Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

LOL!

And if your not Genuine you lack features such as Virgin Aero for the TV Guide, and more adverts get placed!

:D

Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

They must be planning something as it would appear its quite wide spread. In the last month a know at least 6 people that have got a chipped box for the tv service. As staff I feel obliged to report this, which i have but nothing seems to have been done about it. Even the people that don't activly subscribe to any services to VM, At the very least you would have thought they would have sent a tech out to cut the feed on the people that don't subscribe.

But saying this I wouldn't imagine VM making public any plans on what they were doing till it went live. Mind you I do remember reading on one of those chat things they do on the intranet about the Next Gen Tv platform that they will be developing and that they would have to send out new smart cards to all the customers. Maybe this is when they will impliment any changes.

Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

not if you helped write it ;)(just a thought).

the source is usually inside, weather it be chipped vm boxes or illegal coppies of windows ets.

thought id just add,before i get loads of the old, "wheres your proof of this " type remarks that this is just my recconing.

Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

What a load of tosh.

They are putting a new encryption system in for the tv network as they have with BB/modems, but its nothing like what you have claimed.

Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

Do you work for Virgin or something? You know a heck of a lot.

Either that or I hope you dont get a C&D letter on your doorstop :P

Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

I don't think any encryption has ever actually been cracked. What has happened is that backdoors have been found into some smartcards which have then allowed the 'crackers' to pick and pick until finally they have access to the Master key. Once they have got that far into the system then even a key change is un-effective as they can see the new keys.

The innermost workings of the encryption itself are still intact, its just the workings of some cards which has been opened up.

An employee IIRC released details on the Canal Plus system (the one used for On Digital) which allowed people to open that system up.

Re: End Of Illegal Cable Boxes
 

The real issue is Virgin have no incentive to resolve the issues with their encryption technology.

If I remember right, Sky pay around £5 a month per subscriber to third parties (which will include UKTV/Virgin). Virgin pay for Sky Premiums per (legal) subscriber who take that option meaning profit to Virgin is minimal, and around £2-2.50 per XL subscriber to Setanta leaving a minimal extent to which TV is profitable, especially when you consider how TV XL is bundled with other services.

3 for £30 with XL probably makes less for Virgin than 2 for £20 BB/Phone.

It may even be possible that if Virgin resolved these issues it'd push away phone/BB subscribers to "better value" triple play services like Tiscali or Sky.

When one considers the cost of replacing the firmware on boxes, cards and potentially some of the boxes it isn't worth the risk especially in the absence of a clear choice of encryption provider to move to.