karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn) (01/24/86)
I think I can make several predictions about what effect Videocipher II feed scrambling will have. 1. The vast majority of dish owners will not buy decoders. HBO is hardly worth buying anymore; only inertia has kept me from canceling my own cable subscription. Most of what's on it these days is repetitive trash that can be rented from the video store anyway. At the least, I suspect that in rural areas where dishes are popular, there'll be a surge in tape copying and bicycling among homes "sharing" a subscription. The big winners will be the VCR manufacturers and tape renters, as if they needed the extra boost! 2. Video-only "descramblers" will appear on the hobby market within months. Perhaps even in time for Dayton. 3. Commercial piracy will not be significantly affected. HBO has no way to know WHERE their paid up "home use only" boxes are, so dishonest bar, hotel and CATV operators will still be able to rip off the signal for relative peanuts. 4. Some hacker WILL eventually break the system and publish the results. It's just a matter of time until somebody with access to the right facilities grinds off the top of the battery-backed CMOS chip and reads out the contents of the primary DES key register with a scanning electron microscope. Or somebody will construct a specially-modified version that he sends back to the factory for key reprogramming. The special modifications, of course, allow the key to be read back out when the unit returns. I guess my attitude is best described by a scene in the Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever". "Q" is working a row of slot machines in a Nevada casino. Each one he pulls promptly comes up all bars, with copious coinage pouring down the chutes. He completely ignores the money, making no attempt to remove it. But he's just delighted that the little device he cooked up in his spare time was able to defeat the slot machine mechanisms. Obviously, these are my personal observations and opinions. Phil
die@hydra.UUCP (Dave Emery) (01/27/86)
David I. Emery Charles River Data Systems 617-626-1102
983 Concord St., Framingham, MA 01701.
uucp: decvax!frog!diedie@hydra.UUCP (Dave Emery) (01/27/86)
From what I hear of industry scuttlebut (and I only have access
to this information from the cable/TVRO trade press as I work in the computer
industry, not cable) a number of other cable service providers are
under very heavy pressure from the larger cable operators to scramble
their feeds too. In particular WOR, Showtime, CNN, and ESPN as well as such
major draws as the Weather Channel have announced plans to start
VideoCipher II encryption before the end of 1986.
The only positive note I have seen for those who don't want to
have to pay for what they once got for free (even if it is a few cents
a month) is that ESPN is under heavy pressure from a major advertiser who
insists that the rate base charged be lowered once ESPN scrambles
because of all the people who won't be watching.
Also the trade press reports that an attempt has been made to argue in
court that a satellite carrier which transmits a superstation's signals to
cable services cannot legally scramble them, as this value added to the
stations signal makes the carrier other than a common carrier which is only
allowed to transmit the signal without altering it. This sounds rather
farfetched to me since what comes out the other end of a descrambler is
plus or minus noise and distortion what went into the scrambler, but if some
judge agrees it may prevent the superstations from scrambling.
In any case the general consensus in the cable industry seems to be
that most everything that a cable subscriber would be getting as additional
value added as part of basic service in addition to off the air signals will
be scrambled by the end of 1986 or early 1987. And the premium services who
have a pretty much undiluted interest in protecting themselves via
scrambling are going to be fully scrambled by June or so.
Undoubtably some things such as religous
programming, C-SPAN, NASA shuttle feeds and some network feeds (though not
backhauls carrying material not for broadcast) will not scramble. But
the pickings will be mighty thin compared to the feast of past years.
I expect that though a few strong headed individuals will not
purchase descramblers on principle, that most people who have shelled out
$3000-5000 for a dish will eventually decided that they have no real choice,
and eventually the great majority of TVRO owners will pay up and acquire
a descrambler.
If the cable industry had waited longer the market power of the
TVROs that exist would have prevented them from forcing the basic cable
service providers to scramble. I suspect they chose now in recognition
that it is the last point at which they can force the issue.
Unfortunately there is a minimum audiance size required to
establish a national direct broadcast network aimed at dish owners
rather than cable. 1.5 Million households is somewhat below that
threshold one suspects, so it probably will not be easy for anyone
to supply the missing programming for free and still make a buck by
selling advertising.
The illegal route
Watching a sports event video only - quite possible with a pirate
decoder - might not be too bad, and in many cases would be quite acceptable
if one could find a radio station carrying the same event!
(I might add that at least until the feared "Electronic Communications
Privacy Act of 1986" goes into effect and makes such a heinous federal
felony - if that stupid law ever passes - it is technically relatively easy
and even quasi-legal to pick up the satellite SCPC-FM feeds used by many radio
networks and even individual stations to relay radio coverage of sports events
back to individual stations. A second somewhat smaller dish dedicated
to this purpose (required because different satellites are most often used
for these services than those that carry the cable feeds) would likely provide
an audio commentary (from either teams point of view at that!) on almost
any game that wound up on one of the scrambled cable sports networks.)
(It might be further pointed out that it is quite possible that
though the drafters of the "Electronic Communications Privacy Act" were
basicly aiming at interception of truly private communications, it is true
that the FCC has supposedly been looking into whether scrambled signals should
be considered private in the sense used in this law. If they are ruled
private, than recovering a picture from scrambled satellite feeds, which is
already a violation of the Viewing Rights Act of 1984 will also be
legally a felony form of wiretapping AND the intercepter will be subject
to being sued for damages by the intercepted party. In other words
if you watch a basketball game or hockey or a prize fight by decoding the
video off a satellite feed you could be sued for damages by the supplier
of the service (might be 25 cents damages and $10,000 court costs plus your
own attorneys fees)
As for illegal use of legal decoders to supply service at the
low home rate to such things as motels and bars, there are two mechanisms
to limit this. One lies in the nature of the firmware for the home
decoders, which have menus requiring selection rather than just decoding
the feed passively. (Granted a hacker can probably reprogram those).
The second protection lies in the fact that eventually a check will
be made (and the nasty vindictive sort of gossip that usually reports such to
authorities - an "informant" - encourage to rat). Power companies, cable
companies, gas companies and till recently telephone companies have much the
same security problem. A bar or motel is a public place and it is much easier
to determine that it is not licensed for HBO (but seems to be getting it from
a dish anyway) than it is to determine that it is cooking your dinner with
"free" electricity obtained by tampering with the calibration adjustments on
the electric meter (or out and out bypassing it).
I suspect that those challenged by puzzles will no doubt try to
crack the VideoCipher II. And maybe someone will discover the black
magic trick that reads out the secret keys. I suspect, however, that
as such a solution involves a lot of technology and effort it will not
become a major problem in the marketplace as it has for descrambling
devices for pay TV stations. The most obvious attack is prevented by
the very nature of an addressable system. One cannot merely distribute
duplicates of the key for one box to many without risk that the
duplication be discovered and that key shut off.
This last means that there is no means short of cryptonalysis of
the DES cipher involved of propagating a general solution that cannot be
defeated by simply turning off a particular box or list of boxes and
changing the service keys. (Such a counter move will of course take time
to take effect, as the monthly service keys have to expire). Someone
who knew a box key could of course obtain all other keys, but then he
would have to transmit them to all his "costumers" who were illegally
receiving the service which would subject him to scrutiny and discovery.
(One could of course rent a transponder for the purpose if one were the
mafia and had the money ... or borrow one for a few milliseconds during
particularly dull commmericals by uplinking from a carefully genlocked
and delay compensated site hidden somewhere)
David I. Emery Charles River Data Systems 617-626-1102
983 Concord St., Framingham, MA 01701.
uucp: decvax!frog!die