 kba4
join:2001-10-23
Canton, OH
 ·RoadRunner Cable
 ·AT&T U-Verse
| reply to lqrisquicker
Re: Crack down well DBS is very difficult to steal anymore, what with the current generation of access cards out there.
DBS by its very nature is a mostly 1-way system: the majority of the signal is sent to every single customer in the country with locals being spot-beamed regionally. the access card authenticates the receiver and the receiver in turn displays the A/V signal to the end of the chain (tv, audio, etc.). in the past it was very easy to reprogram an access card to access 100% of the signal instead of what it was originally intended to decode.
current generation CATV by its very nature is a 2-way system: every CPE (consumer equipment) is connected to the CMTS with updates being made constantly. Cable Modems in particular have been 2-way for a long time. The boot process uses MAC authentication and allows the modem to access the various portions of the network and then the Internet if it's a legit CPE.
saying that the cableco can't stop it is like saying the highway patrol can't stop people who don't pay to access toll-roads. there's simply too many places to stop the process from progressing. I have to agree with amigo_boy  here - no company should be allowed to use our tax dollars to protect their investments. I realize that it may be too late for this ethical issue, however, what with the corporate bailouts and the precedent they have seemingly set.
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"I saw Matlock in a bar last night; the sound was off, but I think I got the gist of it..." |
| nowadays you dont need to even reprogram an access card to steal dish or DTV for that matter, with the advent of the internet, its called card-sharing, and its available and about 7 FTA receivers, you load in 3 party firmware, plug your FTA receiver into an Ethernet connection, or configure wireless connection give the box a minute to connect to the card server, and your getting free Dish Or DTV. If there is a service someone wants badly enough they will find a way to get it for free. Yea the boot process does use the mac auth, but they still hacked the modems for free service, and they do work, I've seen these modems in action when i worked for a cable company, I've also seen the process of hacking them to work with out being put in the CMTS, and uncapping, you only have to use 2 programs, that run under windows and you can configure your modem to access the network. its so simple, that a 50 year old could do it. I was going to put 12 year old, but we all know most 12 year olds are who are figuring stuff out these days. |
