Discussion:
Time to Shut Down the Hackers
(too old to reply)
KevAtlanta
2004-12-05 15:19:33 UTC
Permalink
Both Dish and DirecTV as well as ExpressVu seem to finally be getting
the message and are making efforts at securing their signals and
shutting off those who steal from them. This is a positive move that
is LONG overdue and I praise all of them for doing it- finally. The
fact is that this issue would have never came up if the services
mentioned had employed top notch security to begin with. Services such
as Star Choice which use the highly secure DigiCipher system have
never been compromised. They have enjoyed paying viewers while the
other services have spent time fighting hackers, writing ECMs and even
trying to get the courts and police to do what they should be doing
which is securing their signals. With no or low signal security, a pay
TV service won't be in business very long. That lesson was learned
from ONTV which everybody hacked. This is not only dishonest but a
threat to the very survival to the pay TV business. Cable seems to
have got the message and deployed highly secure digital systems. They
still need to move the analog cable channels over to the secure
digital format and hopefully soon they will. Now the satellite
services are finally deploying much more secure cards that will soon
hopefully put the thieves out of business for good. They need to speed
up deployment and shut off the old cards as soon as possible.
Gary J. Tait
2004-12-05 15:48:36 UTC
Permalink
Post by KevAtlanta
trying to get the courts and police to do what they should be doing
which is securing their signals
In the US maybe, but in Candada, the worry, with Bell anyway, is the
people that grey market subscribe to other than a Canadian service,
and an lot of effort has gone on to fight that battle.
KevAtlanta
2004-12-05 19:01:46 UTC
Permalink
Losing battle as they are fighting it now. They need to compete with
the USA services in programming and price and they CAN do it if the
Radio Commission allows them to do so. What they need to do is find
out why so many Canadians want to watch American pay TV and then to
offer those same channels and/or programs on ExpressVu along with all
the Canadian local channels and news. That would give them an
advantage with their Canadian subscriber base and probably more grey
market subs in the USA as well. For some reason, some people in Canada
have a belief that "Canadian culture" must be protected even though
Canadian culture is virtually the same as USA culture. Me and my wife
watch Breakfast TV every morning and I don't see any cultural
differences except that they give their weather in Degrees C (Canada?
or Centri?) and we give ours in Degrees F (farenheight 9/11). Other
than that I do not see any differences.
Post by Gary J. Tait
Post by KevAtlanta
trying to get the courts and police to do what they should be doing
which is securing their signals
In the US maybe, but in Candada, the worry, with Bell anyway, is the
people that grey market subscribe to other than a Canadian service,
and an lot of effort has gone on to fight that battle.
Homer J. Simpson
2004-12-06 18:03:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by KevAtlanta
fact is that this issue would have never came up if the services
mentioned had employed top notch security to begin with. Services such
as Star Choice which use the highly secure DigiCipher system have
never been compromised.
Nobody bothered hacking SC's system because ExpressVu is easier to hack,
while the content is pretty much the same. That's just taking the easier
route. If both BEV and SC used the same encryption, it'd be hacked by now.
Warren Oates
2004-12-06 18:10:51 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 13:03:51 -0500
"Homer J. Simpson" <***@127.0.0.1> wrote:

:
:Nobody bothered hacking SC's system because ExpressVu is easier to hack,
:while the content is pretty much the same. That's just taking the easier
:route. If both BEV and SC used the same encryption, it'd be hacked by now.

Umm ... what you're saying then is, that there's no difference between
apples and oranges except for the colour and taste ...
:
--
Looks like more of Texas to Me
Homer J. Simpson
2004-12-06 21:30:49 UTC
Permalink
Post by Warren Oates
:Nobody bothered hacking SC's system because ExpressVu is easier to hack,
:while the content is pretty much the same. That's just taking the easier
:route. If both BEV and SC used the same encryption, it'd be hacked by now.
Umm ... what you're saying then is, that there's no difference between
apples and oranges except for the colour and taste ...
Uh...no...I'm saying provider A and provider B offer the same content, but
different encryption. Provider A's encryption is easier to hack than
provider B. Provider A gets hacked. What would be the point of hacking
provider B if it offers the same content?

OTOH, if both provider A and B used the same encryption, no matter how good
it is, *that* encryption would be broken by now.

Geez, I just added a level of abstraction by calling BEV "provider A" and SC
"provider B". I'm not sure I can put this into clearer terms.
Warren Oates
2004-12-06 22:49:04 UTC
Permalink
On Mon, 6 Dec 2004 16:30:49 -0500
"Homer J. Simpson" <***@127.0.0.1> wrote:

:Geez, I just added a level of abstraction by calling BEV "provider A" and SC
:"provider B". I'm not sure I can put this into clearer terms.

Well, here's another layer: SC isn't the only service that uses that
encryption.
--
Looks like more of Texas to Me
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