DIGITAL SATELLITE TV

I see adverts for wafer cards ,and programmers, why do they sell them?

Is it possible to clone a viewing card or create your own if you can get hold of the codes?

You can answer here or send me an email if that would be more appropriate

i though the commonest was to get a chipped box? maybe the cards are popular cos the box stays standard...

dunno how to do either though.

U used to be able to 'chip' ondigital/ITV digital cards to get all the channels. With the advent of FreeView obviously there is no point.

Sky digital hasn't been cracked (yet!) so no way of getting around that. Analogue was crackable but it's gone now.

It also used to be possible to buy chipped cards for recieving 'D2MAC' encrypted European smut channels but I'm not sure how that stands nowadays. I assume most channels are now digital which would make them far harder to crack.

There is a big court case currently on going trying to prove that Sky financed the cracking of the on/ITV digital encryption system knowing it would ruin the technology leaving them the prominant player.

At the moment the only way to get any more 'free' channels is to get FreeView which does exactly what it says on the tin. Richer Sounds sell the boxes for about £40.

Chris

Eeerrrrr, I dont know that much about the subject officer but i am lead to believe that digital cable has been hacked and is quite easy to do ( if you have the gear ) although 'spare' boxes are like rocking horse poo.

Ahh I don't know about digi cable. The old trick with analogue was to prise the 'green box' open and connect your house up to a known live feed

Chris

I've seen old cable boxes on ebay that are 'unlocked' ,but they look like the analogue ones.

also i read somewhere that some satellite decoders can be modded to bypass the encryption part so you dont need any cards.

Anymore info?

NTL's analog cable system can be hacked, its a simple box with an 8 pin PIC micro in it. However, I have legal NTL digital cable.


When sky were heavily relaint on the analog system (astra 1a - d) the cards COULD be hacked. This was simple to do by using a serial lead that was attatched to the system via a dummy card. The other end of the serial lead went to a PC that ran a card simulator program. The simple design and program (which needed updated every couple weeks) could be had from the internet. A guy called Markus Khun was a major person involved in the cracking.

When sky went digital, and on later analog cards, they changed the encryption to a very high level hardware based system on the card. Its mooted that even if this was cracked, there are reprogrammable systems on the card to switch to 'plan b' encryption if needed. The sky system hasnt been hacked for several years,,,,,, looks like it wont be!


atb

steve

quote:

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Originally posted by ChrisW

At the moment the only way to get any more 'free' channels is to get FreeView which does exactly what it says on the tin. Richer Sounds sell the boxes for about £40.

Chris

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dunno about cracking sky, but I've heard that if you change the telephone number that the sky digibox uses to confirm online bookings it doesn't bill you. Something to do with the box trying to phone home but not reconising the number so it tries again. One of the guy's at work did it but put in 123, which is the talking clock, he had a rather nice surprise when he got his bill!

Curry's are doing a Ferguson freeview box for £39

Sky also keep changing their system slightly every time someone learns too much about hacking it, hence new cards at seemingly random intervals.
I have seen modded digital cable boxes on ebay for around £250