ART Start's to fight back on piracy

[alunfennell]

Arab Radio & Television is the largest Arab pay-TV operator with broadcasting interests that circle the globe. But close to home it has - along with its fellow Arab pay-TV broadcasters - suffered from rampant TV piracy that takes just about every form imaginable.

Alan Constant is ART's CTO at its AMC subsidiary, and he says ART, in common with other broadcasters in the region, suffer from Code Word piracy (in the shape of set-top boxes from the likes of Dreambox); and Emulation piracy, which is where users extract key code data from an actual smart card and use the data on a new card and thus opening up a different set-top box to free or low-cost TV viewing.

ART also suffers badly from informal - but widespread - distribution of its signals in places like the Lebanon where cable pirates string their wires from home-to-home in a spider's web of co-axial. Egypt is another nation that is making a growing use of Radio Frequency (RF) piracy of incoming signals in various forms, although ART has itself worked hard to combat RF piracy in Egypt, and with some success.

ART has recently adopted Viaccess for its Middle East operation where, at least for the immediate future, it will run alongside Irdeto's conditional access. Viaccess is not new to ART. They have been clients of Viaccess for some 12 years for North African pay-TV transmissions, and for signals being beamed over Europe. "But," says Constant, "piracy was becoming more and more of a challenge so we looked closely at what the market could offer, and remember we are already users of many of the major CA suppliers. People forget how very large we are. Most know that we have been with Irdeto since 1995, and Viaccess for some time. We decided to buy Viaccess' very latest iteration, their ACS 3.1 version."

Viaccess have come up with a very neat acronym for their new range of Smart Cards, calling them PRAHA (Proactive against hacker attacks), showcased at IBC in 2008 to some considerable interest and described by them as its "secret weapon" against cards piracy in its many forms. This time last year Fran?ois Moreau de Saint Martin, Viaccess? CEO said: "The availability of the PRAHA card is the result of the extensive research undertaken by our R&D department and of our commitment against piracy. We are in a growing, competitive market undergoing profound changes and we believe the introduction of the PRAHA card will ultimately enforce our customers' business."

Now the industry can begin to measure how robust the card is. Constant has no anxieties, saying that he is confident that the combined result will be beneficial. "ACS 3.1, plus the PRAHA card, plus our own secure loader will permit me to sleep at night. It is a non-stop battle, of course, trying to stay one step ahead of the pirates. But we think we have a very sound solution here."

Part of ART's overall solution is to firmly take control of its own secure loader within the box. "We are the only people in the world using Viaccess secure loader. It gives us total and absolute control over people putting code into the set-top box. It simply stops people from pirating your set-top box. Dead!"

But ART has invested in a few extra steps. ?The box is ultra-secure. Most operators simply wouldn't go this far, but we have decided to go this extra mile because of the issues in the Middle East. Now if we told you what these extra security features are we would then have to kill you," he joked. "But I can assure you that the closing of these final risks gives us an overall benefit in security. The measures do generate a little extra operational work, but we think this hassle is well worth the bother for the overall result."

He says that one of these secure features means that ART itself owns the box's software and IPR. "This includes the box's operation system, that is everything above the box's drivers. We own everything above the drivers. The code was written for us by BS MediaSoft in South Korea."

Owning your own IPR code means that it is very easy in court to prove breach of IPR, but it has been more difficult to absolutely prove piracy. "Now, if anyone enters the box and so much as touches our code we believe can prove both."

Constant admits that there have been extra costs for this all-embracing set of solutions, but he says the extra $1 or so in cost for the IPR exercise was essential to bring their security into line with the best international practices, and he mentioned leading players like BSkyB and Canal Plus as being solid examples of this line of thinking.

The boxes are already rolling down the production line, and the first shipment (from OpenTech in South Korea) are due in the Middle East in the next few days. Visitors to IBC can see the box on the OpenTech stand. Because ART has issued the specifications themselves they can subsequently issue RFPs to any other manufacturer yet achieve the exact-same operating parameters.

The box's silicon can seamlessly handle MPEG2 and MPEG4 compression, and also DVB and DVB-S2 transmissions. However, this is still very much a low-cost box and so is not good for HDTV, which in any case has been very slow to gain traction in the region. ART has plans for HDTV reception which will be announced shortly. Needless to say the company is not ignoring the technology or the prospects for HDTV.

It is going to take time to swap out the complete inventory of legacy boxes, and Constant's team, along with ART's marketing experts, will be strategising how best to exploit the new box as a tool to promote new, as well as renewing, subscribers. ART will also be introducing a Common Interface Module (a "Custom Cam") which has most of the key features of this new box. "The CustomCams will be available to telcos locally, people like Du and E-Vision," Constant said.

Key to this strategy is soccer. Soccer is a hugely important subscription driver in the Middle East, and the region has traditionally paid some of the very highest sums (on a per-subscriber basis) for key soccer rights. Next year is the FIFA World Cup quadrennial (from South Africa), and ART holds the premium coverage rights. In the past ART has conducted some snazzy marketing offers around the World Cup, and 2010 is not likely to be any different.

