Email
Give people a reminder email every couple of weeks - its not spam - they signed up for it. Say something in the email - not just 'visit us'.
I'd be very careful with this one. I will purposely avoid sites with even a hint of spam-like tendancies.
Only send emails to individuals that have indicated they would like to receive mailings.
...that products advertised on these stations will be boycotted.
Reminds me of the Hollywood blacklists of the 50s.
It seems like the negative effects of last week's events are inevitably going to permute across all facits of American society. The knee-jerk reactions/decisions of many (obviously less than insightful) policy makers achieves results well beyond what the attackers could have ever hoped for.
Sadly, this all seems rather typical and doesn't surprise me in the least.
I'm also in Canada where DSS systems have been called a 'greymarket' item for years.
I began following the internet underworld of DSS hacking in 97 when a couple of my older blue collar 'non-tech' friends bought DTV receivers (with fully hacked cards, no less) from one of our towns tv/stereo shops. That was the early days before the RCMP began gestapoing DSS equiptment dealers (shutdown raids with all equiptment confiscated) on behalf hughes/nds.
The DSS hacking scene has a fairly interesting history when you line up the countermeasure events history. There is definitive cycle that has occurred and will continue.
Card cycle 1. F card
fully hacked, there was actually standalone F card emulation hardware available, no smartcard needed.
ECM timing and code targeting tactics demonstrate DTVs awareness of its piracy demographics
countermeasures rolled out designed to frustrate dealer reliant pirates having to wait to have their cards reprogrammed.
DTV, running out of countermeasure breathing room, introduces the H card
F card is swapped out for the H card; F card datastream shutdown, all F card based hacks are dead...
(actually, the F cards can still be used to open the music channels, audio only)
I'm pretty sure this card swap cost DTV somewhere in the $50 million range.
Card cycle 2. H card
H card designed with a cyptographic ASIC dedicated to providing decryption data for the video stream - this has never been hacked.
the first couple of ECMs targeting initial H card hacks opens a security hole allowing hackers to acquire a complete dump of the card's eeprom.
the chess game continues, pirates are reminded what a looped card means by DTV, hardware emerges to 'unloop' cards.
freeware hacking begin to dominte the DSS hacking community, joe tvwatcher can easily buy a smartcard programmer and reprogram his card with scripts from the net
HU card is released, all new receivers are sold with the HU card. New H card production ceases. H cards become increasingly valuable on the blackmarket.
10/99 DTV targets a specific hacker group's code signature (being used by a large number of dealer bound pirates) - these cards are not reprogrammable
this time last year hackers (technically) controlled write access to the card.
DTV hunts and pecks at the H card hack demographics... majority of piracy limited down to a few of types scripts.
DTV pushes it up a notch...
DTV targets individual H cards whose ID numbers are not lsted in their subscriber database. This ECM used the receiver to store the targeted H card's ID. Pirates using cards with targeted ID were esssentially required clone the eeprom of their card to contain the card ID of a card not on the 'hit list'. Pirates with subscribed cards usually escaped this problem. F card IDs are used by some until they get added to the hit list.
Advanced pirates can purchase and replace an eeprom in some older receiver models enabling the use of any non targeted card ID on their H card without having to 'clone'. Card ID in the HU number range are generally not targeted.
Legit subscribers have reportedly been hit with this ECM in which case DTV upgrades them to a new HU card. Some speculate this is a subtle card swap technique. DTVs subscriber base is way bigger than the F card days so a complete H card swap campaign is not that easy to swallow.
Northsat becomes the 1st (and only) dealer to dump the card ID off of the new HU cards... these ID are loaded onto H cards to avoid the hit list....before too long NorthSat is shutdown via legal action on behalf of DTV.
DTV send down a series of 'updates' to the H cards. These initial updates contain the first chunk of new code designed to regain write access to the H card. Cards not having these updates are denied video. Add the updates, video comes back.
DTV sends more updates, dealer reliant customers becoming pissed off waiting to have their write protected cards manually updated. Scripts emerge to allow updates to be accepted using the remote.
Late model receivers' eeprom updated to only use HU cards.
The capabilities of DTVs new code is fully understood and predicted well before DTV adds all the code. With DTVs new code in place, any hacked H card can be targeted and killed. H card emulator systems becomes the only relatively 'ECMproof' hack. Most pirates switch to what may have been considered as less risky scripts to program their cards. DTV has its ducks in a row.
A HU hack emerges on a limited scale(expensive).
DTV delivers a group of devasting ECMs unparalleled in its history. If a hacked card was in the receiver on or after 01/22/01 chances are it has been looped/unrepariable. (Including the hacked HU cards)
So, did DTV shake off its fleas with this impressive demonstration?
...hardly.
... and they didn't write 'GAME OVER' to the card either. I'm sure DTV realizes how effective this ECM was... however they also realize this move was far from an end game countermeasure.
There is hardware available to allow these 'unrepairable' H cards to continue to be used. Supplies are/will be limited but the dealers with this tech are going to make a hugh pile of cash, over the next few months.
