DirecTV's Secret War On Hackers 619
"Allow me to give you some background.
"One of the original smart cards, entitled 'H' cards for Hughes, had design flaws which were discovered by the hacking community. These flaws enabled the extremely bright hacking community to reverse engineer their design, and to create smart card writers. The writers enabled the hackers to read and write to the smart card, and allowed them to change their subscription model to receive all the channels. Since the technology of satellite television is broadcast only, meaning you cannot send information TO the satellite, the system requires a phone line to communicate with DirecTV. The hackers could re-write their smart cards and receive all the channels, and unplug their phone lines leaving no way for DirecTV to track the abuse. DirecTV had built a mechanism into their system that allowed the updating of these smart cards through the satellite stream. Every receiver was designed to 'apply' these updates when it received them to the cards. DirecTV applied updates that looked for hacked cards, and then attempted to destroy the cards by writing updates that disabled them. The hacking community replied with yet another piece of hardware, an 'unlooper,' that repaired the damage. The hacker community then designed software that trojanized the card, and removed the capability of the receivers to update the card. DirecTV could only send updates to the cards, and then require the updates be present in order to receive video. Each month or so, DirecTV would send an update. 10 or 15 minutes later, the hacking community would update the software to work around the latest fixes. This was the status quo for almost two years. 'H' cards regularly sold on eBay for over $400.00. It was apparent that DirecTV had lost this battle, relegating DirecTV to hunting down Web sites that discussed their product and using their legal team to sue and intimidate them into submission.
"Four months ago, however, DirecTV began sending several updates at a time, breaking their pattern. While the hacking community was able to bypass these batches, they did not understand the reasoning behind them. Never before had DirecTV sent 4 and 5 updates at a time, yet alone send these batches every week. Many postulated they were simply trying to annoy the community into submission. The updates contained useless pieces of computer code that were then required to be present on the card in order to receive the transmission. The hacking community accommodated this in their software, applying these updates in their hacking software. Not until the final batch of updates were sent through the stream did the hacking community understand DirecTV. Like a final piece of a puzzle allowing the entire picture, the final updates made all the useless bits of computer code join into a dynamic program, existing on the card itself. This dynamic program changed the entire way the older technology worked. In a masterful, planned, and orchestrated manner, DirecTV had updated the old and ailing technology. The hacking community responded, but cautiously, understanding that this new ability for DirecTV to apply more advanced logic in the receiver was a dangerous new weapon. It was still possible to bypass the protections and receive the programming, but DirecTV had not pulled the trigger of this new weapon.
"Last Sunday night, at 8:30 pm est, DirecTV fired their new gun. One week before the Super Bowl, DirecTV launched a series of attacks against the hackers of their product. DirecTV sent programmatic code in the stream, using their new dynamic code ally, that hunted down hacked smart cards and destroyed them. The IRC DirecTV channels overflowed with thousands of people who had lost the ability to watch their stolen TV. The hacking community by and large lost not only their ability to watch TV, but the cards themselves were likely permanently destroyed. Some estimate that in one evening, 100,000 smart cards were destroyed, removing 98% of the hacking communities' ability to steal their signal. To add a little pizzazz to the operation, DirecTV personally "signed" the anti-hacker attack. The first 8 computer bytes of all hacked cards were rewritten to read "GAME OVER".
"For more information, visit http://www.hackhu.com."
Re:Physically destroyed? (Score:2)
see this [hackhu.com]
Re:I'm afraid I found this v funny (Score:2)
Unfortunately the smart cards weren't quite "Hal", otherwise we would have heard
I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that
last Sunday night.
Re:not stealing (Score:2)
Re:The "Game" is far from "Over" (Score:2)
Wow! It's getting deep in here. (Score:2)
1. "So much so, that Hughes corp. (the primary owner of DirecTV) decided to create their own smart cards" (They do not create anything NDS is the creator of the card, they were contracted to produce and maintain the security and encryption systems. But you would have know that had you bothered to look on the back of the damn card.)
2. "One of the original smart cards, entitled 'H' cards for Hughes" (The F card was around long before the H card came out. There was a limited number of G cards then came the H it was named H because it was the next progression in the naming cycle. Not some great naming conspiracy.)
3. "The hacker community then designed software that trojanized the card, and removed the capability of the receivers to update the card" ("Trojanized" you make it sound as if condom man invented it, the correct term for what you describe (write protecting the card) is "stealthed")
4. "Each month or so, DirecTV would send an update. 10 or 15 minutes later, the hacking community would update the software to work around the latest fixes. (Some 3ms were up for years without being touched)
5. "DirecTV sent 4 and 5 updates at a time"
(Actually there were up to 9 at 1 time)
6. "Many postulated they were simply trying to annoy the community into submission" (Dynamic code updates were recognized long before they were fully active (C2 and D9 nano). Everyone knew it was coming.)
7. "Some estimate that in one evening, 100,000 smart cards were destroyed" (It was a hell oh alot more then that if you include all the VALID subscribing customers that were effected by there botched attempt. You fail to mention that there were almost as many vaild subs taken down as well.)
8. "removing 98% of the hacking communities' ability to steal their signal" (I'm still up and running, emulation is uneffected (Thanks PGM))
8. "To add a little pizzazz to the operation, DirecTV personally "signed" the anti-hacker attack. The first 8 computer bytes of all hacked cards were rewritten to read "GAME OVER" (WRONG, don't know who was feeding you that line crap (oh, yeah the same moron that told you the "H" was for Hughes) the actual code is below)
So get your facts straight, I would've expected better from you guys.
This article is a load... (Score:2)
Re:finally (Score:3)
but stealing tv is wrong
I am so sick of this attitude! It is not "stealing TV". When you steal something, the person that you stole it from no longer possesses it. An example of stealing TV would be smashing a shop window, grabbing a television set under your arm, and running. This is by no means the same thing.
DirecTV are broadcasting their signal over satellite. Whether you pay for their service or not, it gets beamed into your property. If you have a dish, you will pick up the signal. If you happen to have the means of decoding this signal, you can watch their TV shows. How is this stealing? This is no more stealing that watching the Superbowl at a friend's place because he has DirecTV and you don't. Are you "stealing TV is wrong" advocates suggesting that DirecTV should send agents round to their subscribers houses to issue them with an extra pay-per-view bill for any of their friends who happen to be parked on the couch with a bag of doritos watching the game?
No, this is an outrageous abuse. If DirecTV don't have a business model which can earn them a profit as they beam their signal into EVERYONE'S airspace, then they shouldn't be in business, end of story. Or, as they would say, "game over".
not stealing (Score:3)
Please consider this for a moment: Hughes is bombarding us with their electromagnetic emissions... why shouldn't we be allowed to receive and decrypt them?
I really don't see how this is much different than DeCSS, which seems to enjoy the support of the Slashdot community.
So... stealing motion picture studios' work is OK, but it's wrong to intercept and decrypt electromagnetic signals broadcast through the air? Signals that are being absorbed by our bodies, with still unknown effects.
I'll buy the idea that people shouldn't 'steal' DirecTV's signal when DirecTV allows me a way to opt out of being hit with their sattelite beams. (Please don't suggest that I wear a tinfoil hat. ;)
LASTLY, I haven't seen any mention of how these counter measures have affected paying customers. I know several legit DirecTV subscribers who had their cards stop working after Black Sunday. How does anyone feel about that?
Is it OK for DirecTV to inconvenience paying customers in the course of their battle with the hackers? How many 'civilian casualties' will be tolerated? And is DirecTV going to be giving these people refunds? Probably... if they spend an hour or two on the phone. The customer's time isn't important anyways, right? As long as they're paying their bill...
NorthSat and DTV (Score:4)
Well, That may not be how it actually went down.
In October the guy who ran Northsat in Canada got raided. There was a consent decreee, and as part of his plea bargain he agreed to act as a consultant to DirecTV.
