Why hasnt anyone "Hacked" Sky Digital Yet ?

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50/50

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I am very curious why someone hasnt hacked sky digital to receive all the channels (like Ondigital)

There Millions of great "crackers" in the world.

Whats going on ?
 
awesome security, Sky know that if the system is cracked the will loose large numbers of subs in a matter of days. ITV were not so smart and bought a cracked encryption service (not really encryted) thats still military only Oh and Mac!!!!!. The only people who could crack it are paid a fortune By SES Astra Pace and a few others to keep it that way.:rolleyes:
 
Actually, I've heard rumours and I'm fairly sure that it *has* been hacked but the people responsible are wisely keeping it to themselves for their own use. BskyB has a long arm and a big legal team. you could even end up dead. There's a lot at stake. You don't suppose that Rupert wants his company to go the way of ONdigital.

;)
 
I heard (dont quote me on this, it may not be true) that the company that provide the encryption service, are offering £1,000,000 to the first person to crack the system, and that they have the next level of protection sitting waiting for the time they'll need it. This way, if you did manage to crack the system, what would you do? use it for personal use, or get a legitimate £1,000,000 and have sky change the protection?

It sounds logical, but im not sure if its true.

daz
 
It's a shame that BSKYB were prevented from having a stake in ONDigital, I am sure the business model would have been more profitable with access to NDS Videoguard encryption provided through SKY instead of the loose encryption they ended up with.

I've also heard/read that Videoguard has been compromised, however that doesn't mean there is a single card that can be used in any SKY digibox.
I seem to recall NDS lost a US client due to concerns raised in the security of one of their encryption formats, not sure if it was Videoguard or if it used the same "Card/STB marriage system" used in the UK for SKY's platform.

Until I personally see a smartcard with SKY codes being demonstrated in my personal digiboxes then it might as well be a rumour, no amount of website or forum gossip will convince me otherwise. NDS probably take the same stance, any hacking of Videoguard is significant but minor if it doesn't become public.

Personally I hope the platform stays secure, SKY D profitability is pretty pathetic considering a £2 billion or so turnover and any drop in subscribers due to piracy could well prove to be the first nail in the coffin.
 
The point is well made about what you could do with a successful hack...

Supposing I wrote a piece of software that could crack the encoding - however unlikely that is.

So what would I do with it?

Give it away free on the internet?

Try to sell it illegally?

Get involved with the Mafia?

Any gains could be more than offset by the consequences which would follow - with a very good chance of me and my softwre ending up at the bottom of a lake or behind bars - not necessarily in that order!

One way or the other, I would end up a criminal and Sky would simply change the coding to prevent my system from working.

Not worth thinking about for most people I don't think...

I don't believe there has been any credible hack anywhere so far or we would have heard about it somehow.
 
This is why we pay what some people see as an excessive amount for sky (by the way i dont ) .

They must pay massive amounts in protecting / mainting and researching there encryption software, something itv didnt do and paid the price for, i dont know if the people who complain about the price would be happier investing in the equipment and a package that was cheaper and then sky folding the service due to losses incurred providing a service that some people were able to view for free and being left with nothing.

Dont forget you are able to subscribe to different channel packages and you dont have to get them all.

Just because they are there does not mean we can view them all nobody complains that there are too many books to read but we pay for libarys to store thousands of them and we dont even get a choice about it.

They provide a very good service and never rest, they constantly try to improve it after all it was them who revolutionised news and sports coverage in this country and wether or not you think there is to much of it on at least we have the choice of being able to watch it and even if you watch programs provided by someone other than sky chances are you prefer digital viewing something that was pushed into the mainstream by sky

Rupert takes alot of stick but provides a service that is second to none in this country and if the terrestrial channels had got there act together they could have provided the same service earlier but they were obviously to concerned with other things than viewer choice
 
Originally posted by 50/50
I am very curious why someone hasnt hacked sky digital to receive all the channels (like Ondigital)

Sky were not stupid enough to use an encryption system that had already been cracked like ondigital did.
 
Originally posted by jim.rae
I don't believe there has been any credible hack anywhere so far or we would have heard about it somehow.
I think things are at a more advanced state than may be generally believed.
I take it you are aware of the current status of digital cable security ? It has now been compromised.
 
The only hack I know that has worked is £50 worth of sky box office films before the box locked up.
 
Some guy who runs an electronics firm here on the IOW has recently been helping police with their enquiries. Apparently he was assembling a little box of tricks that does hack the signal.
The amount of devices he had stored would of cost sky millions of pounds had they been released.
I think he is claiming that he was just assembling them for someone else and had no idea what they were for.
From the fuss it has caused im sure the product was authentic.
 
Agreed. I saw something in my techie news about it ; ISTR that the IOW guy was , just as you say, claiming he was just an "assembler". The others who have had their collar felt were on the mainland somewhere.
Bear in mind that some of the European satellite pirate card business has links with Eastern Bloc "mafia".
I find that a BIG turn-off. People paying for Canal+ pirate cards or whatever are inadvertently subsidising organised crime of the worst type.

Chris Muriel, Manchester.
 
I know people have done it. But boy if they are guna tell anyone about it you have another thing coming. Rupert would come around and break their legs if he found out about it.
 
