All Chipped Cable Boxes Going Down

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by dark

The boxes themselves don't have to have talkback disconnected. Having talk-back disconnected doesn't cause any issues to other subscribers. To prevent the modified boxes from talking back a noise blocker could be fitted to the line to accomplish this. Hence the name "noise blocker" ----no interverence...

But that is not how it was done in the beginning is it. There was Plenty of the original boxes out there that had to have had the atermels lifted to gain the box number. If they were not replaced correctly or the tuner replaced correctly then they did make noise on the network.


I have seen the noise on the network that dodgy boxes make via the tools in the headends and hubsites. The noise blockers were made for the problem of noisey boxes out in the field were do you think they came from in the first place

[Kymmy]

Yes but cardsharing is risky as it's ever so easy to close the card down.. Especially with VM as the card is always linked to an account/address.. Same with Sky (at least in this country)

I think the next step will be making account details and the customers more dependable and liable.. Also they need to proactively start monitoring the CS sites and killing the card numbers available..

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Kymmy

Yes but cardsharing is risky as it's ever so easy to close the card down.. Especially with VM as the card is always linked to an account/address.. Same with Sky (at least in this country)

I think the next step will be making account details and the customers more dependable and liable.. Also they need to proactively start monitoring the CS sites and killing the card numbers available..

A few people in court for card sharing would do it. Not the dealers the users.

[Felim_Doyle]

Originally Posted by TheDon

"Secure" isn't really the term I'd use.

Cardsharing is going to get a massive rise in popularity, there isn't currently a system that isn't vulnerable to it, and people will start to wonder why they ever bothered with their dodgy cable boxes in the first place.

I haven't read up extensively on how card-sharing works but, as I keep saying here and elsewhere, it's not going to be possible to do that sort of thing with a cable network, especially after we go IPTV.

I presume that, for card-sharing to work, the viewing card and it's paired set-top-box serial number both have to be spoofed. Because of the one-way broadcast nature of the satellite systems, it's easy to clone an STB and its viewing card. Not so easy on a cabled set-up if your STB has to have a unique MAC and IP address.

[Kymmy]

The thing is that cardsharing relies on an internet connection, As ISP's will soon have to monitor connections for sharing of copyright material what's the bet that it'll eventually be extended to card sharing data

[Felim_Doyle]

Originally Posted by zing

The same can be said of music there is still billions being thrown into the music industry the artists and the reconrd companies still make money by the barrowload.

Remember, that a lot of the record company profits go to discovering, developing and promoting new artists. If they wish to maintain the same level of dividend to shareholders with less turnover and profit, something has to go!

Football players are grossly overpaid, often to their own detriment, and team strips are obscenely expensive, change every year and have sponsorship and advertising on them already. It still doesn't excuse pilfering a shirt or not paying to see a game. Stealing Sky Sports is the same as jumping the turnstile at your local club. You are just less likely to get caught with illegally obtained Sky Sports, so it doesn't seem as risky.

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Felim_Doyle

I haven't read up extensively on how card-sharing works but, as I keep saying here and elsewhere, it's not going to be possible to do that sort of thing with a cable network, especially after we go IPTV.

I presume that, for card-sharing to work, the viewing card and it's paired set-top-box serial number both have to be spoofed. Because of the one-way broadcast nature of the satellite systems, it's easy to clone an STB and its viewing card. Not so easy on a cabled set-up if your STB has to have a unique MAC and IP address.

IPTV is a long way off, and even then we'll likely never go full IPTV, but SDV, and due to the nature of the cable network you'll always have some channels available as it's a broadcast tree network, not a unicast one, so everyone on the same branch would have access to the channels everyone else on the branch was watching. But like I said, you'd be a fool to do it on cable when you can do it on satellite and get so much more. My point isn't that people will move on to using cardsharing on cable, but that "there's not much left out there" is entirely wrong, the satellite scene is alive and kicking and is going to get a huge boost from this. There's probably satellite installers all around the country rubbing their hands together at the prospect of installing a huge amount of motorised systems.

Nothing has to be spoofed for people using cardsharing, all that happens is the cardsharing clients send the encrypted ECM to the cardsharing server, which uses a valid card to decrypted them, then returns the unencypted keys to the cardsharing client. The Viewing cards aren't that traceable as any commands sent from remote clients that would identify them are dropped, the only thing they'll do is decode ECMs and return the CSA codewords.