Although DTV had already been busy implementing the dynamic code, many old timers claim that they see dean's hand in the 4 (that's right 4, not one) ECM's that came down starting last sunday.
So it would seem that the legal system allowed DTV to force a hacker to destroy part of his own creation. Not a clear cut case of DTV defeating pirates with their own engineers. Guess he shouldn't have have a bunch drugs and cash in his house when they raided him hehe.
http://www.legal-rights.org/northsat.html
http://www.legal-rights.org/newspapers/northsat
Agree - Re:It's not wrong to figure it out... (Score:5)
In fact since most of us DONT get DirectTV and are STILL constantly bathed in its RF emissions Hughes is in the wrong, if anyone is. Mind you, I don't have a problem with them sending the bits to their own subscribers. The fact they they chose a CHEAPER method of distribution to increase their own profits opens them up to this.
Anything being broadcast non-interactively(not two-way like say, a cordless phone), whether tv, radio, or otherwise, is like air as far as I'm concerned. i.e. Not any company's but the peoples.
If the company doesn't like that, make their own customers use over priced less effective measures, like cable, spread spectrum, or other methods.
If the cost of that makes it unprofitable, so be it. The Constitution (Sorry, US centric) gives the right to the PURSUIT of happiness, not the right to it. THere is a difference. Similarly, Hughes can try to make money by giving a service worth paying for. They're not entitled to just because they spent a lot of money.
Think about it. If I fire radiation at your home 24/7 without you asking for it (paying subscribing whatever, and that IS what radio/broadcast energy is) you should have the ability to do whatever you want with it.
They are NOT STEALING. Stealing implies taking something away from someone else. As in they no longer have an object they previously did. These peeople went out and bought their own satellites, smartcards and gizmos. They can fdo anything they want with them.
Xerox did not have to pay all the scribes who were put out of work by copiers, nor did the guy who came up with carbon paper. Just because you used to be able to make money doing something once does not mean you are entitled to keep making money off it forever.
I'm with DirecTV on this too... (Score:2)
As for my perspective, I have a DirecTV platinum subscription, or whatever they hell they call it, yet I hack my service. Why? Because it's fun.
They got one of my cards, and didn't get four others. This wasn't the final 'game over' for everybody, just for the script kiddies of the card hacking world.
As for the legality of it all... who cares? This shit is fun!
--
"Don't trolls get tired?"
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:2)
Where do these people get the STBs to watch DirecTV from? Generally cable/satellite/etc operators will sell their STBs as a loss leader, aiming to get their money back from subscribtion charges over a lengthy period of time.
Assuming this is how DirecTV is sold in the states, that sounds pretty close to theft to me...
...j
Oooo. (Score:5)
Riiiiiiight....
Re:finally (Score:2)
Stealing and Invading Privacy are two different things.
You should also note that until just a few years ago, it was indeed perfectly legal to listen to any radio transmission you could receive, as long as you didn't divulge the contents. That meant that, yes, you COULD listen to cellphone calls. You just couldn't tell anybody else about the contents. Then, one of the first content-protection laws, ECMA, was passed making it illegal to listen to cell phones. This was a law passed purely for the convenience of the cell-phone companies, so they could say "Yes, we're secure - it's against the law to listen in." It was and is still technically feasible, however. Even old televisions that went above channel 70 could hear cellphone calls. (Note: this law is rapidly becoming moot, since most cell companies are switching to digital as fast as then can go. You could still scan the digital cellphone bands, but it's much harder to listen in. )
I have phone lines that cross my propery, does that mean I can hook into them and get free long distance?
No, because now you're not passively intercepting the radio waves. You're taking active steps to steal service.
You're letting your indignation take over your higher thought processes, plus you have forgotten recent history. Calm down.
As far as I know, according to the law you can still listen to cordless phones, which is nearly as entertaining. And, for a really good time, try scanning baby monitors.
...phil
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:5)
You wouldn't care if I set up a listening post to hear any wireless stuff going on in your house, right? You probably don't care about Echelon and various Internet-based listening posts monitoring your e-mail and where you surf, right?
After all, you are sending your data out over shared space, and if I feel like manipulating it *however I want*, that should be my right.
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:2)
That doesn't mean they did anything wrong.
It's not whether you win or lose... (Score:3)
Re:So the hackers got hacked. (Score:2)
Forcing me to uninstall and reinstall the game IS harm. It's a big waste of my time.
Re:finally (Score:2)
It is not "stealing TV". When you steal something, the person that you stole it from no longer possesses it.
Consider the infrastructure. Those satellites are expensive. If you are grabbing the service for free, who's paying for the infrastructure and operating costs? Hughes is not the bad guy here. They don't circumvent fair use rights in any way, they provide better service, pricing, and quality than local cable providers and their pay per view is cheaper than (and higher quality than VHS) video rental. Their business practices are not monopolistic (in fact, they have several competitors)
The manual that came with my reciever even listed details of channel allocation, packet format, etc.
This is no more stealing that watching the Superbowl at a friend's place because he has DirecTV and you don't.
That's not stealing because they contracted with your friend to provide the service in exchange for a fee (which was presumably paid). They got theirs and your friend got his. If they decided to bill by the eyeball as you suggest, I would switch to another service immediatly. If they took steps to make sure there wasn't another provider, then I would agree with you.
Punishing the bad guy like the MPAA and RIAA who circumvent fair use rights and play dirty games to kill off competition won't work if they know they'll be punished even if they play the good guy.
If DirecTV don't have a business model which can earn them a profit as they beam their signal into EVERYONE'S airspace, then they shouldn't be in business, end of story. Or, as they would say, "game over".
O.K. they and the regular cable operators should shut down immediatly. You can go back to a glorious 3 channels of $hit mixed with snow to choose from.
Re:impressed (Score:2)
There may be some ground to say that DirectTV overstepped its bounds to destroy cards that were at one time rightfully sold.
I imagine that DirecTV's response to a claim would be "Fine, you pay for the service you stole from us, and we'll replace your card". Somehow, I don't think there will be many claimants.
Re:Uh yeah. (Score:2)
For starters, H cards are damn near indestructible. I've seen one go through a washing machine and still function.
How can a virus wipe out my flash BIOS? After all, it survived a trip through the washing machine! They blew a few fusable links using a charge pump on the chip.
Secondly, even there would be no need to add the offending code bit by bit, you could just send 1 update.
And the pirates would just block it. First, DTV had to get the pirates to accept the updates rather than block them.
Thirdly the destruction of the cards would force Hughes to replace them. Not a cheap move. They'd be opening themselves to a lawsuit from everyone who was willing to say "I hadn't modified my card, honest" otherwise.
And if DTV could prove otherwise (such as the defendant's lack of a DTV account and no history of payments to DTV), the court records will prove that the plaintiff committed a felony. Sort of like the things you see in the dumb crooks shows.
Re:finally (Score:2)
The reason you have never seen an individual (someone not reselling their copied/"stolen" material) is because of the need to prove a loss. This is a major issue surrounding MP3's and the like. Just because a person has copied/decoded/viewed commercial data, it does NOT mean they would have ever paid for it. You can NOT prove a loss of profit, because you can't prove that the person would have ever paid for it at all.
That is true for content protection. However, DTV is a service and so the laws are a bit different.
Re:finally (Score:2)
They are running a commercial enterprise, it's the responsibility of them to come up with a business model which at least covers their costs... It's certainly not the responsibility of any other party to support anyone's business model.
They do that by charging for the service (which wouldn't exist at all if they couldn't charge for it). They also accomplish it by things like the subject of this story. It's not like they're trying to get a TV or VCR tax like some cartels we know. Or like they're trying to sue competing technology into the dirt. They also don't try to squeeze out more than their due by circumventing fair use rights. If they were, I would agree that they failed in their responsability to have a profitable business model.