This is why we pay what some people see as an excessive amount for sky (by the way i dont ) .

They must pay massive amounts in protecting / mainting and researching there encryption software, something itv didnt do and paid the price for, i dont know if the people who complain about the price would be happier investing in the equipment and a package that was cheaper and then sky folding the service due to losses incurred providing a service that some people were able to view for free and being left with nothing.

Dont forget you are able to subscribe to different channel packages and you dont have to get them all.

Just because they are there does not mean we can view them all nobody complains that there are too many books to read but we pay for libarys to store thousands of them and we dont even get a choice about it.

They provide a very good service and never rest, they constantly try to improve it after all it was them who revolutionised news and sports coverage in this country and wether or not you think there is to much of it on at least we have the choice of being able to watch it and even if you watch programs provided by someone other than sky chances are you prefer digital viewing something that was pushed into the mainstream by sky

Rupert takes alot of stick but provides a service that is second to none in this country and if the terrestrial channels had got there act together they could have provided the same service earlier but they were obviously to concerned with other things than viewer choice
Turner at CNN revolutionised news coverage, Sky merely copied it. I saw a piece of their output on the McCann case a few months ago. I was spitting blood after it. We have come to expect tabloid journalism in the red tops, but never in a million years did I expect to see a TV broadcaster stoop that low.

They have certainly revolutionised sports output. How they came about getting it though was highly dubious. Having Alan Sugar in on the deal on the football side working for Spurs and also in on the broadcasting side as one of the main suppliers for set top boxes. Didn't he leave the meeting to tell Sky to bid whatever they could to make sure it didn't go to ITV.

Paying for the football contract is where the bulk of your subscription charges go.

Other than sports or news what else have they done?

Have they commissioned any series of note in the past 15 years? All they've done is saturate their output with American shows. A company like Channel 4 has managed to provide far more programming of note than Sky ever will.
 
I know people have done it

I'm sure we all know someone's brother's mate who knows that his second cousin's girlfriend has a mate who says that he knows someone who says that his best friend knows someone who knows a guy at the pub...............................
 
There was talk that that's the reason they replaced all the viewing cards a gfood few years ago when they changed encryption as they were very close to breaking it. Not sure how true that is though.

As for Channel 4 providing more programming of note, which the company is now losing money and going cap in hand saying they need public subsidy? IMO Channel four are a commercial business, if they cannot afford to keep their finances in check and make a profit they should be allowed to go bust or into administration. Just because they're a TV company doesn't mean they deserve public support, least of all something from the TV licence. Would we see a reduction in advertising of they did? An increase in British TV and programming? I doubt it!
 
I'm sure we all know someone's brother's mate who knows that his second cousin's girlfriend has a mate who says that he knows someone who says that his best friend knows someone who knows a guy at the pub...............................
Have you met my Father's brother?
 
I have it on very good authority that the current system since 1998 has never been hacked. I'm not going to go into great detail, but it's because the way the signal is transmitted. You couldn't even hack it if you worked for NDS. That's all I'm willing to say on the matter!
 
but i was reading somewhere (might have been on digi spy) that in 98 or so it did get hacked and thats why the cards were changed.
the thread i was reading was about murdoch going to court (its still running i think only started the other week)
because after NDS was hacked he hired som hackers and etc fbi etc to hack Nargavision (which is his main competition for encryption cards in the usa)
they hacked it just as direct tv was gonna go to nagra as they had never been hacked.
Nagravision are taking NDS to court for HUGE sums of money. there are all sorts of rumours of hackers being found dead and data on stolen laptop drives etc..
i'll see if i can find the story (only read about it in last few days)

NDS is based in israel... and owned by guess who...
and why have you not heard about it on news... cos what else does he own...
 
but i was reading somewhere (might have been on digi spy) that in 98 or so it did get hacked and thats why the cards were changed.




SKY D launched September(?) 98 so doesn't really matter what happened to an earlier version of Videoguard, SKY didn't do the first and only swap out until I think 5 years later.

As for alleged NDS naughtiness well not a lot to do with SKY who are an independent business who pay NDS for services rendered and well hardly of interest to the UK public so it's not going to be on any of the main UK news channels and it has been ongoing for what 5 years:)
When and if it is finally resolved the news may appear on US or European financial based services as NC is significantly more important and known in the US and high tech from Israel is just as big a issue as EU based tech firms.
 
As for alleged NDS naughtiness well not a lot to do with SKY who are an independent business who pay NDS for services rendered and well hardly of interest to the UK public so it's not going to be on any of the main UK news channels and it has been ongoing for what 5 years:)
(Quote)

NDS is owned by News Corporation who also own Sky.
and to say it has nothing to do with Sky is ridiculous :cool:
 
NDS is owned by News Corporation who also own Sky.
and to say it has nothing to do with Sky is ridiculous :cool:




The Murdoch family via News Corp have a significant share ownership of BSKYB however SKY is an independent company and any legal action against NDS and by extension NC has no direct implication for BSKYB operations except for share price if the market decides a major stockholder would be interested in selling off below cost.

Once upon a time SKY was a 100% subsidiary, it hasn't been since the merger with BSB when Murdoch lost majority share holding.
 
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