[supremus]

Looking around the various forums, it appears auto updating systems which handled today's code change were back in the game from yesterday, so it's back to the drawing board for Virgin. Last time they managed a major hit was April(?), which, as I understand it, meant people could still manually update their systems, and auto updating systems were back in a matter of days, which have apparently handled every code change since then, some of which very daily, assume key rolls and code changes are the same.

I don't understand all the jargon, so any of out resident pirates should feel free to correct me, but it sounds to me like the systems used by pirates, the emulators, do exactly what the name suggests; emulate original systems, but not flawlessly, so the cable companies can find and exploit weaknesses in the emulation, which was what they managed to do in April and a couple of days ago. But when they do, those flaws are apparently easily corrected by whomever creates these emulators, and it becomes increasingly difficult for the cable companies to find new weaknesses with each successful hit.

It really sounds like VM have no shot of winning this game, until they're prepared to invest in an encryption system that hasn't been completely comprised, but this would greatly increase their costs, and they're apparently not really making money off their TV product as it is, and I doubt their customers would appreciate the cost being passed off to them. I suspect Virgin just feel compelled to try one of these major hits every once in a blue moon to get some press coverage that might keep their content providers happy.