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High Definition TiVo Bash Software Hack Claimed
crazyray writes "Fresh on the heels of Sunday's Washington Post's article about TiVo and the broadcast flag, a group calling themselves the 'HD TeAm' is claiming to have discovered a software-only exploit to enable bash on the new $1000 High Definition DirecTiVo.
Prior to this announcement, it was thought that this was only possible by desoldering and reflashing the PROM.
Perhaps most interestingly, 'HD TeAm' is offering to release the code to the world if enough donations are given to the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
Maybe that's a good way of doing it. Make sure you don't have any money to be sued for by the MPAA, but have money going to someone who might arrange your legal defense.
I had a sucky sig.
...on PROM night!
... oh wait, this is about a PROM?? uhhh... nothing to see here, move along!
and reflashing the PROM
well I have to say that brings back fond memories of prom night.
Today the US Senate announced pending legislation designed to curb the growing problem of Tivo hacking. The House is expected to take up a similar bill next week.
Senator Orrin Hatch, chief sponsor of the bill, was quoted as saying "This issue is of extreme importance to the future of America. What kind of message would we be sending to our children if we allowed this kind of wanton hacking activity to go on unchecked? I ask all politicians who value protecting our intellectual property laws to join me in support of this legislation."
"is offering to release the code to the world if enough donations are given to the Electronic Frontier Foundation"
Uh, why? Just release the code.
I remember a while back the gang of folks threatening to release hacks for the Xbox unless MS paid up - don't remember hearing what happened there. This seems to be similar but completely different - :)
I have to say that I'm against anything that might harm Tivo as a company; I'm a rabid fan who sees signs on the wall that Tivo may be in trouble within the next few years as the cable companies produce low-grade DVRs that do not give the database-powered juicy goodness that Tivo provides.
Just my two cents.
Let me be one of the first (today) to say that software-only hacks rule! There are a lot more people that can use that type of hack, then there are that would open the box and do stuff in order to get BASH, or what have you, to work. Having witnessed hardware xBox/TiVo hacks myself, I can attest that if you don't have nerves of steel, you could bump that soldering iron into something important.. and whoops! There goes the system.
stuff |
What would you be able to do with a TiVo hacked in this way that you can't do now? Hook it up to a different hard drive and store more shows?
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005
This is bash.
In 2004, a crack hacker unit will be sent to prison by a civilian court, for crimes they just barely understood themselves. These hackers promptly escaped from the maximum security MPAA holding room to their mothers' basements. Today, still wanted by Jack Valenti, they survive as coders of fortune. If you have an encrypted video stream, nobody else will touch it, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the HD TeAm!
click click click click...
I had a sucky sig.
"... Perhaps most interestingly, 'HD TeAm' is offering to release the code to the world if enough donations are given to the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
In other words, "We'd like our defense fund paid in advance before we release That-Which-Will-Get-Us-Sued-Out-Of-Our-Lives.
Skipping commercials is nice, but I'd like a hack to allow a TiVo to record and show good programs. "I wish my television had a control to adjust the intelligence level. I tried the control marked 'brightness', but it didn't help at all."
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
> The secondary reasons are to add features and disk space.
Disk space can be added to TiVos without shell access. Many people have already upgraded their HD TiVos' hard drives, while only a handfull have shell access to them.
How about stepping into 2004? The two-card-monte method as applied to the Tivo Series 2 as long ago as February, 2003.
t =22154
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/showthread.php?
If you've RTFA, you'd realize:
The forum offered a bounty for a software hack.
The bounty was funded by donations.
The TeAm just asked for the bounty to be redirected to the EFF instead of to themselves.
So basically, the big deal is that the bounty needs to reach $1000 before they'll release the code, but when it does, they're just going to give the bounty to the EFF anyway. What's wrong with that?
This isn't terrorism, you idiot - write the code yourself if you want it. The comparison "leaves a sour taste in my mouth".
Argh. Mod parent: flamebait.
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
We don't need people associating the EFF with blackmail.
I wish they wouldn't do this.
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
An idea from the Devil's Advocate side of the world: perhaps they don't *actually* have the code and are just trying to drum up donations using a hoax of sorts.
;)
You'd be just as wise to put your money down on a "pre-release" copy of Duke Nuke'em Forever without doing more homework.
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie!" until you can find a rock.
not if it means getting service for FREE and TiVo losing money. hacks like this can allow this alteration, and it's just not good for the company and it's investors
NO! This is especially true in this case. Corporate America needs to be taught that "we will make money as long as we contol the use of our product after we sell it" is a bogus business plan.
Capatalism demands that any company that tries this be run out of business. Darwin tells us that any investor that supports a company with such a business plan will have their money taken away (and this is a good thing)
I'm sick and tired of the "companies and investors DESERVE to make mony no matter how lame their business plans are" crowd. FSCK that. If a company can't figure out how to make money w/o inventing new limitations on what consumers can do with their product then it is VITALLY IMPORTANT that that company be allowed to fail. It may hurt in the short term, but we are all better for it in the long term.
They are asking for donations (to a non-profit organization!) and in return they will release a hack that THEY CREATED into the public domain.
How is offering to release something that you created in exchange for donations, blackmail?
If it is, then I guess every business that sells goods or services is guilty of blackmail too *roll eyes*
This 'digital blackmail/digital terrorism' leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Blackmail involves the withholding of information in return for a fee. If providing information in return for a fee is blackmail, then we'll have to jail all the programmers and scientists.
There was a contest: The contest organizers would collect a bounty from folks. If some group met the challenge (bash shell in Tivo) before the deadline, then they would get the collected money.
There is a group now that claims to have a working solution to the challenge, but they are saying they will not release it until the collected bounty is at least $1000 and with a promise that the contest organizers will not send it to the winners, but to the EFF instead.
(Tell-Sell mode)
The latest TiVo hack... Soon coming to a Freenet or MUTE node near you... It's amazing!
(/Tell-Sell mode)
A little later, it'll be all over the general file-sharing networks, without ever having left a trace to its origin. At that stage, the cat is irrevocably out of the bag.
The point you raise is interesting: it doesn't matter that anonymous networks like Freenet or MUTE are not currently used by a lot of users; they _are_ used by ~1000-~10000 users. When more than a view of those start sharing it at high-usage filesharing networks, the cat is out of the bag. I can indeed imagine really high-profile hacks (say: like the utopical patch that'll break DRMS and/of TCPA in a few years, or so ;) to be "released" in either the two-stage way I just described, or by using virusses (as a last resort).
Interesting...
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If you've RTFA, you'd realize:
Obviously RTFA didn't help you understand why the principle of this offer is flawed. Bascially this is like saying "If you donate money to GreenPeace we will torch some Hummers." They are using a premeditated illegal action as a sort of endorsement for an organization. Therefore the correct response is for the EFF to denounce illegal activites regardless of wheather or not they believe the laws are constitutional.
> I found that the command to initialize a new hard drive (if present) is already there along with a comment of "No, we didn't remove this..." So, just plug in the second drive and it should work. No PC necessary!
Wrong. Those commands cause it to add a blessed drive to MFS, not to bless a blank drive. You still need to set up the basic partition table in a PC.