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Slashback: Palace, Perl, Coastalism
007 would prefer not to be required to go reinstall Linux. You may recall that in addition to various other pieces of head-adornment, the members of Britain's Royal Family rely on Red Hat, by way of their webmaster, Mick Morgan.
Brian writes: "Looks to me as if the Queen's webmaster is pulling out. See the letter at http://www.open.gov.uk/services/letter201200.htm. Let's hope the new owners keep Linux eh?"
Yet another yet another. Pittsburgher Kevin Lenzo wants you to know that June 13-15 in Montreal marks yet another Yet Another Perl Conference. They're also looking for sponsors worthy enough to fund their deeds of derring-do. Suggested reading includes parent organization the Yet Another Society and YAPC Europe (which will be terrorizing Amsterdam sometime in early August, CFP soon), and darn-near required reading includes the (and I quote) "kick-ass" Damien diary going at the Joy of YAS.
Do you ever suspect that some people code Perl strictly for the interesting conferences?
Hey, is there good barbeque in Oakland? In a clever move which might have caused Sherman some consternation, one of the coolest things about the city of Atlanta will shortly be appearing in Oakland, CA. A notice sent out by Usenix announces that November 6-10th of this year will be the next manifestation of ALS. Maddog Hall is sure to be there, so play hookey from work or school to go visit. The announcement reads, in part:
The ALS 2001 Program Committee invites you to contribute your ideas, proposals, and papers for tutorials, invited talks program, refereed papers track, workshops, work-in-progress reports, and symposia tracks. We welcome submissions that address any and all issues relating to Linux and the Open Source world.The Call for Papers with submission guidelines and suggested topics is now available at http://www.linuxshowcase.org.
Submissions are due June 5, 2001
Revenge of the -- oh, I won't say it. A coward who failed to sign his name writes: "DirecTV stuck on Sunday a week before the Superbowl and wiped out 98% of hacked DSS cards. Supposedly DirecTV wrote to an area that is write once thereby making the cards go into an infinite loop. Now the hackers have found a way to bypass that sequence in the ROM in the form of a DPBB (Dead Processor Blocker Board). The board has a simple Atmel ROM that glitches pass the looped part of the ASIC on the DSS cards. DSS hacking is back."
Even if it weren't illegal, if you're using one of these unlicensed SmartCards, and DirectTV figures out a way to send a signal that will prevent them from working, that shouldn't be illegal either.
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Huh? My DSS system never went anywhere.
Oh wait, I *pay* for mine. When exactly did Slashdot become "Elite Script Kiddie Central"?
One thing that I recently became aware of was the fact that it is largely a Canadian effort to decrypt DSS signals. The directtv people are not allowed to sell service to Canada. (I thought NAFTA was supposed to mean something, dammit). The signal, however, DOES reach Canada. Now, the broadcast is reaching them, but there is no way they can possibly use the service because of an arbit$rary rule forced upon Directv by uncle Charlie. So of course the H-Card phenomenon happened.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I think that the DSS people knew that the ECM wouldn't work forever, but, a lot of people would subscribe legitimately to watch the superbowl in frustration.
Here, in Calgary, AB, Canada, dealers offered credits for turning in your grey market system (dish, receiver, AND smart card) towards a locally sold system.
Doug's, Flint's and Everett & Jones are all good, but if you're willing to go up San Pablo to Richmond, Bobby's Backdoor Cajun BBQ is unparalleled. Another local Southern highlight is Roscoe's Chicken & Waffles (only 2 things on the menu!) near Lake Merritt. (Roscoe's was better before they moved, but still first rate.)
anticypher didn't mention the BBQ goat and turkey at Doug's, both of which are excellent.
-Tom Duff
Hey, is there good barbeque in Oakland?
I couldn't have made it through school without Doug's Barbeque, open until 3:00 AM most nights, 3600 San Pablo Blvd, Oakland. Not recommended for pasty white solitary geeks at 3:00 AM, due to its location under the freeway on the north edge of the seedier part of Oaktown. But worth it for the best ribs, fried chicken, roast lamb and slabs o'beef around.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
You analogy is seriously flawed. You can look at the river all you like. Within certain boundaries, you can do whatever you want with a river flowing through your property. What you cannot do is dump polution in the river that travles downstream, or divert the river, or dam it up. Likewise, my braodcast of radio waves is regulated by the FCC. But as far as I know, there is no government regulation on radio receivers.
The DMCA makes it illegal to make devices to decrypt these transmissions. So yes, dss cards are illegal under the DMCA.
Now, I personally believe that the DMCA is *wrong* (never confuse the law with what is right), and possibly unconstitutional (which would mean it was not merely unjust, but illegal as well). But until it is demonstrated unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, or otherwise repealed, descrambling
dss signals is illegal.
