IP: from the not-as-think-as-you-dumb-we-were dept.s ....

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

http://slashdot.org/articles/01/01/25/1343218.shtml

Posted by michael on Thursday January 25, @09:04AM

from the not-as-think-as-you-dumb-we-were dept.

Belch writes "4 or more years ago DirecTV launched its service. DirecTV was 
one of the very first large distributors of smart card technology in their 
product. So much so, that Hughes corp. (the primary owner of DirecTV) 
decided to create their own smart cards. Each receiver has a smart card 
located inside that is keyed to the subscriber, and actively participates 
in the decryption of the digital satellite video stream. However, 
considering Hughes decided on this technology when it was virtually in its 
infancy, they made several mistakes. The hacker community caught onto these 
mistakes, and there has been a war between DirecTV and the hacking 
community ever since. For the past two or more years, it was apparent the 
hacking community would win this war, completely opening the DirecTV 
signal. However, over the last 6 months, DirecTV has fought back with a 
vengeance, displaying the most extensive technical campaign against the 
hacking of their product..." Click through for the rest of the story.

"Allow me to give you some background.

"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.

"Four months ago, however, DirecTV began sending several updates at a time, 
breaking their pattern. While the hacking community was able to bypass 
these batches, they did not understand the reasoning behind them. Never 
before had DirecTV sent 4 and 5 updates at a time, yet alone send these 
batches every week. Many postulated they were simply trying to annoy the 
community into submission. The updates contained useless pieces of computer 
code that were then required to be present on the card in order to receive 
the transmission. The hacking community accommodated this in their 
software, applying these updates in their hacking software. Not until the 
final batch of updates were sent through the stream did the hacking 
community understand DirecTV. Like a final piece of a puzzle allowing the 
entire picture, the final updates made all the useless bits of computer 
code join into a dynamic program, existing on the card itself. This dynamic 
program changed the entire way the older technology worked. In a masterful, 
planned, and orchestrated manner, DirecTV had updated the old and ailing 
technology. The hacking community responded, but cautiously, understanding 
that this new ability for DirecTV to apply more advanced logic in the 
receiver was a dangerous new weapon. It was still possible to bypass the 
protections and receive the programming, but DirecTV had not pulled the 
trigger of this new weapon.

"Last Sunday night, at 8:30 pm est, DirecTV fired their new gun. One week 
before the Super Bowl, DirecTV launched a series of attacks against the 
hackers of their product. DirecTV sent programmatic code in the stream, 
using their new dynamic code ally, that hunted down hacked smart cards and 
destroyed them. The IRC DirecTV channels overflowed with thousands of 
people who had lost the ability to watch their stolen TV. The hacking 
community by and large lost not only their ability to watch TV, but the 
cards themselves were likely permanently destroyed. Some estimate that in 
one evening, 100,000 smart cards were destroyed, removing 98% of the 
hacking communities' ability to steal their signal. To add a little pizzazz 
to the operation, DirecTV personally "signed" the anti-hacker attack. The 
first 8 computer bytes of all hacked cards were rewritten to read "GAME OVER".
"For more information, visit http://www.hackhu.com.";




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