We need a new word... (Score:2)
We need to strongly promote a word or phrase that implies that that person is not one that hacks to undermine a system, but to learn and possibly improve a product. "White hat hacker" I've heard used, but it still has some negative connetation. Of course, even if we come up with such a word, we need to inject it into the mainstream press somehow, and that can only be done by groups that are leading the hacking effect, include Linus, Red Hat, and other distros.
Nice! Enthralling, Well-written, Engaging Story (Score:5)
Congratualations on a well-written, engaging news story. Clear, concise, interesting with thrilling narrative, factually informative. This entry is a model for all good Slashdot entries.
Thanks.
No sympathy here... (Score:2)
Neither do I support stealing channel access by the hackers, though. This isn't a fair use issue; the difference is the same as copying a book from a library (fair use) vs. stealing it from the bookstore (shoplifting). Frankly, I think this was an unbelieveably cool move by DirecTV. I do find it somewhat scary that they were actually able to make this work, but what they did is truly an ingenius anti-hack method.
Now, the next question is, when are the hackers going to run around this system too?
----------
Re:Uh yeah. (Score:2)
A liquor store owner was sued (successfully, and for a load of cash) because he put an electrified fence piece over a skylight that was used a large number of times to rob his store during the night.
IANAL, but the law is called something like the "pull-string trigger" law. (i.e. you can't rig a gun to your door so when it's opened the gun fires.)
impressed (Score:2)
There may be some ground to say that DirectTV overstepped its bounds to destroy cards that were at one time rightfully sold. I would suspect that their legal department has some sort of "appropriate use" clause. Besides, any one with a functional frontal lobe knows that people were stealing. Those who had their cards fried should think fondly on their time of beating the system, but above all they should respect that DirectTV outsmarted them.
Of course... this assumes that someone isn't right now figuring out a way to reverse the process or come up with a new way of hacking the system. Any way you cut it, this is one of the most interesting and impressive reactions in years. Maybe the cuecat people could take a hint and decide to get smarter instead of making legal threats.
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:2)
*I* think that if you have a computer which you allow to run non-trusted software, and can recieve such software independently of what you do, you're asking for trouble. (although there should still be some kind of minor trespass violation - it's illegal to enter a house with an open door if it's not yours, just not as bad as if you had broken the door down)
On the other hand, it's illegal to hack computers, no matter what sort of crappy security they have. While no intelligent US hacker is going to step forward and sue Hughes for hacking (as they'd quickly get counter-sued for watching it) Canadians may have better luck. I think that it would be rather funny for them to start a class-action suit, as their watching is quite legal but Hughes' hacking still isn't.
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:3)
As others have pointed out Hughes is sending the signal to hackers. In fact, they want to send it to nearly everyone, ideally. Furthermore they're sending it as a broadcast radio signal, and that's a public resource.
If you proceed with your logic, you imply that it would be illegal to read billboards on the side of the road (ideally for this argument in the state-owned right of way) if the whim of the owner was that you weren't allowed.
Just as there is a right to free speech, there MUST be in order to actually have such a right function, an equally absolute right to listen. Otherwise you're supporting the opinion that you have a right to free speech, but if the government finds it inconvenient, people who listen can be arrested. (despite the speaker going free) This is a nonsensical propisition you're making, I think we'll all agree.
If a communication is privileged or there is an expectation of privacy (e.g. whispering, talking in a way that cannot reasonably be intercepted outside your home, lawyer-client discussions) I can see making that a minor crime. Generally one that's worse for the government (e.g. tapping w/o a warrant) than individuals.
But sending data across a public medium to virtually the entire continent does not strike me as private. Even the Internet is not private - it's a network of other, smaller networks, and it's hardly possible to believe that communications across it are automatically private. Certainly the most esteemed privacy/encryption experts on the net don't think so.
Once someone recieves such a stream - particularly if it was sent so that they, their neighbors and their countrymen could recieve it - I don't see how it's Hughes' business what's done with it. If they wish to prevent people from seeing it, the best way is to not send it to them at all. The second best way is to heavily encrypt it, but encryption is not a guarantee. It also means that Hughes' business is not TV but decryption software. If someone manages to put out an RE'd version w/o infringing on patents, then that's their right too. We rely on that right to have microcomputers that aren't all sold by IBM.
And furthermore, in Canada, which is what we're discussing, the people there explicitly DO have the right to watch broadcast signals. There's just no two ways about it there. If the law in Pottsylvania were that TV broadcasters had to give out free TV sets to people in order to have a license to broadcast then Hughes would have to either stop broadcasting to them, or start handing out the sets; it doesn't matter if the law is different than US law, sovereign states have the right to have different laws.
Tricky reasoning... (Score:2)
If you feel like putting up a dish to capture that satellite's signal, go ahead. Manipulate it however you want, too. But unless you can brute force the encryption keyspace or you the transmitting company, your manipulations are not going to get very far.
The question then becomes "what do DirecTV subscribers actually sign to, under what conditions, and when?" I don't use the system, so I'm not going to speculate... but I will point out that their ongoing, "you must communicate with our modem to get the latest decryption firmware updates" service could make it real hard to decode their signal without their help, even if you can purchase the system (with original firmware) while avoiding signing away your rights to hack it.
There is a difference. (Score:2)
DirectTV sends broadcasts over the airwaves, and can send encryption keys for those broadcasts over phone lines on a separate, authenticated channel. Although they cannot prevent legitimate subscribers from recording and sharing the broadcasts they paid for, they can easily prevent pirates from accessing broadcasts they have not paid for (without getting a copy of the frequently changeable keys or a tape/CD-R of the desired program from a legitimate subscriber.)
This is not possible with the recording industry, because they cannot change encryption keys on the media they sell, and they must include those keys with the media or with the players in order to allow the media to be played back even once. At this point it isn't encryption, it's scrambling. And scrambling can always be defeated, as long as we control the hardware. For any non-interactive media that can be played back on a general purpose computer or a sufficiently hackable electronics device, it is simply impossible to enforce "pay per play", "do not copy", etc. with technological measures. Despite SDMI, I think most of them know they can't beat copyright violators technically, and know that the only way to beat violators in court is to with unconstitutional laws like the DMCA that hurt non-violators as well. It's not just evil we're dealing with here, it's desparation.
Click-through license agreements (Score:2)
With our cable modem service, at least, there's something like four pages of fine print that they got us to put a physical signature on during installation. I made the (apparantly incorrect, according to other posters) assumption that DirecTV would have their bases covered that way.
This story is very incomplete.... (Score:5)
Re:so what if they did? (Score:2)
Re:Hackers? (Score:2)
Re:You know, I think I'm with DirecTV on this (Score:2)
- -Josh Turiel
Re:finally (Score:3)
But taking DirecTV's own receiver, only made for the purpose of viewing their service by subscription, and then modifying it for free service is theft, plain and simple. By your standard, there should only be free broadcast service (over-the-air commecial TV), because anything else is and should be open for the taking to anyone who can hack a receiver or get their hands on a modded card.
If that's the case, forget pay-per-view (what - life without Wrestlemania?), forget all the premium commercial-free services like HBO - and forget pretty much any reception at all anywhere other than in and near urban areas.
There's a big difference between fair use and theft of service. I should be able to record off my DTV, time-shift as I like with my VCR or Tivo, and not rely on analog streams to do so if everything I have is digital. But there's nothing inherently wrong with paying to get that signal into my house to begin with, so long as I can re-use what I paid for. A different point entirely.
- -Josh Turiel
You know, I think I'm with DirecTV on this (Score:5)
On the other side, you have a company that sells a dish and programming, at pretty reasonable prices compared to cable rates, and wants to get paid for their goods.
Given that's it's at an interesting intellectual game at best to figure out how to hack a DTV smart card system, and theft of service at worst, it just appears that DirecTV has figured out how to win the cat and mouse game once and for all. Good for them. If DirecTV was the only form of television service available (ie., a monopoly), I'd look on theft of service a little more tolerantly, but there's all sorts of TV alternatives out there - broadcast, cable, and other satelite providers.
