Open Cable Standard Not So Open

Mike Hicks writes "A few days ago, I heard about the FCC approving new rules for standardizing digital cable in the US. This involved using a set top box or tuner integrated into a TV along with a smart card (much like digital satellite services). Unfortunately, it looks like the standard (believed to be OpenCable) is meant to tightly control the hardware and software that can be used, probably making any open-source implementation very difficult if not impossible. I seem to be having a case of deja vu"

Comments

Easily circumvented

[Anonymous Coward]

with a Captain Crunch whistle blown directly into the infrared port of the TV.

No surprises here

[Anonymous Coward]

...the standard (believed to be OpenCable) is meant to tightly control the hardware and software...

Does this really come as a surprise? Like cable modems, cable companies will simply issue out cheap hardware for a monthly fee. I suspect that they made several attempts to ensure that they get their piece of the pie. Just follow the money trail.

Re:No surprises here

[Jordy]

Now, if you had full control over the box's hardware, how difficult could it be to rig something up that grabs any channel you want it to?

Very difficult if the system is setup correctly and you have two-way communication plus neighborhood segmentation.

Step 1. Encrypt each block of channels on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.

Step 2. Distribute smart cards with unique private keys signed by the cable company.

Step 3. Change channel block keys once per hour.

Step 4. Setup key distribution system whereby the cable box requests a new channel block decryption key once per hour using its private key to sign a request.

This system makes it fairly difficult to steal cable. If you try to clone someone else's cable box private key, the cable company will see a duplicate channel block key request.

You can't modify your cable box to ask for say, the HBO channel block key because your private key itself won't be authorized by the key distribution servers at your cable company.

You could setup an online key distribute system to dup your key out to other people in your neighborhood, but it would be limited to people in your neighborhood (since other neighborhoods have different keys).

Hell, this is how the wireless encryption/authentication WPA/802.1x EAP-TLS works come to think of it (minus the smart card itself since technically it isn't needed for anything but a handy storage device).

Of course I could be missing something obvious.

Re:Well, duh...

[nadadogg]

I don't see the problem with open source set-top boxes. If people want to pirate stuff, they will, regardless of whether or not they use a different PVR system. Seeing as most people who pirate satellite can barely use a computer(as they just know someone who programs the cards.) This is probably just going to be so they can get kickbacks from retail PVR companies.

Purpose of the OCAP Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, here's the deal. In the United States, the Set-Top Box (STB) market is dominated by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta. Between the 2 of them, they have about 90% of the total STB sales here. This is for mostly historical reasons, but the way they hold onto it now is that they have monopolies on the conditional access (content protection) systems, which are hardwired into the boxes.

The cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner, et al) want to open up the standards provided to set top box manufacturers so that consumer electronics companies (Sony, Samsung, et al) can compete with Moto and SA for the business, driving the prices for STBs down. STBs are one of the largest capital costs/subscriber acquisition costs for a cable company. The secondary goal (beyond lower STB prices) is moving the STB purchase into the retail chain, so that cable companies don't have to carry that burden unless they want to). The way they plan to do that is a conditional access module in the form of a PCMCIA card (more or less), which the user purchases or leases from their cable company, and repurchases or leases if they move with the STB they own.

So "Open" is only "Open compared to the current system, which is completely closed." It doesn't mean what the typical slashdot reader would think it does.

Enough Already

[Superwraith]

What next? Are they going to create proprietary sidewalks and force us to wear certain shoes to walk on it, yet call it an open standard?

This is bullshit.. I have had a Hauppauge WinTV card in my computer for 7 years (okay in a few computers, but still the same card). Works great, saves me a lot of money and space, as my computer is my full entertainment center. If these people think I am going to have buy a device with a TV built into it to use the cable service, they are sadly mistaken. If i am forced to do this then I am going to do one of the following:

1. Go to satellite
2. Get the device required, hack it (oh and it will be hackable no matter how much they try to hackproof it, if it can be built, it can be hacked). Get shitloads of karma on slashdot, and maybe get myself on the front page.
3. Say to hell with cable tv or satellite all together and just buy DVD's, and get DSL for internet access.

I think the cable tv companies should learn a thing or two from the RIAA before they start their own major campagins, that is if they want to remain profitable...

In this digital age, the consumer has more organized power, and you don't want to piss the ones giving you your bread and butter, and your dodge vipers off.

it's always DRM

[*weasel]

every content provider is looking to incorporate more and more DRM as the quality, cost, and ease of creation of copies improves.

the music industry doesn't care about people copying songs off the radio. it didn't even really get its panties in a bunch when CD-Rs first hit the market. or when mp3s hit the ftp servers. It went ballistic when anyone could download a single application and instantly find a never ending stream of perceptibility loss-less perfect digital copies.

likewise with the MPAA and DVD encryption, likewise with the new Cable Set-top standard.

They want to cut out MythTV, Tivo, splitters, H-cards, and cable descramblers. It's becoming too easy to get at the current data, so they want a change.

with the analog system working (fairly) well as is, why else would they create a new 'standard' for the digital system? It certainly isn't in the interest of the consumer.

