3 ms·

Is this the card "technology" that ran DirectTV tuners as well? I had a friend who was, at one point, running 7 hacked systems, and recording everything he coul

Is this the card "technology" that ran DirectTV tuners as well? I had a friend who was, at one point, running 7 hacked systems, and recording everything he could to burn to DVD, but I never got into that.

_joel 5y ago
They use C.A.M.s with smart cards that are embedded with a microcontroller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional-access_module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional-access_module
zionic 5y ago
>a friend uh huh! :)
- TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
  If I had hacked 7 units -- and hacked scores of cards for other people -- I wouldn't had to have asked that question.
cronix 5y ago
All cable systems in the US are mandated to supply users with those "CableCards" if they request them to decrypt cable tv channels, so you can use your own tuners and not be forced to rent one forever from the cable company. So, it wasn't just Dish. TiVo also uses them. The first one was free and the second one was $1.50/mo. Each could decrypt 4 simultaneous channels. I used them for about 15 years until cancelling cable earlier in the year. $1.50 vs a $30 cable box saved quite a bit over the years. Here's the page on xfinity for them. They're just PCMCIA cards, which used to be popular. My first laptop had a PCMCIA port which I used for a GPS device in the 90s before they were all-in-one chips. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/about-cablecards https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/about-cablecards
- _joel 5y ago
  A long, long time ago it was possible to decrypt the original VideoCrypt with a serial connection attached to a smart card that ran software like 'Voyager' that could decrypt or bypass the keys/locks necessary to decode. This was running on a 286 laptop. Seems like an absolute lifetime ago now.
- Bellyache5 5y ago
  And before CableCards some cable settop boxes had FireWire/IEEE1394 ports on them that provided the raw video stream. You still had to rent the cable box though.

_joel 5y ago

They use C.A.M.s with smart cards that are embedded with a microcontroller. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional-access_module https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conditional-access_module

zionic 5y ago

>a friend uh huh! :)

TheRealDunkirk 5y ago
If I had hacked 7 units -- and hacked scores of cards for other people -- I wouldn't had to have asked that question.

cronix 5y ago

All cable systems in the US are mandated to supply users with those "CableCards" if they request them to decrypt cable tv channels, so you can use your own tuners and not be forced to rent one forever from the cable company. So, it wasn't just Dish. TiVo also uses them. The first one was free and the second one was $1.50/mo. Each could decrypt 4 simultaneous channels. I used them for about 15 years until cancelling cable earlier in the year. $1.50 vs a $30 cable box saved quite a bit over the years. Here's the page on xfinity for them. They're just PCMCIA cards, which used to be popular. My first laptop had a PCMCIA port which I used for a GPS device in the 90s before they were all-in-one chips. https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/about-cablecards https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/about-cablecards

_joel 5y ago
A long, long time ago it was possible to decrypt the original VideoCrypt with a serial connection attached to a smart card that ran software like 'Voyager' that could decrypt or bypass the keys/locks necessary to decode. This was running on a 286 laptop. Seems like an absolute lifetime ago now.
Bellyache5 5y ago
And before CableCards some cable settop boxes had FireWire/IEEE1394 ports on them that provided the raw video stream. You still had to rent the cable box though.