This is different from, say, the i-Opener hack because the i-Opener hack was fundamentally about hardware. Buying the box did not incur an obligation to use the service (due to a mistake on Netpliance's part), and the hack didn't allow you to steal their service - it allowed you to re-purpose the hardware. That would be like hacking a DirecTV box to work with Dish Network instead. A cool, "because it's there" hack.
So if DirecTV won the war, more power to them. There may be a fine line between hacking and theft at times, but hacking a DTV smart card for free service is definitely on the wrong side of that line.
Besides, stuff like descramblers and smartcards are usually what spammers are filling my emailbox with, and I hate spammers!
- -Josh Turiel
Re:Three Cheers for Hughes! (Score:3)
I have zero respect for these pirates. They could be applying their skills to the next piece of free software, while instead they're just trying to get free TV. What a waste.
Of Course you have that right.... (Score:2)
;-)
Nice to see, for a change (Score:5)
Say what you may about the real and supposed sins of DirecTV and its crackers, they were fighting the war on its technical merits rather than with hordes of lawyers. That's good stuff. It's nice to see a company with the integrity to defend itself within its market and its product rather than look for protection from above.
--G
Umm, this is about cracking, not hacking (Score:2)
Let's not make the same linguistic mistake we despise when the average reporter gets it wrong.
[ObDisclaimer: my employer has business relationships with DirecTV, but I do not speak for them]
Re:Umm, this is about cracking, not hacking (Score:2)
--
If this is true... (Score:5)
[someone should forward this article to the "Beautiful code" guy!]
Three Cheers for Hughes! (Score:5)
Good job, but we're still pissed about HDTV-CP! (Score:4)
Yesterday, we were discussing how we can hack new DirecTV tuners to allow HDTV resolution on analog ports.
Does anyone else appreciate the irony of both events happening in the same week?
Re:We need a new word... (Score:2)
Does anyone recall the term used for the engineers/hackers in the "Marooned in Realtime" SciFi series? (I don't have the books here at work).
Something like "tweakers" or "tinkerers" I think.
Tinkerer would be an excellent word to promote
My 2 cents...
Re:The "Game" is far from "Over" (Score:2)
Either way, I'm sure most hackers just love a good challenge.
Re:DirecTivo does not record OTA broadcasts (Score:2)
True, but that's not as bad as it sounds. I don't really need the OTA broadcast signals, since my local stations (Cincinnati area) are available off the satellite. (Same for 30-40 other local markets already.) Of course, they don't carry the local PBS station, but the national PBS feed is available. They don't carry the WB station, but I never watch that anyway!
Once I found that out, I ended up getting the Sony DNR Tivo system. It interacts perfectly with the Sony SAT-B2 receiver, and my OTA channels. In fact, there is a cable that plugs from the Sony Tivo unit into the Sony sat receiver to control it. My one Tivo remote is thus the only one I have to use to get all the channels. Works perfectly.
I've heard a lot of people complain about picture quality with this kind of setup. When the standalone TiVo records something, it does its own MPEG encoding. MPEG is a lossy compression algorithm, and I've heard that re-encoding a decoded MPEG stream tends to exaggerate that lossiness. I'm told that the quality of TiVo recording from OTA broadcasts is better than the quality of the satellite broadcasts.
With the combined DirecTV/TiVo box, it's true that you no longer have an MPEG encoder, but it's recording the MPEG streams as they come off the satellite, without modification. That means no loss of quality playing back the TiVo recordings as compared to watching the content live -- either way, the exact same MPEG data is being decoded for viewing. Even if your setup looks good to you, there's unquestionably some loss of quality inherent in using multiple passes of a lossy compression algorithm. (But if you don't notice it, that's lucky.)
More significantly, DirecTV probably does a better job of MPEG compression than your standalone TiVo can hope to. They've got professional-grade MPEG encoding equipment, and a strong financial incentive to get the best compression possible. (It's a lot cheaper to get expensive encoders than to launch new satellites!) Also, I've read that DirecTV does MUCH more intensive encoding on pay-per-view movies because they don't have to do it in real time; they can really optimize both quality and compression when it's done in advance. (I don't know if they do the same thing with other movie channels like HBO or not.) DirecTV also knows (more or less) which content needs to have more bandwidth (e.g. sports) or less (e.g. talk shows), and can optimize compression that way. What's it mean for me? In addition to having better quality for the TiVo recordings, it also means that it's probably going to use the available disk space more efficiently, and without my needing to make any decisions about what quality settings to use. I see this as a good thing.
The one bad thing is the lack of an MPEG encoder for recording sources other than the satellite, but this is not an unreasonable tradeoff. Adding that encoder back in might cost another $200 in the unit price, and I'm not sure it's that important to me right now... But if it's important to you, then it sounds like you have the right setup for your needs.
I had thought that having the satellite receiver and Tivo all in one unit would be a good thing, but I've had absolutely no problems with the setup I've got. If you don't yet have a Tivo system, get it! My wife thought we didn't need it at all, but she is totally convinced now.
My wife was adamantly opposed to it; she considers it a waste of money because it seems no better than a VCR to her, and she's tired of clutter around the house (my fault) and the plethora of electronic devices (also my fault). So I've had to lobby for it for a while now. I think she'll let me get it when I'm done cleaning up the house, which I'm almost done with... (Having invested a good 30-40 hours into this project!)
Assuming she relents and lets me get it, I won't be a bit surprised if she changes her mind and becomes a TiVo convert; I've heard of it happening to other people often enough...
Re:For hackers its just a game (Score:3)
Taking out the hackers in only one of Hughes goals with these ECMS. The other was to destroy ALL H-cards, thus forcing their paying customers into upgrading to the HU cards.
But I'm sure they're _real_ sorry for whatever inconvenience they've caused people.
I don't know where you get your information, but they did not destroy all H cards last Sunday. My trusty old Sony SAT-B2 receiver came with an H card, and it still works fine. But I'm a legitimate paying DirecTV customer. Are you sure your friends were really legit?
As soon as I can convince my wife to allow it, I'm gonna upgrade to the Sony SAT-T60 receiver with TiVo -- recording the MPEG streams straight off the satellite is very cool, and I'm dying for that 14-day advance program guide. (I was very annoyed with DirecTV for cutting the guide from 3 days to under 2!) Maybe I'll sell the old Sony receiver after that; the remote codes may conflict with the new Sony, plus the SAT-T60 actually has two DirecTV tuners in it! (But the second one won't work until TiVo gets their act together and updates their software to handle it...)
What a dolt. (Score:2)
No, it is not stealing. It is the unathorized use of communications resources set aside for others. Just because something is not stealing does not mean it is not illegal.
Re:What a dolt. (Score:2)
#2: It is not illegal to own and operate descrambling or decoding equipment, but it IS illegal to recieve unathorized programming.
#3: I'm not familiar enough about satellite descramblnig laws nowadays, but recieving unathorized programming is still illegal.
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:3)
You're not
I don't see this as 'theft' in any way - denying *potential* profits, yes, but not theft.
IMO, Hughes did the Right Thing.
The crackers cracked their signal, so they cracked the crackers cracks. I think that's pretty nifty.
--K
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:2)
Um, no. No single entity "owns" any RF spectrum in the U.S. The RF spectrum is a public resource (like a national park) that is administered by the government because it's a scarce resource and because (although I don't totally buy this) if you let everybody transmit wherever they want, the spectrum will be useful to no one. The portion of the spectrum that DirecTV uses is leased to it by the FCC and gives DirecTV broadcast rights on that band. As far as I know there is no regulation of who can receive on what band, because unlike multiple transmitters, multiple receivers can't really hose the public RF spectrum for everyone else.
True, there are laws about decrypting phone calls but other than that receiving is legal. I don't believe the phone laws apply to DirecTV, unless you know for sure that they do?
