans to use the internet to illegally enable viewing of encoded (scrambled) satellite tv channels and even whole packages sometimes.
The proceedure that is used is called satellite-cardsharing.
There appears to be two types of satellite cardsharers- those that privately share their own subscription cards with others, which usualy enables them to get another packet back in return.
Such cardsharing rings generally use cardsharing websites to offer their cards to others for free and hope to get others packages in return. For users with moving antennas (satellite dishes) this can sometimes mean that thay can receive and view more than 5000+ channels in the clear.
Other even more unscrupulous dealers will offer a greatly reduced cost to set your receiver up to view certain subscription packages (SKY, CANAL+, TPS etc.) for a set monthly or yearly charge. These dealers generally will take your money and remove the services after you have paid your money and leave you without a service. You can not complain to anyone as you were breaking the law in the first place! These dealers are known within satellite-cardsharing circles as "Payservers" and are even deemed as unfit humans even by the private cardsharing circles.
In both cases a specialised satellite receiver is needed (It has a LINUX operating system) and is openly on sale and is legal to use only if it has not been adapted for illegal use!
ALL TYPES/FORMS OF SATELLITE CARDSHARING ARE ILLEGAL.: http://www.expat-consumer.com/index.php?topic=20.msg21#msg21