As for it being easily traceable, make the connection over SSL and it doesn't matter what sort of monitoring the ISP is doing they aren't going to find out what's in it.

Essentially the point is that there's always going to be something for the people that want something for nothing. N3 might stop a huge amount of the casual infringer, but the people who are set on getting their TV for free, well, they'll still be getting their TV for free.

[Felim_Doyle]

I thought that, with BSkyB, you had to marry your viewing card to the box for any premium channels and that there was a procedure to follow if you took your card with you on holiday and wanted to use it at the resort.

Personally I usually just take the wife!

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Essentially the point is that there's always going to be something for the people that want something for nothing. N3 might stop a huge amount of the casual infringer, but the people who are set on getting their TV for free, well, they'll still be getting their TV for free.

You;re never gonna beat them all, but CS tends to be technical where as a dodgy box bought from someone up the pub wasn't.. I think that the N3 rollout will get rid of about 90% of people without a valid subscription for the channels they watch

[TheDon]

Originally Posted by Felim_Doyle

I thought that, with BSkyB, you had to marry your viewing card to the box for any premium channels and that there was a procedure to follow if you took your card with you on holiday and wanted to use it at the resort.

Personally I usually just take the wife!

You do, if you're using it in a legit STB. But several of the cam emulators can bypass this and emulate the boxkey and let the card recieve updates.

Originally Posted by Kymmy

You;re never gonna beat them all, but CS tends to be technical where as a dodgy box bought from someone up the pub wasn't.. I think that the N3 rollout will get rid of about 90% of people without a valid subscription for the channels they watch

Indeed, but as more alternative routes are being shut down there's a definite shift towards boxes with built in cardsharing that are plug and play. You see some of the Cable ones now coming with it for n3, and there's been a huge amount of satellite stbs released in the past year with it as well. One of the main selling points for them is their inclusion of access to a cardsharing server, which begs the question how they can openly sell them online in the first place.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Essentially the point is that there's always going to be something for the people that want something for nothing. N3 might stop a huge amount of the casual infringer, but the people who are set on getting their TV for free, well, they'll still be getting their TV for free.

I rather doubt that any of them will be connected to the Virginmedia network as they will just have a "Call us if you want to continue viewing" message on the screen that cannot be removed which will be very funny.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by TheDon

Indeed, but as more alternative routes are being shut down there's a definite shift towards boxes with built in cardsharing that are plug and play. You see some of the Cable ones now coming with it for n3, and there's been a huge amount of satellite stbs released in the past year with it as well. One of the main selling points for them is their inclusion of access to a cardsharing server, which begs the question how they can openly sell them online in the first place.

Never used it in a CS role but I've had a DVB-S reciever for the last 3 years that although doesn't come out of the box CS ready is very easily imaged for decrypt and CS (share and server) by the use of a simple 3rd party image file It's a Relook Mutant which uses a linux based firmware and I mainly got it as it has an ethernet port that allows me with another 3rd party image to use it as a stream to PC as well as Stream from PC (like my KISS dvd player also does)

So the systems are not exactly new but I do agree that this N3 release will push more and more people towards that end of the market.. Let's hope that VM takes a stance of actively finding the servers and taking direct action to thier removal from the internet. (at least with CS they can hunt them down unlike dodgy boxes)

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Masque

I rather doubt that any of them will be connected to the Virginmedia network as they will just have a "Call us if you want to continue viewing" message on the screen that cannot be removed which will be very funny.

TheDon is absolutely right.

There are already people in VM's N3 areas receiving the channels through card sharing. VM's N3 is, so far, as vulnerable to CS as every other implementation.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

TheDon is absolutely right.

There are already people in VM's N3 areas receiving the channels through card sharing. VM's N3 is, so far, as vulnerable to CS as every other implementation.

At least the majority will lose their free TV which is still quite funny especially if they have paid a lot of money for the box.

[Kymmy]

Originally Posted by Masque

At least the majority will lose their free TV which is still quite funny especially if they have paid a lot of money for the box.

Not really as they've probably saved 10 times the amount on not paying a subscription..