As an aside, I don't agree with laws against phone decryption because whether or not there is a law, anyone who is sufficiently motivated can monitor your transmissions. The law provides only the appearance of safety; it doesn't really give you any privacy. Plus of course you sent me those signals onto my property, but that topic's been covered already :)
Re:It's not wrong to figure it out... (Score:3)
It's true that DirecTV doesn't have as much money as they otherwise would; but it does not necessarily follow that anything has been stolen from them. Many other events could result in them not getting as much money - an economic slowdown, a competitor with a better product, or even a nasty rumor that their satellites are really being used to track people for the sinister purposes of Major League Baseball. Just the fact that they don't have as much money doesn't make it stealing.
In the normal understanding of a "theft of service", somebody is still out of some physical quantity that they would otherwise have charged for and that they do not just hand out to all and sundry. Theft of cable TV service, for example (and according to the TV industry at least) steals from your neighbors by degrading their picture quality (a measurable, quantifiable thing). Spam is a theft of network resources and hardware resources on a mail server that your ISP charges you to maintain. Trojans or worms are thefts of service in almost the same way, by consuming network bandwidth and host processing power which somebody paid for and somebody else is getting charged for.
But receiving unauthorized satellite broadcasts doesn't deprive anyone of something they are being charged for. Your neighbor's signal is not any more degraded, DirecTV doesn't have to spend any more money than they would have otherwise to achieve national coverage, and the producers of the TV content are already getting paid by DirecTV under terms that were mutually agreeable to both of them. From all of these people's perspective, things are just the same as if you didn't have a DirecTV at all.
This doesn't mean that I disapprove of Hughes' actions in this case - I think they are entirely within their rights to police their hardware under any means that are permissible under the contracts they have with DirecTV subscribers, assuming that they have such contracts (although I don't think they have the right to modify the customer's lawfully purchased software or hardware without the customer's permission in the absence of a contract allowing it). I just don't think Hughes should be surprised when other individuals make use of the bits that DirecTV is flinging around so profligately, considering that those bits would just "go to waste" anyway.
I have to add, though, that it's nice to see a company whose initial response was not "send in the lawyers". Duking it out hacker a hacker is the way to go on this, and so much more entertaining for the rest of us without DirecTV or the inclination to hack one.
Re:It's not wrong to figure it out... (Score:5)
I'm curious as to how this is really a theft of service. When that term is applied to spam, for instance, the theft occurs when spammers use up the bandwidth of their relays and the time and hardware of the targeted ISPs. In that case you can point to the extra costs that were required based on the actions of the thieves.
However, this satellite broadcast is streaming through all of us all the time. Does just possessing the knowledge to decode these ambient bits somehow make a person a thief? I'll agree that it's unfair to the legit DirecTV subscribers to have to pay for a service that some are getting for free, but I don't agree that decoding bits that are normally present in the environment is theft.
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:2)
So, to answer your question, yes it is your right to listen to any radio transmissions that travel thru your house. At least in my opinion. Current US law does not reflect my opinion.
I find the whole idea that somebody can broadcast information over the radio waves to their whole neighborhood (or in the case of DirectTV, a whole continent) and have any expectation of privacy with respect to that information. That's just stupid. It's like claiming you have an expectation of privacy for a classified ad in the paper.
Re:If this is true... (Score:3)
Re:not stealing (Score:2)
Bzzt. No, stealing motion picture studios' work is not ok. But that's not what DeCSS is about. In fact, DeCSS is 100% useless to you unless you already have a DVD.
---
so what if they did? (Score:2)
Re:A tale of epic proportions (Score:2)
The original message was correct: this was a nice piece of reporting for /., although I wouldn't have minded some more technical details.
Not piracy. By a long shot. (Score:2)
Even a superficial analysis of the issues surrronding intellectual property makes it clear that those issues are far from simple, and that the current attitudes towards IP in the legal and commercial sphere are often hard to justify. In many cases, especially related to patent law, those who benefit from intellectual property law do so at the expense of the public domain, and could just as easily be labeled pirates.
In this specific case, I agree that what Hughes did was perfectly acceptable and well within their moral, ethical, and legal rights. However, so were the actions of the original hackers of the system. Things get a bit more questionable when it comes to people simply buying a hacked chip to avoid service fees, but even there, "piracy" is not the appropriate term.
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:4)
You have no right to make a profit.
Nobody can steal that which you have given them for free.
Just because you came up with some "clever" business model that involves charging people money for services, that does not entitle you to compensation from people who figure out how to provide this service for themselves.
I am deeply disturbed to see this bullshit perpetuated by someone outside the US. Previously, I had been operating on the assumption (obviously false) that "the right of a business to make money" was confined to the US.
Once again, for the slow ones: you do not have a right to make a profit, no matter how clever you may think you are, and no matter how long you've been making a profit in the past. If someone out there catches on to your scheme and bypasses it, you lose.
(With all that said, I have to applaud the hackers who work for DirecTV. Unlike certain other industries, they didn't resort to dirty tricks or underhanded legislation -- they simply used what they had, and ingeniously too. I'm not ranting against DirecTV here -- I'm ranting against all those who thought that the H-card hackers were "stealing".)
"Hackers"? (Score:5)
Actually, I *can* do most of those things perfectl (Score:3)
YES.
1) yes. Actually, I am 100% allowed by law, in Canada, to listen to your analog cellular calls. Cellphone companies tried to change this, but the crtc was firm: you have no reasonable expectation of privacy by transmitting on public airwaves using standard modulation.
Now.. with Digital phones, and specifically, with Encryption this changes. Under Canadian law, encryption wrapping the conversation indicates that you have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and someone violating that woudl be violating your rights.
Note that the only reason it's protected is because it is encrypted AND because it is a conversation. Satellite broadcast is not the same thing.
Taking photographs, again. If what I see is visible from somewhere I'm legally allowed to be, I'm allowed to take photographs of it. I can photograph anything that can be seen from somewhere I'm allowed to be, especially a public street or my own property.
And regarding 'shotgun' mikes, it depends. If I can hear the conversation of you yelling at your wife, and I'm simply using the mike to amplify it, then I am within my rights to record it. If I can't hear you at all, and use the mike to snoop on you, then that's illegal, because you have a reasonable expectation of privacy.
Stealing? No. (Score:5)
I respect that they put up the satellite, and started the TV service.. however....
THey are broadcasting signals over PUBLIC airspace, including INTO MY YARD. If I feel like putting up a dish to capture that signal and manipulate it *however I want* within my own property, that should be my absolute right (though the law may not agree). If they don't want me to receive the signal, don't broadcast it into my yard. PERIOD.
THe airwaves are PUBLIC.
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:5)
I firmly believe that if you broadcast something on public airwaves, then you have no right to expect privacy. I *know* when I use my cordless phone that anyone who wants can listen in.
I also know that when I transmit cleartext data over the internet (like this slashdot post), it is going into a network that I have *no control* over, because I don't own it. I *assume* that someone is listening in. If I want nobody to listen to my conversations, I use encryption, hoping that deters them somewhat, though I'm still aware someone could be intercepting it and decrypting it if they are capable.
As for manipulation...
If I'm broadcasting through your network, and you want to sniff my info and manipulate/decrypt it, and there is no standing agreement that you won't ever do this... go right ahead. If you *DO* anything with that information outside your own brain/house.. THEN I'll have a problem with it, but not because you intercepted it.
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:4)
In Canadian law however, it is legal to decrypt a satelite signal provided that it cannot be legally paid for. We cannot legally purchase and pay for the DirecTV stream and thus we are legally and morally entitled to decrypt and watch the DirecTV stream.
So whereas Americans who attempt to decrypt the signal can indeed be considered "crackers", the Canadians that have been victimized by the Canadian government and Hughes are "Hackers". We have done nothing wrong and are being punished for it.
