Yeah, relatively easy. You had to get an iso7816 smart card reader / writer and interface it to a pc. Then use a hex editor to find and flip the necessary bit.

Yeah, relatively easy. You had to get an iso7816 smart card reader / writer and interface it to a pc. Then use a hex editor to find and flip the necessary bit. Pop the access card back into your sat tv receiver and now the system thinks you’re an echostar satellite engineer with everything on so you can test. This has been dead for a long time, I’m thinking around 20 years ago now, but it was pretty cool to read about and watch from the sidelines back in its heyday when there was an arms race between the sat tv services and folks doing things like this.