[opendtv] Re: FCC R&O on MVPD program sources
- From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 11:04:25 -0500
Michael Enright wrote:
> I don't know specifics but isn't Cable TV encrypted? Isn't Satellite
> TV encrypted? These are both broadcast (in the one case the broadcast
> is that all the homes on the same cable see the same signals) and
> somehow they control what each subscriber sees. Why couldn't the
> proposed signals use the same kind of system?
>
Much of cable is encrypted though I have never really looked into how
they do it. Since they have 2 way channels and control over individual
pieces of hardware they could easily do authentication with individual
cable boxes and cable cards, etc. But that still leaves the final
encryption of the transmitted data. It would be possible for them to
add a simple but unique layer of encryption in each neighborhood. I
have no idea if they do this.
It may also be possible the cable boxes or cards decrypt the streams in
such a way that they don't give up any secret key information. In this
case no information would be lost that could be shared with others with
software decryption but no valid boxes, though I'm sort of skeptical how
long this would stand. But if it really does work for cable then I
suppose it might work equally well for OTA also if they had some back
channel for authentication. It is this last possibility I was asking
about in my original post.
I guess I had figured the cable companies were to some extent relying on
"security through obscurity" (hoping nobody knows the proprietary
algorithm). And that approach never stays secret very long once there
are enough people interested in it. It has been a long time since I
read the publicly available cable card doc. It might answer some of
these questions but I'm to lazy to go look for it again.
- Tom
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