-
DirecTV is very cool about this whole situation. (Score:5)
To show you how cool things have become... The latest trend in DSS is using emulation software on a PC to intercept the signal and then sending it to your reciever. It truly is an innovative solution!
I swear, words like ECMs (Electronic Counter Measures) that literally destroy cards, and Unloopers (thinks that fix "looped" or destroyed cards") really make this feel like some hollywood hacker movie. But it's not. It's for real! Damn, that is just too cool!
-Nick
So the hackers got hacked. (Score:5)
Direct TV sells a service. They make money from
the sale of this service, and they provide the
infrastructure, the broadcast, the hardware, etc.
Then, a bunch of kids decide that they want what
DirectTV has, but not at their terms. So they steal
the service. Yes, they stole it. Hell, they
admit it in the article.
So what does DirectTV do? They beat the hackers at their
own game. They outplay, outsmart, and outfox them.
Bravo. They protected themselves and their market
share in the best way possible. In the end, we
can all appreciate the beauty of this particular hack.
Re:finally (Score:3)
So if they increase thier profits by having more subscribers, you *are* stealing from them, in a very real sense.
Dirk
And so it begins. (Score:3)
Re:So the hackers got hacked. (Score:3)
Re:For hackers its just a game (Score:5)
Recent Law has Changed (Score:5)
This is why the old C-band dishes never had prosecutions for descrambling, or why you could listen in to Cellular Telephone conversations. And this would apply to DirecTV too, except it didn't exist when this law did.
Sometime in the mid 90's, a new Radio Telecommunications Act was passed which banned the eavesdropping on cellular telephones and any other signal entering your property that needed to be decoded. Thus, now the old C-Band hackers had become pirates, and the new DirecTV decoding was illegal.
The question is this - do you have the right to translate signals that are travelling onto your property - signals which you did not request?
The old law said yes. The new one says no.
Poetry in code (Score:3)
Someone said that they're within their rights to "illegally" descramble DirecTV's content, because it's broadcast over public airwaves. True, but then, isn't DirecTV also entitled to broadcast whatever they want? If you just happen to be foolish/1337 enough to be running a hacked card, well, thanks for coming out, better luck next time. DirecTV didn't physically destroy the cards, so I don't think the hackers have any grievance in that respect...
Nicely done, on both sides. I think this deserves an entry into the hacker hall of fame.
Re:Agree - Re:It's not wrong to figure it out... (Score:3)
Unless the people currently making money out of a specific business model can get their business model made the "law of the land". Which is the same root issue surrounding Napster, DeCSS, etc. Large corporate interests trying hard to make sure their business model doesn't become obsolete. (With their relatives such as the iopener and cue cat, where a business thinks it is the job of the law to protect their, unproven, business model.)
The "scribes" are probably wishing they had considered political lobbying...
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:3)
Canada also has some different views on the RF spectrum. IE: last I checked it was illegal to manufacture a scanner that could scan 800MHz (non-digital Cell) in the US, but not Canada.
FWIW,
--
Remove the rocks to send email
Re:I'm afraid I found this v funny (Score:3)
Re:Uh yeah. (Score:3)
The "Game" is far from "Over" (Score:5)
Secondly, the new HU card has recently been hacked to allow for the "3M" scripts that open all channels. DirecTV launched their first attack against hacked HU cards this past week as well, but the community actually learned quite a bit about the HU card from this attack. This HU hack is only available through "dealers" for several hundred dollars, but I'd expect the necessary scripts to become freeware over the next few months. DirecTV will have their hands full once an emulation script is created for the HU.
Lastly, DirecTV also hit many, many paying subscribers running legit cards with their attack on Sunday. You can be certain that this attack cost them quite a few dollars in terms of cards needing to be replaced as well as the loss of subscribers that they have managed to piss off once again.
Cool or what? (Score:5)
Can we set-up an interview with the techie that planned it?
It's not wrong to figure it out... (Score:3)
Evan
Re:Recent Law has Changed (Score:4)
The question is this - do you have the right to translate signals that are travelling onto your property - signals which you did not request?
According to the law, no, you don't have that right. I don't agree with that; I still feel you should have the right to do whatever you want with the signals that are sent to your property. But this really doesn't matter one way or another in this particular case, because it doesn't sound like Hughes tried to press legal charges on those who did hack/crack the signal.
Here's the rub: Hughes made the cards, and Hughes "leased" or "licensed" the cards to real customers with EULAs. Hughes has the right to damage their own cards, even in your home, through the use of their FCC-licensed class and power of signals.
If you were a legit customer who had an old (and now burnt) H card, it dropped your service for a day or two while you stop by a service center. If you were a thief who got pay-to-view entertainment for free, then that burnt card is useless to you.
I have absolutely NO problem with the way that Hughes handled this.
About Time (Score:4)
Re:Uh yeah. (Score:3)
Sorry, but you're wrong. Do you think a bank robber can sue a bank who puts a dye pack in his bag of money to render the money useless? Do you think that people who put razor bars around their stereo equipment can be sued by the theif who loses a finger?
Thirdly the destruction of the cards would force Hughes to replace them. Not a cheap move.
What do you think is cheaper: letting people take $30 or $40 per month out of Hughes' pocket by not paying for the service, or replacing a single smart card. I'm not an authority on the subject, but I think making these people pay for 2 months of service would make up for the cost of a new smart card. BTW, is "thirdly" a word?
Finally, the site Michael linked to requests financial support by clicking a paypal link. Sounds like an elaborate setup to fleece the
We're glad Shoeboy is looking out for our interests. Slashdot requests financial support by displaying banner ads, and so do 99% of all other sites on the web. The one in question uses PayPal for its financial support instead of banners. What's the problem?
Re:"Hackers"? (Score:5)
Crackers are not always script kiddies
Hackers are never script kiddies
Hackers are not Crackers
Hackers have my respect. The hacking involved in duping an entire community of crackers (no matter how intelligent they are) for long enough to build a program in their machines, little piece by little piece, then pull the trigger, whilst having the flair and style to leave the message "GAMEOVER" in the first 8 bytes of the code is fantastic, and the credit goes to directv.
Of course, since I pay for services and end up subsidising people who think they've a right to the same services for free because they happen to have the skills necessary to steal them probably makes me a little biased.
ATTENTION Dept Information warfare! (Score:3)
I think the bit I like best about this is that DirecTV managed to upgrade their software remotely without cuasing an interruption to the service. THAT was a ballsy thing to do before the Superbowl!
Re:not stealing (Score:5)
With DeCSS I paid for the signal and it is illegal for me to decode it myself.
With DirecTV the hackers have not paid for the signal and they have been techincally outsmarted by the company.
With DeCSS, the company have attempted to encrypt their signals from people who have the right to view them, technically they failed and now they are suing all who know how to decrypt them.
With DirecTV the company is attempting to enrypt their signals from those who haven't paid for them, and they've come up with a technical solution and won [for the time being].
DirecTV are not attempting to run over the legal rights of consumers, they are attempting to prevent piracy. CSS attempts to destroy legal rights under the guise of preventing piracy.
I subscribe (Score:3)
My wife and I are pretty happy with the service (other than rain fade margins-- they don't exist!) and think that we made the right choice over going with TWC. One of her teacher colleagues has TWC digital cable, and the picture is awful compared to DirecTV. (Except in those summer monsoons when DirecTV doesn't work at all!)
I have never been comfortable with people getting these kinds of services without paying for them. That monthly bill not only pays for the programming, but also on infrastructure and maintenance. Hughes played a HUGE gamble by launching its DirecTV bird. Unlike cable, satellite systems must have their entire infrastructure in place before they can sign their first subscriber. Cable systems can roll out a piece at a time, and early adoptors help pay to expand into new areas.
The only thing I'd like Hughes to add is a non-Windows bidirectional link for DirecPC and a dual-subscriber discount like TWC has with RoadRunner.
