Virgin media possibly getting serious on dodgy boxes?

[Kymmy]

Nagra 2 was cracked, in such a way that they could generate daily keys from the main keys, this was different to the old Sky days when videocrypt wasn't cracked instead some disgruntled employee decided to hand out the master keys from which the main keys and daily/user keys are generated

Look at Sky's current encryption NDS, has been out for years and apart from brief security problems (as Horace mentions) it's soon been patched and is as secure today as it was when it first came out. Nagra3 looks as though it too will stand for a bit and probably in VM's case well into the IPTV era..

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Horace

To suggest some random person in Middlesbrough has broken this system is ludicrous to say the least, unless they have access to an electron microscope then it isn't going to come from there. Older techniques which I won't mention here don't seem to be working. If VM do switch to N3 or an enhanced version of, then I would guess that IPTV will have taken over long before that system is broken.

I would imagine Horace is in part referring to the NDS cracking of the Canal Plus encryption - which involved a team of experts, a lot of money, and 6 months with an electron microscope reverse engineering the card a transistor at a time.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology...media.citynews

But for sure the guys on these forums can break the N3 variation that VM are using. The rest of the world are just stupid amateurs clearly having failed in 2 years to do what these guys have in a couple of months.

[Kymmy]

??? Sorry but I always thought the card is just a simple PIC and has nothing to do with the full encryption but is normally just a carrier of the user key/details (which can be encrypted in thier own right and why the card needs changing if the main or master keys are updated) which when combined with the main key enables the decryption of the signal.. If so how can an electron microscope be used when a simple reader will do

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

??? Sorry but I always thought the card is just a simple PIC and has nothing to do with the full encryption but is normally just a carrier of the user key/details (which can be encrypted in thier own right and why the card needs changing if the main or master keys are updated) which when combined with the main key enables the decryption of the signal.. If so how can an electron microscope be used when a simple reader will do

The cards decrypt control messages which provide information the box needs to decrypt data, plus they also decrypt the individual subscriber addressable control messages.

The data stream is scrambled with an 8-byte secret key, called the control word. Knowing the value of the control word at a given moment is of relatively little value, because it changes very frequently, about every 10 seconds.

In order for the receiver to unscramble the data stream, it must be permanently informed about the current value of the control word. In practise, it must be informed slightly in advance, so that no viewing interruption occurs. Encryption is used to protect the control word during transmission to the receiver: the control word is encrypted as an entitlement control message (ECM). The CA subsystem in the receiver will decrypt the control word only when authorised to do so; that authority is sent to the receiver in the form of an entitlement management message (EMM). The EMMs are specific to each subscriber, as identified by the smart card in his receiver, or to groups of subscribers, and are issued much less frequently than ECMs, perhaps at monthly intervals.

http://video.aol.co.uk/video-detail/...ard/1526516239

The reason VM can use Nagra 1 and 3 simultaneously is that the control word will be encrypted with both schemes. It is this control word that the encryption is there to protect, strongly obfuscating / scrambling the actual digital TV signal is easy, it's protecting the control word while simultaneously ensuring that authorised users receive the up to date word every few seconds that's the tough part.

A smartcard has more than enough processing power to decrypt 8 bytes every 10 seconds or so.

The cards hold record of what the customer is authorised to use (which package they are on), and they decrypt control words appropriately to ensure that that subscriber has the access they are authorised for. Reverse engineer what the card holds, how it holds it, and what it does with it and you've just undone the encryption. This is what they will be targetting as the existing dodgy receivers already have the capability to descramble the signals once they have the appropriate keys / algorithms to decrypt the control words as they come down.

[nexy33]

All this talented hacking skill in a region of the world famed for hanging monkeys as french spies. who says evolution takes a long time!!!

[Hiroki]

Originally Posted by nexy33

All this talented hacking skill in a region of the world famed for hanging monkeys as french spies. who says evolution takes a long time!!!

Your thinking of Hartlepool.

Middlesbrough are smoggies.

did you lot know there were 1100+ successful hack attacks either accessing code or injecting malware on NASA last year? I bet they thought they were secure too lol

[Ignitionnet]

NASA website != NASA.

no it was NASA the report was in NewScientist

in fact one guy is in the news as the yanks are trying to extradite him http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...91130965502807#

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by zing

did you lot know there were 1100+ successful hack attacks either accessing code or injecting malware on NASA last year? I bet they thought they were secure too lol

I'd bet like in most organisations 99% of those are down to NASA employees running malware that they either received in email or from a website.

Gary Mckinnon is also no hacker, he just stumbled on a load of NASA machines that had zero protection and used very basic tools to get onto them. It wasn't some huge security breach because there was no security protecting the machines, all it took was a port scan of NASA's IP range and basic windows networking tools to gain access. If they thought they were secure then they didn't have much of a clue over how their systems were setup as there was no security on them at all, workstations with public IPs and no firewalls are asking for trouble.

Actual hacks that aren't down to user stupidity are extremely rare, and rely on vulnerabilities being found that can be exploited.

You can't find a vulnerability without being able to run the code, which is why to hack a smart card you need to pull it apart layer by layer and examine it with an electron microscope to reverse engineer what the card does and extract the data.

N3 is not going to be hacked by some random people without access to some very sophisticated equipment.

That's not to say it can't be hacked, it probably can be, the more complex something is the more chance it can be hacked, but will it be done by some bloke from Middlesbrough who posts on a forum about stealing cable? Not a chance in hell.

but can you tell me it will never be hacked?

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by zing

but can you tell me it will never be hacked?

Originally Posted by TheDon

That's not to say it can't be hacked, it probably can be, the more complex something is the more chance it can be hacked, but will it be done by some bloke from Middlesbrough who posts on a forum about stealing cable? Not a chance in hell.

It probably will be hacked eventually, just not at the moment..

[mikkyh]

I hope they do. I HATE people illegally using VMs services with a passion, especially when genuine customers pay so much!

[Digital Fanatic]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

It probably will be hacked eventually, just not at the moment..

and by then everyone will probably be on VM's IPTV network

[Saaf_laandon_mo]

What's iptv?