Someone mentioned wireless LANs. This falls into the same category. It is NOT illegal to intercept wireless LAN traffic on your own property. However, what you do with the information gained may or may not be illegal.
What happened is DirecTV basically destroyed the smartcards that people were using to pirate cable by destroying some bits in the PROM. If a certain bit isn't 1, then the card is unable to boot up.
:-)
Some hackers then created a boot-strap-loader, which mimics the normal boot process of a normal card, then once the boot-up process gets past the point where it checks for that 1 in the PROM, it then hands over the remainder of the boot-up sequence to the DirecTV smartcard, and it can be used again to steal signals.
Note: This is very watered down version of what happend, so don't flame me
Doh!
There would be huge risks if DirecTV accidentally destoryed several subscribers cards an hour before the Superbowl. With it happening a week beforehand, it's soon enough so that the pirate community didn't get free Superbowl coverage, and long enough to replace accidentally destoryed cards. Also, the goal was to get those people that were pirating to subscribe, and a week allows DTV to send a new card to those people.
Doh!
If DirecTV wanted to be bastards they would have done the infinite loop thing an hour before Super Bowl. A few people would have been pissed of and hacking faster than you can believe :)
--- I used to moderate, then I read the -1 articles and decided having to filter through them was not worth it.
Actually, another advancement has been made that some view better than DPBB boards. By flashing a card unlooper device with some new code, it can be turned into a card programmer that can bypass said area on the card.
I'm not advocating theft in any way, but I found this to be amazing, that rogue codewarriors had enough diligence to be able to figure a way around what everyone (Hughes included) thought was permanent.
If you ask me, the main goal of wiping out the H cards was because it simply became too easy to pirate the service - my estimate is at least 100,000+ people were pirating DirecTV this way. It is still impossible to use these cards as they were before, but they can now be used in emulation set-ups. Most people don't want to be bothered to do that though, and the population of people who will do that is a small enough number for Hughes to be able to call their H card strike a success, because at most there will be 5,000-10,000 people using said emulation setups.
For the last time, PIN Number and ATM Machine are redundancies!
DirectTV actually does this kind of thing all the time, it was just really effective this time because everyone was watching the Super Bowl. I think you are thinking about the cable company trick with your example there. Cable companies have the ability to send out specific signals to specific boxes (they can tell all of the boxes registered, for example, to switch frequencies). During an expensive event like a boxing match or pro wrestling tournament they'll switch the paying customers over to a different channel and show the "pirates" something like "Call 1-800-We-Got-U for a free Super Crazy Macho Mega Man T-Shirt!" Of course, calling the number elicits the response hinted at in your message.
I assume that's British Civil Service Speak for "You're Out of the Loop, Sucker!" One of my favorite TV characters is Sir Humpherey Applebee, who once said:
Why can't American bureaucrats be that entertaining?__________________
The whole DirecTV thing, I say more power to the hackers out there. The broadcast monopoly in Canada is ridiculous, and anyone who circumvents the absolute garbage CRTC regulations deserves a pat on the back, a hearty handshake, and a nice beer.
BTW, the signals that are broadcast are penetrating my body and passing through me with no permission. Why should it be illegal to decrypt something that is physically passing through me as I write this? I never asked them to broadcast their signal through me. Same with cellphones and all that. If the signal is passing through my body, then IMO I have every right to do what I want with that signal.
Synchronized cocks!
I consider myself fairly literate when it comes to technical matters, but the sheer volume of information on the subject of DSS hacking makes me wonder how Joe 6-pack could ever commit $300-$400 to purchase something that could become unusable literally overnight, unless he is willing to keep on top of updates and patches and unloopers and reprogrammers.
Compare that to cable theft...you buy a box and it works and it always works. Cable companies can't change encryption schemes overnight. In truth, in the five years I've been in my home location we are still using the same Jerrold/GE boxes. A one time fee of $200 for five years of unlimited cable seems like a worthy temptation.
I am honestly surprised that there isn't a bigger market for these digital cable black boxes. Almost as many channels as DSS plus the local stuff plus many people feel they can rationalize it by paying for the basic cable connection.
So I think that part of the effort that goes into the DSS hacking scene must truly be the hacking spirit, the doing something difficult to see if it can be done. I can see that modivation but at best that could only be a couple thousand dedicated souls. Where the other 98,000 customers are coming from I just can't understand.
-JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
You know, it's things like this that make me question what exactly we own. The airwaves are public property, at least, they were the last time I checked. Yet, I think a company has a right to reclaim its investment in some satellites. Launching those things isn't cheap.
A question, though. If the airwaves are public, what's illegal about using a signal that you didn't permit someone to send onto your property? I think that DirecTV is spending far too much money trying to stop the fraction of a percent of their viewers from stealing service. Is it really cost effective?