Re:Physically destroyed? (Score:3)
Tit for Tat, etc. (Score:3)
Now Obviously, alot of folks are going to be pissed off because they "lost" the game.
And I am sure that the fine folks at DirectTV are gleeful about the gnashing of teeth and their own clever victory.
Somehow I think this has to been kept quite separate from the other issues dealing with digital media.
People providing a service deserve enough to be able to cover the costs of their operation and to make a reasonable profit. Let those who are without sin cast the first stone. Who has not had dotcom phantasies of obscene wealth? Well how did you expect you would do this? by giving away the homeplanet? or do you want them to spent millions of dollars so that you can enjoy your right to the superbowl and free pr0n?
That being said there is ALSO the issue of fair and reasonable exchange for goods and services. DirectTV certainly has been on the wrong side of the issue as far as some aspects of copy protection, etc.
Some people would rather spend extraordinary effort and money to not not pay for goods and services. In the past, these people were called the 'rich'; it was part of their culture. and now this attitude has dribbled into the rest of society
In the past, much of what has passed for morality has been an effort to help keep people in their place, to help mold them into sheeple. This has been the main thrust of modern education since the education "reforms" at the beginning of the 20th century. All those immigrants had to be educated to be good workers, etc. NOT competitors to the status quo.
This ties in with the DirectTV game because the company, as such, naturally, and perhaps unwittingly, takes advantadge of the situation to impose conditions that are not fair exchange.
People instinctively react, at first, to situations that are not fair. They get mad. and they use this to justify their own attempts to get what they think they are due, and maybe a little bit more. It becomes a viscious circle.Unfortunately, some poeple will never be happy.
I'm afraid I found this v funny (Score:3)
Re:For hackers its just a game (Score:4)
- Hackers will find a way around the new system. They always find a way, and they will have fun doing it.
Doubtful... if you read the article correctly, this last act effectively destroyed the smart cards.What would be cool is if someone found a way to actually revers-engineer and manufacture smart cards that recieved the regular updates, and acted exactly like legit ones, except they didn't dial into DirecTV.
This is the way companies should combat hackers that are "stealing" or "bypassing access control methods"... not tracking them down and suing them, and getting laws put in place to ban things that are useful to the community at large. DirecTV was able to attack hackers without infringing on their paying customers!
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Re:It's not wrong to figure it out... (Score:4)
"Evil beware: I'm armed to the teeth and packing a hampster!"
Info from the newsgroup (Score:5)
It looks to me like DirectTV (better known to the a.d.h members as "Dave", and not to be confused with "SuperDave", one of the newsgroup regulars) played an ace they've had up their sleeve for a long time. Apparently the boot code (in ROM) of the 8051 in the chip checks one bit in a 32-bit region of PROM (as in you can program it but you can't reset it) and goes into an infinte loop (I think this is what is being referred to as a "looped" card) early during the boot process. Since this is in ROM where it can't be re-programmed, you can't bypass it.
It seems there's also an ASIC in the card that is crucial to the decoding process. I'm guessing that it has to be enabled by the 8051. And if the 8051 "loops" before you can talk to it, you're hosed.
It also seems that there was a recent move to "emulators", which emulated the 8051, but passed commands to the ASIC through to the real card. That way, as long as the card was alive enough to tell it what to do, you would esentially firewall off the card from any nasty code that wanted to do stuff like program write-once bits in the CPU chip. Some people were arguing recently that emulators were overkill, but it seems they have been proven wrong. The only people with hacked cards that still work either had emulators or were lucky enough to pull their cards in time (or the decoder box was unplugged).
Apparently for a couple of weeks now "Dave" has been downloading code to detect illegal cards and test it (by locking up assorted cards and seeing what kind of results they got) before sending down the "ECM" code which caused the card to kill itself.
As to the timing, it is suspected they chose one week before Super Bowl to allow enough time for legitimate users (or those illegitimate users who wanted the better signal in time for The Big Game) to receive new cards.
Here are two messages I found on the newsgroup about all this: (line art removed from the first one because of /.'s lame filter)
From: ump25@aol.com (Ump25)
Newsgroups: alt.dss.hack
Date: 22 Jan 2001 05:38:13 GMT
Subject: EVERYONE READ THIS! INFO FROM MAGICIAN ET. AL.
Message-ID: <20010122003813.16538.00000761@ng-bj1.aol.com&g t;
From Magician and Hypertek comes the following...
As most everybody is aware, the ability of the dynamic code to execute a kill-type ECM was displayed today on "Black Sunday".
First, the bad news: the ECMs wrote 4 bytes to "write once" area of the EEPROM, 8000h-8003h. Unfortunately, one of the bytes that is changed is 8000h, which is checked extremely early in the ROM startup code (003Fh) to see if it contains "33h". These ECMs re-wrote this byte to "00h", which means that it very quickly enters an infinite loop because "P1.7" is not set. Since this area of the H card is "write once", there is no way to reset this byte back to "33h" to allow normal startup to continue, even by way of an unlooper.
Second, for those interested, here are all the EEPROM addresses that were tested to see if they contained modified bytes. Each byte was tested in its own packet (i.e., one address at a time):2 ,8 D24,8D25,8D32 Ins54 code
code:
- - -
8243 Vector for setting DPTR to ZKT secret vector
8246,8247 Vector for Cmd09 vector
8255 Vector for Ins58 patch vector
8258 Ins44 preprocessing vector
825B Ins44 extras vector
825E Find tier or PPV vector
8264 "EndInsHandling" vector
8273 Cmd1F vector
827C,827D Ins54 vector
8282,8283 Ins18/Ins1A vecotr
8440 First byte of channel blackout data (checked if non-zero)
8582,858C,8593 Cmd60 code
85B7 B7 nano vector
85BE BD nano vector
85C0,85C1,85C2 C0 nano vector
85C3 C3 nano vector
85C6,85C7 C6 nano vector
85E2,85E6,85ED,85EF,85F6 B5 nano code
8606,8608,8611 AddAToDfdNanoBufIfFlOpn code
8630 Deferred Cmd60 processing code
86DD Never-executed portion of old C6 nano code
87A1 Old CF nano jump table
8800 Hash algorithm code
8955 Main loop vector code
8973 Ins18/Ins1A code
8975 Ins54 check code
8982 Setup for Ins38 code
89A0,89A3 Setup for Ins44 code
89A6,89B2,89B9 Setup for Ins4C code
89DF End of main loop vector code
8BFE Cmd0C code
8CC7,8CCA,8CCB Preprocess deferred Cmd60 code
8CD9,8CDE Cmd0B for non-virgin cards code
8CF2,8CFE Ins58 patch code
8D04,8D09,8D0D,8D11,8D14,8D178D1A,8D1D,8D20,8D2
8D66,8D6A,8D72,8D76 Add ASIC bytes to signature hash code
8DD0,8DD3,8E68 Do 1 hash iteration code
8F2F Preprocess Cmd09 code
8F53 Cmd0C patch 1 code
- - -
Here is an example dynamic code packet (for the 8D1Ah address; all of the addresses were tested using similar packets, except for 8440h which used a JNZ instead of JZ):
code:
- - -
C3 nano used to preset RAM locatiosn 10h-1Fh:
C3 0A 00 20 99 03 AF 01 00 04 00 09 | Seed hash only (using 9 data bytes) results in these bytes at 10h-1Fh:
20 99 03 AF 01 00 04 00 09 CB 29 71 06 19 74 D0
Fourth byte loaded in EEPROM write register
Third byte loaded in EEPROM write register
Hi byte of 1st loop return address and second byte loaded in EEPROM write register
Lo byte of 1st loop return address and first byte loaded in EEPROM write register
Hi byte of 2nd loop return address
Lo byte of 2nd loop return address
Hi byte of 3rd loop return address
Lo byte of 3rd loop return address
What 8D1Ah is compared to
The C9 nano looked like this:
C9 10 20 90 8D 1A E0 47 60 08 90 | Write 15 bytes+RET, execute and hash
80 00 78 15 75 81 16 :
which caused this code to be executed:
893C mov DPTR,#8D1Ah
893F movx A,@DPTR
8940 xrl A,@R1
8941 jz 894Bh
8943 mov DPTR,#8000h
8946 mov R0,#15h
8948 mov SP,#16h
894B ret
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Remember, R1 starts equal to 10h. So the above code does the following:
Compare 8D1Ah to @10h (which contains #20h)
If they match, simply return
Otherwise, set DPTR to 8000h
Set R0 to 15h
Reset the stack to 16h and RET, to resume execution at 0400h to load "00 04 00 09" into EEPROM write register which RETs to 01AFh to enable EEPROM write mode
which RETs to 0399h to write 00 04 00 09 to 8000-8003h.
