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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."
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.
They were threatening to release the software hack unless MS were to allow a signed version of Linux to be released on the XBox. Of course MS didn't, and the hack (which allowed the user to load an unsigned linux loader without a hardware mod) was released.
Later that hack was modified by other people to run *any* unsigned executable on the XBox. It was this very possibility that the original hacker wanted MS to avoid by allowing a signed Linux loader.
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.
Apparently a contest was made available first before a software exploit could be found. The HD TeAM group just happens to be the first to claim success. If their post:
"HD TeAm has a solution prepared and authorizes it's distribution via ddb once $1,000 has been collected. We request that all proceeds be donated to the EFF so that research of this nature remains legal in the future."
"It is our position that if the community, particularly the minority with the disposable income for hd-units, is unwilling to come together & donate this token sum to a worthy organization the hack is probably better kept private"
Who said Freedom was Fair?
"... 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.
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.
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*
I agree with the question - how is this blackmail?
It would be blackmail IF the team publicly said "we'll release this code UNLESS Tivo(/the broadcast industry/MPAA/whoever) pays the EFF $X"... this is more of a "we want an acknowledgement that this is useful, and people are interested in it, but legally we obviously can't get paid ourselves for it"
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.
Why? This should be obvious.
The music, movie, and TV industries in the U.S. still haven't opened up to the idea of sharing things. It was one thing back when TV was analog, and music was on tapes (yeah, they complained back then, but it *was* less of a problem), but now they're scared shitless because they're broadcasting a digital stream, and, although it is compressed, any duplication, recording, or sharing of it would be at exactly the same quality.
So, they try to manipulate laws (DMCA, Broadcast Flag, etc...) their way so that nobody can copy their stuff illegally or legally. The end result is that we need organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation to stand up to them and preserve our rights to use media legally.
A lot of these laws fall into a category which I particularly find disturbing: laws that cure the symptom instead of the disease. Instead of just cracking down on true copyright violation (large groups of people selling pirated movies and such, not some guy who copies a few movies for a friend), they crack down on ways to violate copyrights, or they crack down on ways to create ways to violate copyrights, or they crack down on uses of copyrighted material more broad than what is truly illegal, or they crack down on anything that could eventually lead to copyright infringement.
Now, for some analogies. (I warned you, so don't complain they suck!) People are allowed to have knives, for normal uses such as chopping vegetables. Knives, however, can also be used for violence. If knives were regulated the same way copyright law is looking, we wouldn't be able to have knives because they *could* be used to hurt people. Furthermore, most recipies involving chopping would be illegal, due to the fact that they could induce someone to create a knife for that purpose.
But look at it another way: guns--something whose purpose is solely violence--are regulated. Think about DeCSS--it is used only to decode DVD data to view it; pirates don't even need to decode DVD data to make pirated discs. If the movie industry wanted to crack down on something, it should have been DVD burners (yeah, I know, they shouldn't be regulated either... maybe they should have required a special code on consumer discs, so players won't play DeCSS-encrypted discs [presumably a copyrighted movie] when they are on a consumer disc [presumably because it is a pirated copy]), not DeCSS. That's like cracking down on knives, because they can be used to hurt people, even though they have plenty of harmless uses, while leaving guns unregulated.
Okay, shred apart my analogies. Have fun. But that is the reason we need the EFF--to protect us from corporations that would otherwise crack down on lawful acts.
So why not just release it? As the thread says, the people who have enough money to buy an HD TiVo certainly have enough money to contribute to the EFF, and their very use of the TiVo is an act protected by the EFF. Asking for donations to a good group in exchange for a donation is perfectly valid. If you don't like it, don't give money... someone else will... or maybe not, and we'll never see the code...
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