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Added 11/12 From Pirates Den news page Nov. 11 by Risestar: Well that was sure some ugly business with all those new updates wasn't it? This site hit record traffic levels, on Wednesday night. Levels that no other DSS site in existance has come close to. At a few points, better than 1500 people were surfing this site, at THE EXACT SAME TIME! Nasty. A big thanks to out system admin who worked fast and furiously behind the scenes to keep the site together! A lot of other sites were down due to high traffic loads and so everyone came rushing over here to find out what the poop was, I guess. Poking around the Net, I see some usual propaganda, and innuendo. Some sites are stating that the 3m is dead and that emulation or activation is the only way out, etc. I say Whoa Nellie! Here's what we know... 1) DTV (Not DAVE) has the ability to execute dynamic code and is using this new function as a pre-requisite to decoding the video packet. This means that you need to have all 63 ACTUAL updates on your card in order to decode your video. This applies to all scripts, both 3m and activation. 2) This dynamic code will allow them to execute a checksum on demand that will be able to circumvent any traditional stealthing methods. Hence, stealth technology is no longer a viable option to help protect your card from a damaging ECM. 3) Traditional 3m programs (un-stealthed) will still work fine with all 63 ACTUAL updates installed. These however are prone to Looping or EEPROM damaging ECM's. This can be minimized thru use of a hardware blocking device such as Vcipher's Brick Wall Blocker or NorthSat's Card Condom. I also expect to see many, many vendors adding hardware blockers to their product line very soon. Basically, what these are is a "Wedge" type green board that goes between your access card and your IRD. This blocker will filter the data stream before it reaches your card and will intercept any malicious kill packets before they loop your card. This is going to be a very handy thing to own if you are going to continue to use a 3m script. 4) Activation programs are also an option as they are much less prone to looping type ECM's. The downside to these are that DTV will wipe any un-authorized tiers from your card about every 24-48 hours or so. This means that you will slowly lose channel block tiers and will simply have to re-program your card. You also only get a 25 PPV limit and you need to re-program your card when its full in order to get more. Some people remove their cards when not in use, which will slow the wipes as they can only wipe your card if its in the IRD. You can also enable "Tier Blocking". What this does is the activation program will corrupt your cards "Group Key" and the Tier wipe will not work as the card will not be able to authenticate the packet. Instead, it will ignore it. The downside to this is that this will permanantly alter your card's EEPROM image and that can be targeted in a hash or checksum at a later date. As you card won't be able to accept incoming packets signed by the group key, any additional updates sent, then required to be present on the card shortly after will result in a hash and loss of video. This also is a permanent thing and you will need to restore your EEPROM image to your card to restore the group key. If you did not make a back up of your image prior to doing this, you will be S.O.L. Hardware blockers have also been proven successful at blocking tier wipe packets, however DTV has also in the past gotten around this by sending the packets via un-traditional methods. 5) Emulation methods consist of a emulator board, a H access card , card programmer and a dedicated computer set up to run a special program. Basically, the Emulator board, combined with the software will "emulate" a DSS H series access card. As the ASIC cannot easily be emulated, the one on the H card must be used, and so a card programmer (with H card ) is connected to one serial post on your computer, and an emulator board is connected to the other port via a standard serial cable. The emulator board is inserted into the IRD. The upside to this method is that the H card is never actually exposed to the data stream and so is far safer from ECM's. The downside is that this method required a dedicated computer within serial port cables reach of your receiver. So this will not be at all feasible to the masses. However, if you have a old 486 lying around and can locate it near your IRD, its a viable option. So in short no, it's not the end, its not the beginning of the end, its the end of the beginning. DTV is committed to making our lives as trouble-filled as possible. We already need a subscribed H card image in order to get to first base. We can't sub them anymore so we are dependant on using a finite amount of existing H card subbed images that are left in the field. There's still 4 million + of them out there. DTV is slowly removing them from circulation by switching to new Hu cards if a customer calls in for service. They are also invalidating them in small quantities. Eventually, within 15-20 months, likely we will see an end to the H card. However, they are in no rush to do it tomorrow. So the next time you hear some bozo say that the swap is happening, you will know what to think. NDC is on the hook this time and they stand to pay significant penalties to DTV , should the Hu card or next full service access card be hacked. The $150 million dollars that it will cost to do a full swap will not be very appealing to them should the next one be easily hacked and they then need to pay penalties to DTV. Rumor has it that Santa may bring us some football this holiday season if we are all good little boys and girls though. One never knows, so you better be good and you better not cry, just to be safe :) --End cut and paste-- Added 11/09 From DSSUnderground Forums (originally posted on Pirates Den): This post can be found at Pirates Den. While he didn't mention it in this post, the emulator is working and the card is completely safe from a damaging ECM. --End cut and paste-- |
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