In addition, there was an ECM to detect an H cards running with non-H CAM IDs, although this packet did not loop the card but simply "locked it up" until the next reset:
code:
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C3 nano used to preset RAM locatiosn 10h-1Fh:
C3 0B 00 FE FC 32 00 00 04 AC 01 68 14 | Seed hash only (using 10 data bytes) results in these bytes at 10h-1Fh:
FE FC 32 00 00 04 AC 01 68 14 8A DF A3 AA 81 34
Hi byte of 1st loop return address
Lo byte of 1st loop return address
Hi byte of 2nd loop return address
Lo byte of 2nd loop return address
Hi byte of 3rd loop return address
Lo byte of 3rd loop return address
Hi byte of 4th loop return address
Lo byte of 4th loop return address
The C9 nano looked like this:
C9 12 20 90 83 74 81 60 07 57 70 | Write 17 bytes+RET, execute and hash
05 09 B9 12 F6 22 75 81 19 :
which caused this code to be executed:
893C mov DPTR,#8374h
893F movx A,@DPTR++
8940 jz 8949h
8942 anl A,@R1
8943 jnz 894Ah
8945 inc R1
8946 cjne R1,#12h,893Fh
8949 ret
894A mov SP,#19h
894D ret
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Remember, R1 starts equal to 10h. So the above code does the following:
If first byte of CAM ID is 00, return (everything OK).
Otherwise, AND first CAM ID byte with byte @10h (#FEh)
If result is non-zero (meaning first CAM ID byte is not 01h), go to ECM routine
Otherwise, AND second CAM ID byte with @11h (#FCh)
If result is non zero, go to ECM routine
Otherwise, return (everything OK)
The ECM routine resets the SP to cause the RET to resume execution at 1468h, which RETs to 01ACh, which RETs to 0400h, which RETs to the infinite loop at 0032h...
From: Spacemonkey Gleep <Fictitious@Dont.Bother.Its.invalid> .com>
Newsgroups: alt.dss.hack
Subject: How Write-Once memory works, or "Why H cards hit by the ECM are never going to be fixed"
Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:56:12 -0800
Message-ID: <Fictitious-402BA7.10561222012001@news.primenet
In response to the umpty-nine-dozen "Why can't we just..." questions about the corrupted write-once area on the card, here's an explanation that may shed some light. (Note to those "in the know": Yes, I'm simplifying things ridiculously. Not everybody playing in this little sandbox is an EE with the knowledge to understand the inner workings of a chip)
A byte of RAM memory is a set of 8 cells that can hold a one or a zero. Which cells have 1s in them determines the value of the byte when you read it. With RAM, you can change the values any time you like. You can think of that byte as 8 switches that can be turned on or off in different combinations to give you various values.
A byte of ROM is similar, in that it's 8 cells that can each hold a 1 or a 0. Unlike RAM, these 1s and 0s are fixed. Instead of the "switches" that RAM has, you can think of ROM as having either a wire (for a 1) or no wire (for a zero). They can't be changed once made. The wire (or lack of one) is a permanent thing.
A byte of Write-Once memory (Also known as "PROM", or "Programmable Read Only Memory") has characteristics of both RAM and ROM. Like RAM, you *CAN* write to it, under certain circumstances. Like ROM, once written, it's **FOREVER**. Think of a byte of PROM as being 8 microscopic fuses.
When the chip is made, all the fuses are "good". If you could see it at the microscopic level, it would look something like this: ( each | is a fuse that isn't blown )
| | | | | | | |
and would have the value FF, or 255 in decimal.
Now, let's say you want the byte to have the value B7 (That's 183 in decimal, and in binary, it's 10110111) To write that value to it, you deliberately burn out two fuses in the byte, leaving it looking like this: (| = unblown fuse, : = blown fuse)
| : | | : | | |
From that point, it would be possible to write to it again, and change the value, *BUT* there's a catch. You can only "blow" more fuses. You can't "un-blow" fuses that are already blown. This means that a number that needs one of the fuses that's already blown out is going to be impossible to write.
So why is this a problem?
Normally, byte 8000 of the H card holds the value 33 (in Decimal, 51. In binary, 00110011) and the byte looks like this:
: : | | : : | |
But after being hit by DTV's ECM last night, the byte is set to 00 - it looks like this:
: : : : : : : :
There's no fuses left to blow out. They're all gone. That means that forever and always, byte 8000 of your ECMed card is going to say "I'm holding the value 00" when asked.
Why this means the card is permanently dead:
VERY early after the card gets powered up and reset, a check is done:
Does byte 8000 hold the value 33?
If the answer to that question is yes, then all is right with the world, and things start happening. The card gets initialized, spits out the ATR string, and then goes into "wait for a command from the IRD" mode. If, on the other hand, the answer is no, then the card goes into an infinite loop that does nothing. If you program in BASIC, it's the equivalent of the line
10 GOTO 10
NOTHING gets done until the next time the card is reset. And then the same thing happens all over again.
This check is in the card's ROM, so it can't be bypassed or changed.
Reprogramming the card won't do anything useful, since the ROM doesn't even get looked at, let alone messed with, by programmers (or unloopers, for that matter) and even if it did, it wouldn't do anything useful, since ROM can't be changed (short of actually damaging it).
So how can it be fixed?
The simple answer: It can't. Congratulations. Your H card is now an ice scraper. Get used to it. Life sucks.
The more extended answer:
If you've got the micro-tools to "rebuild" the blown fuses on the chip, you could go that route, but unless you're a chip manufacturer, or have access to that type of equipment somehow, you ain't got a prayer. We're talking about electron microscopes, tools for depositing single atoms onto the silicon wafer itself, that sort of thing. In other words, trying to do it is going to mean more money, knowledge, equipment, and effort than most any of us are capable of applying to the problem.
In short, last nights ECM was the ECM to end all ECMs. Any card hit by it is toast, and barring someone developing a cheap way to rebuild chips mat the wafer level (which isn't even remotely likely to happen anytime soon) there isn't a thing that can be done about it. Enjoy your new ice scraper.
Or get in touch with me about shipping it to me. I want to dissect it to get the ASIC out of it for some experimenting I want to do.
--
GLEEEEEP!!!!
PGP KeyID: 0x016B6B53 on the keyservers.
http://www.megsinet.net/~kayo/index.html
Re:Stealing? No. (Score:5)
THey are broadcasting signals over PUBLIC airspace, including INTO MY YARD. If I feel like putting up a dish to capture that signal and manipulate it *however I want* within my own property, that should be my absolute right (though the law may not agree). If they don't want me to receive the signal, don't broadcast it into my yard. PERIOD.
THe airwaves are PUBLIC.
The airwaves are public, after all.
information wants to be expensive...nothing is so valuable as the right information at the right time.
For hackers its just a game (Score:3)
Beautiful! (Score:3)
I personally believe that any signals that happen to cross the boundaries of my property are mine to do with as I wish, but I also believe that the senders of those signals have the right (and in the case of a commercial enterprise, the necessity) to try and protect those signals.
This should be listed as one of the Top Ten Hacks of all time.