Why doesn't Sony support the Blu-Ray with its stock rewritable feature?
Why did Disney/Circuit City/et al try to push (the bad) Divx onto the market in the first place?

It isn't because consumers are clamoring for less control or cheaper movies.

The time is coming when content producers are going to have to realize that their profits will no longer come from format-updates (repurchasing 8-tracks as CDs, VHS classics as DVDs, etc), and will -not- come from service-style access to data. Classic TV advertising may even have to give way to pure product-placement campaigns.

Cable will realize that a move to pay-per-channel is the way to support content without advertising in our new time-shifted digital reality. Some people -will- pay $1/mo for TLC. Home Depot will still pay for product placements in Trading Spaces. Maybe the Super-station will go away - but the cable companies, and popular channels, need not.

the film industry has already shown that the theatre experience is not losing out to cheap cam copies. they've learned that feature-rich dvds or dirt-cheap dvds are preferred to the customer over hacked-together recompressed copies on filesharing networks.

The record companies will need to realize that to win with digital music requires providing the best quality, with the least hassle. They will need to realize that they must beat file-sharing on features. People will give up hunting around for a good (not mislabeled)256kbps rip of Britney's newest song - if they know they can just hit iTunes or its ilk and cough up $1.

Fair Use needs to win out. These purported 'losses' from file-sharing need to be revealed to be grossly overestimated fabrications. (A PSA from a supposed union set painter claiming that file sharing is killing the movie industry, and threatening his job - airing during it's highest grossing year of all time is particularly tactless)

DRM is the tool of the content dinosaur. If they concentrated on actual content piracy rings - where big money is being made off black-market copies, and abandoned their fruitless DRM research - their profits could be higher than ever.

But such is not the reaction of anti-competitive cabals. Being forced to -compete- is not what they do. Suing, threatening, bullying, bribing - these are the blunt instruments they wield instead of the precise tools of innovation, imagination and competition.

So in the meantime - expect every advance to carry DRM in the fine print.

Reasonably simple solution

[jjn1056]

Stop caring about TV so much. I mean, if your freedom to control the way you access information is that important to you, than any of the few (what seems to me at least) shows that might be worth watching are worth giving up.

Just opt out. If enough people do, that would change the industry quick enough. Chances are that won't happen, most people don't feel like these types of restrictions interfere with their freedom in a significant way.

Chances are that people who do care are just going to have to get used to opting out more, like people I know that feel strongly about worker rights won't buy stuff from companies that abuse them. You really don't need those designer Nike sneakers in the end, if you think about it.

People who have strong political feelings about things are willing to put up with the troubles, and something dangers, of living a life in accord with their beliefs.

All you can do is try to raise awareness of the issues, lobby for change, and try to not be too dissappointed from time to time when the powers that be exercise their power. Offering an alternative is also good, like trying to promote using the internet as a way of accessing news and entertainment.

Peace, or Not?

Re:Well, duh...

[PilotChris]

We promise we'll be honest and only decode the channels we're paying for. Honest. We had nothing to do with the satellite descramblers and smart card programmers stuff. :)

No, you've missed the point! I wrote the email that was quoted in this article, so I have a vested interest in clearing this up. :)

OpenCable has gone through great lengths to decouple the decoding/display/application stuff from decryption and access control mechanism. Encryption and Access Control is handled by the cable company's POD (Point Of Deployment) module which will take the form of a removable PCMCIA card or similar. Each cable company could implement different encryption and access control systems by using different POD modules, so even if one system is hacked there would be others.

The main point here, though, is that you're not handing the "hackers" the "keys" to the decryption system any more than you are by giving them a modern digital cable box. It's just a shame to build a system that would otherwise be so perfect for an open-source implementation and then lock it down due to DRM (instead of technological) concerns.

Chris

Re:Well, duh...

[tomhudson]

I think we're going to see a new versin of "never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes", as in "never underestimate the bandwidth of a shopping cart full of cheap dvds".

The studios are finally releasing cheap ($5-$10) dvds at your local supermarket, walmart, etc. At $5.00 a copy, nobody's going to bother downloading a screener, or a rip.

Currently, they're doing this with older releases (Spaceballs, Last Action Hero, G.I. Jane) as a way to squeeze out more revenue from their libraries.Once they do the math and figure out that they can bypass the movie theatres and video stores and sell new releases direct to the public dirt cheap and still come out ahead, this is how they're going to go.

DVDs cost less than a quarter to press. Sell them for under $10, and they become an impulse buy. Hell, you'd probably be able to dump 10 million copies of Giglie on the world market and at $5 a pop and get most of your production budget back - people would buy it just to see how bad it really was, at that price.

This is where the war's going to be fought in the future. Cheap DVDs sold within 6-12 months of initial theatrical release, at dirt-cheap prices, through low-overhead retailers. People then won't need pay-per-view, video-on-demand, satellite dishes or video rental stores.