DirecTV controls access to their signal through smart cards shipped with every system. Each plastic card resembles a credit card, but is in fact a completely self contained microcomputer with its own embedded software and memory. In normal operation, a subscriber inserts the card into a slot in the DirectTV receiver, and a satellite signal from the company tells the receiver which channels, if any, the subscriber is allowed to watch, based on the unique identification number coded into each card.
Along with modifying original cards, it is possible to use the information provided by the smart card to create an encryption emulator. This, in turn, can be programmed into a cable or satellite receiver's internal software, and offered for download on the internet as a firmware upgrade. This allows access to the encrypted channels by those who do not even own a smart card. In recent times, many underground forum websites dedicated to the hobby of satellite piracy and encryption emulated Free To Air (FTA) receivers have been set up, giving up-to-date information on satellite and cable piracy, including making available firmware downloads for receivers, and very detailed encryption system information available to the public.
Satellite Direct Tv Crack Software Codes
In some countries such as Canada and many Caribbean nations (except for the Dominican Republic), the black market in satellite TV piracy is closely tied to the gray market activity of using direct broadcast satellite signals to watch broadcasts intended for one country in some other, adjacent country. Many smaller countries have no domestic DBS operations and therefore few or no legal restrictions on the use of decoders which capture foreign signals.
The grey market for US satellite receivers in Canada at one point was estimated to serve as many as several hundred thousand English-speaking Canadian households. Canadian authorities, acting under pressure from cable companies and domestic broadcasters, have made many attempts to prevent Canadians from subscribing to US direct-broadcast services such as AT&T's DirecTV and Echostar's Dish Network.
Dish Network and Bell Satellite TV had released new and more tamper-resistant smart cards over the years, known as the ROM2, ROM3, ROM10, ROM11 series. All these cards used the Nagravision 1 access system. Despite introducing newer and newer security measures, older cards were typically still able to decrypt the satellite signal after new cards were released (A lack of EEPROM space on the ROM2 cards eventually led to them being unable to receive updates necessary to view programming). In an effort to stop piracy, as by this point the Nagravision 1 system had been thoroughly reverse-engineered by resourceful hobbyists, an incompatible Nagravision 2 encryption system was introduced along with a smart card swap-out for existing customers. As more cards were swapped, channel groups were slowly converted to the new encryption system, starting with pay-per-view and HDTV channels, followed by the premium movie channels. This effort culminated in a complete shutdown of the Nagravision 1 datastream for all major channels in September, 2005. Despite these efforts to secure their programming, a software hack was released in late August, 2005, allowing for the decryption of the new Nagravision 2 channels with a DVB-S card and a PC. Just a few months later, early revisions of the Nagravision 2 cards had been themselves compromised. Broadcast programming currently[when?] uses a simulcrypt of Nagravision 2 and Nagravision 3, a first step toward a possible future shutdown of Nagravision 2 systems.
In the US, both DirecTV and Dish Network direct-broadcast satellite systems use digital encryption standards for controlling access to programming. DirecTV uses VideoGuard, a system designed by NDS. DirecTV has been cracked in the past, which led to an abundance of cracked smartcards being available on the black market. However, a switch to a stronger form of smart card (the P4 card) wiped out DirectTV piracy soon after it was introduced. Since then, no public cracks have become available. Dish Network uses Nagravision (2 and 3) encryption. The now-defunct VOOM and PrimeStar services both used General Instruments/Motorola equipment, and thus used a DigiCipher 2-based system very similar to that of earlier 4DTV large dish satellite systems.
"One of the original smart cards, entitled 'H' cards for Hughes, had design flaws which were discovered by the hacking community. These flaws enabled the extremely bright hacking community to reverse engineer their design, and to create smart card writers. The writers enabled the hackers to read and write to the smart card, and allowed them to change their subscription model to receive all the channels. Since the technology of satellite television is broadcast only, meaning you cannot send information TO the satellite, the system requires a phone line to communicate with DirecTV. The hackers could re-write their smart cards and receive all the channels, and unplug their phone lines leaving no way for DirecTV to track the abuse. DirecTV had built a mechanism into their system that allowed the updating of these smart cards through the satellite stream. Every receiver was designed to 'apply' these updates when it received them to the cards. DirecTV applied updates that looked for hacked cards, and then attempted to destroy the cards by writing updates that disabled them. The hacking community replied with yet another piece of hardware, an 'unlooper,' that repaired the damage. The hacker community then designed software that trojanized the card, and removed the capability of the receivers to update the card. DirecTV could only send updates to the cards, and then require the updates be present in order to receive video. Each month or so, DirecTV would send an update. 10 or 15 minutes later, the hacking community would update the software to work around the latest fixes. This was the status quo for almost two years. 'H' cards regularly sold on eBay for over $400.00. It was apparent that DirecTV had lost this battle, relegating DirecTV to hunting down Web sites that discussed their product and using their legal team to sue and intimidate them into submission.
Hackers have my respect. The hacking involved in duping an entire community of crackers (no matter how intelligent they are) for long enough to build a program in their machines, little piece by little piece, then pull the trigger, whilst having the flair and style to leave the message "GAMEOVER" in the first 8 bytes of the code is fantastic, and the credit goes to directv. 2ff7e9595c
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