A News Corp unit is currently involved in a trial, after being accused of hiring a computer hacker to develop pirating software.

 The hacker, Christopher Tarnovsky, testified against News Corp's NDS Group, saying that he received a payment of $20,000 in cash sent from Canada inside some electronic devices. He stated that for the past 10 years he has been paid on a regular basis by the News Corp. One of his assignments was to develop a new security program for the DirecTV network.

The company, well known for providing security technology to a global satellite network strongly denies all the charges.

The lawsuit was started by EchoStar Communications, which is now formed by DISH and EchoStar Corp. The main accusation regards Tarnovsky's alleged mission to hack into DISH’s satellite network and flood the market with pirated smart cards after stealing the security codes. The company also claims that their losses during the process were of over $900 million in lost revenue and system-repair costs.

"I never got money for reprogramming Echostar cards. Someone is trying to set me up," Tarnovsky said according to Reuters, expressing his concern that the accusations are part of a large conspiracy mission.

In the days to follow many more will testify on the different matters concerning the accusations and according to officials, the trial is expected to last two or three more weeks.

The location set for the trial is in the U.S. District Court's Central Division in Santa Ana, California as both Tarnovsky and NDS are located there.