roger@tikal.UUCP (Roger Lanphere) (03/10/86)
Referring to an article on pg. 11 of ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING TIMES, issue 371, March 3, 1986: The BLACK BOX SOLUTION company claims it has cracked the MA/COMM Video- cypher II technology for decrypting satellite video transmissions. Current users of the Videocypher II technology are HBO and Cinemax Pay TV service, while other services such as Showtime, Disney, Movie Channel, etc. are planning to follow suit by scrambling transmissions in the near future. BLACK BOX representatives were recently at the conference of Society for Private and Commercial Earth Stations (SPACE) selling manuals which detailed how to descramble THE VIDEO PORTION ONLY for a price of $49.95. Due to implications of legality of decryption devices they DID NOT have any working hardware at the conference. An estimated cost of building the descrambler circuitry is approximately $90-$100 in components. They also claim that their method of descrambling also allows other formats such as the OAK and ORION formats currently used by X-rated pay TV services and Canadian satellite broadcasts to be descrambled also. Please note however that while this method descrambles the video portion of the picture, THE AUDIO IS STILL SCRAMBLED. BLACK BOX claims that by late March they will have the audio solution worked out and will have manuals available for $24.95. BLACK BOX states: "The use of the BLACK BOX solution to decode scrambled TV signals may be illegal. We do not encourage anyone to violate federal law or FCC regulations". In marketing of the solutions BLACK BOX claims them as "educational tools" for persons seeking technical information on the subject of TV scrambling. BLACK BOX is working with a local parts supplier, BTW Electronics, to provide component kits for less than $90.00. The Address and phone number of BLACK BOX SOLUTIONS Co. is: The Black Box Solution 4014 Central Ave. Hot Springs, Arkansas 71913 (501) 321-1845 Yes, I own a satellite dish and NO WAY will I purchase a videocypher II box and then pay a cable company for monthly program service!!! I would really like to see someone prove that I'm using an illegal decoder box as they would need to have a court order for search & seizure to even get into my home. And I damn well know a judge won't sign one unless there is reasonable grounds to do so!!! ----- The above is not necessarily the views or opinions of my employer, Teltone Corp., or even of my own as I just spilled a cup of coffee down my keyboard and it's been doing weird things!!! :-)
olsen@ll-xn.ARPA (Jim Olsen) (03/14/86)
> [Disscussing the "BLACK BOX" descrambler.] > ...THE AUDIO IS STILL SCRAMBLED. BLACK BOX claims that by > late March they will have the audio solution worked out... Fat chance. The Videocypher II uses a quite simple method for scrambling the video signal, but the audio is encoded by the DES encryption method, with the encryption key being changed very frequently. The audio encoding will remain secure for quite a while (until someone steals the keylists from M/A-COM). -- Jim Olsen ARPA:olsen@ll-xn UUCP:{decvax,lll-crg,seismo}!ll-xn!olsen