Card cycle 3 - HU Card (just beginning)
This ECM will push the commercially available HU hack into the mainstream. The future of DSS piracy will likely become a more complex affair especially if DTV continued to develope it's security enhancements when design the HU card. The HU is currently a black box to hackers with only one group widely offering a sucessful hack. This hack was sucessfully ECMed on Sunday so individuals who shelled out the $500usd for a hacked HU are no further ahead. NDS, the company who actually manufactures and developed the F through HU cards, are reportedly on the hook for the cost of a full card swap, if/when the HU card's security is compromised. Sounds like good motivation to learn from the past and anticipate the future.
Most H card emulation systems didn't even blink during the ECM. Those system that encountered problem were easily update to function correctly. The software that is used to facilitate the H card emulation system requires access to the unhacked ASIC on an H card to retrieve decryption packets. Its actually a quasi man-in-the-middle hack with a computer program emulating all the functionality of the H card except for the generation of decryption packets. These are retrieved from a specially programmed H card that has been set up for that purpose alone. The H card is kept in a card programmer and is completely out of reach of DTV. Contrary to most conservative opinions, I suspect this system will continue to sucessfully hack the DSS system until DTV shuts off the H card data stream and switches entirely to the HU card.... Just like it did with the F card.
The software used to emulate the H card was created by one hacker/programmer. This individual also created the original emulation software for the F card. The F card emulator was a true emulator... no smartcard required. The F card emulator worked until DTV shut down the F card datastream. Although far too premature, an HU emulator of sorts can probably be expected in DTVs future.
DTV is gradually improving their security with each success cycle which will probably keep piracy rates in line. Unfortunately, they bought a dog with fleas when they decided to implement their system using tech that was proven hackable years earlier when it was employed in europe by SKY DSS. There are many millions of dollars at stake for both DTV and commercial hackers so its likely this battle will waged for a few years to come yet.
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Email
Give people a reminder email every couple of weeks - its not spam - they signed up for it. Say something in the email - not just 'visit us'.
I'd be very careful with this one. I will purposely avoid sites with even a hint of spam-like tendancies.
Only send emails to individuals that have indicated they would like to receive mailings.
...that products advertised on these stations will be boycotted.
Reminds me of the Hollywood blacklists of the 50s.
It seems like the negative effects of last week's events are inevitably going to permute across all facits of American society. The knee-jerk reactions/decisions of many (obviously less than insightful) policy makers achieves results well beyond what the attackers could have ever hoped for.
Sadly, this all seems rather typical and doesn't surprise me in the least.
I began following the internet underworld of DSS hacking in 97 when a couple of my older blue collar 'non-tech' friends bought DTV receivers (with fully hacked cards, no less) from one of our towns tv/stereo shops. That was the early days before the RCMP began gestapoing DSS equiptment dealers (shutdown raids with all equiptment confiscated) on behalf hughes/nds.
The DSS hacking scene has a fairly interesting history when you line up the countermeasure events history. There is definitive cycle that has occurred and will continue.
So, did DTV shake off its fleas with this impressive demonstration?
There is hardware available to allow these 'unrepairable' H cards to continue to be used. Supplies are/will be limited but the dealers with this tech are going to make a hugh pile of cash, over the next few months.
Card cycle 3 - HU Card (just beginning) This ECM will push the commercially available HU hack into the mainstream. The future of DSS piracy will likely become a more complex affair especially if DTV continued to develope it's security enhancements when design the HU card. The HU is currently a black box to hackers with only one group widely offering a sucessful hack. This hack was sucessfully ECMed on Sunday so individuals who shelled out the $500usd for a hacked HU are no further ahead. NDS, the company who actually manufactures and developed the F through HU cards, are reportedly on the hook for the cost of a full card swap, if/when the HU card's security is compromised. Sounds like good motivation to learn from the past and anticipate the future.
Most H card emulation systems didn't even blink during the ECM. Those system that encountered problem were easily update to function correctly. The software that is used to facilitate the H card emulation system requires access to the unhacked ASIC on an H card to retrieve decryption packets. Its actually a quasi man-in-the-middle hack with a computer program emulating all the functionality of the H card except for the generation of decryption packets. These are retrieved from a specially programmed H card that has been set up for that purpose alone. The H card is kept in a card programmer and is completely out of reach of DTV. Contrary to most conservative opinions, I suspect this system will continue to sucessfully hack the DSS system until DTV shuts off the H card data stream and switches entirely to the HU card.... Just like it did with the F card.
The software used to emulate the H card was created by one hacker/programmer. This individual also created the original emulation software for the F card. The F card emulator was a true emulator... no smartcard required. The F card emulator worked until DTV shut down the F card datastream. Although far too premature, an HU emulator of sorts can probably be expected in DTVs future.
DTV is gradually improving their security with each success cycle which will probably keep piracy rates in line. Unfortunately, they bought a dog with fleas when they decided to implement their system using tech that was proven hackable years earlier when it was employed in europe by SKY DSS. There are many millions of dollars at stake for both DTV and commercial hackers so its likely this battle will waged for a few years to come yet.
You can get a high-res (2096x2604) gif via http://www.mpa-garching.mpg.de/~jgc/hubble.html