ART is currently broadcasting the simulcrypt code for both Irdeto and Viaccess, although it is understood that when the soccer World Cup comes around next summer the Irdeto version will be dropped. This alone should motivate people to swap out their boxes in the soccer-mad region. Meanwhile, and for the foreseeable future Simulcrypt transmission will continue for 2010 and beyond. "We remain an Irdeto customer. We use it in Australia, and will continue to support Irdeto."


Regards:
Alun

[.: JaCkPoT :.]

So what you think alun? Will it work? Will this combat cs?

[alunfennell]

No The only way to stop Card Sharing is to Stop useing cards, and actualy use the same technologue that we use to cardshare in the first place, were you have a special receiver with a built in Sim card maybe like a mobile phone carrying only the customers ID and C: line from the provider.

Then you have to connect the receiver to the internet connected to the providers server to get the Keys which change every few seconds. This is the only way to stop cardsharing.... Stop useing cards...then we cant share them...

Then there would be no need for encryption viewing cards other than the data been sent via the satellite, Just like or own Home servers the provider can switch on and off services to the customers needs...

If the Providers realy wanted to stop cardsharing they could if the Encryption company did not make so much money from manufacturing and issuing viewing cards and used a different method, funny enough a system we use to Pirate services every day C/S would be the correct way to combat C/S.........

If you cant beat us join Us as the saying goes........

Regards:
Alun

[satman]

I think your a little wrong alun,
C/s is great yes,,, but im afriad there a god dam lot of tricks they can use yet to stop us sharing with smartcards.

Example,, Nagra3 card ,,, yes you can share,, BUT your gona need boxkey and rsa of tha card to share it,,, this is getting more and more difficult in itself,, the only reason do-able right now is because some still use same boxkey as when they used n2 cards,, this is going to stop if they handed out new boxes.( some people can actually DUMP the box,, but there putting a stop to this by encrpyting the box firmwares now )

ND$ v3,, yes we can share now,, but hell have they made a balls of our EMM... people gona have to stick in original box at somepoint to let emm update,

this is just the start,,, there are many things happening that ultimitly could damage/stop c/s
so please dont get into the thinking were unbreakable.

regards

[tvadict]

is there any card out there which cant be shared?

[satman]

is there any card out there which cant be shared?

AFAIK, so far only be the newest conax( digialb HD ) cards are not being shared yet are they?... only box i think it read in is its suppliers box right now,,( HD channels only i think ,, the rest is sharable right now, but a sure bad sign of things that can come )

could be wrong, not something i need to look into, but defo wouldnt be saying cardsharing is un-beatable.

[alunfennell]

I think your a little wrong alun,
C/s is great yes,,, but im afriad there a god dam lot of tricks they can use yet to stop us sharing with smartcards.

Example,, Nagra3 card ,,, yes you can share,, BUT your gona need boxkey and rsa of tha card to share it,,, this is getting more and more difficult in itself,, the only reason do-able right now is because some still use same boxkey as when they used n2 cards,, this is going to stop if they handed out new boxes.( some people can actually DUMP the box,, but there putting a stop to this by encrpyting the box firmwares now )

ND$ v3,, yes we can share now,, but hell have they made a balls of our EMM... people gona have to stick in original box at somepoint to let emm update,

this is just the start,,, there are many things happening that ultimitly could damage/stop c/s
so please dont get into the thinking were unbreakable.

regards

I agree with you M8...

But its the Encryption companys that are making the big money from playing arround with pairing cards & receivers new card OS etc, there is simply no need if the Providers wanted to stop cardsharing there are plenty of way of doing so without the need for cards in the first place !

Providers main problem is they have to supply Cable companys there service as is the case in the UK and other countrys, opperators have to slow down the card & transmittion data so the cable company get virtually a hop 1 off lets say sky Digital thus providing Virmin, Ntl, and others,

Digitalb HD correct is not been shared because they dont have HD-cable services to provide or other dependants so they can run there encryption data and cards far to fast to be shared on a second time, which i am sure Skys new white might come close to doing ...

Regards:
Alun

[satman]

Digitalb HD correct is not been shared because they dont have HD-cable services to provide or other dependants so they can run there encryption data and cards far to fast to be shared on a second time,

I dont understand what you mean here,, you dont need to try explain everything to me in c/s terms, i probably understand you more if you just spoke to me whats actually happening..

The Digialb card isnt read too slow.... its paired to there kaon HD receiver which no one has broken the card pairing system yet, so they cant use this card in a linux box to pair it for channels that need it,.. i.e the HD channels,,,, you can share the SD channels from the same card as much as you want

Providers main problem is they have to supply Cable companys there service as is the case in the UK and other countrys, opperators have to slow down the card & transmittion data so the cable company get virtually a hop 1 off lets say sky Digital thus providing Virmin, Ntl, and others,

Really really dont have a clue what your talking about here and from looks of it your slightly confused yourself,,, the cable and sat services have nowt to do with it,,, differenet systems,, differnet smartcards,,, providers slow down nothing..

They could obviously cut down on the cardhsharing if they stopped using smartcards, but what else are they supposed to do,, only other viable option would be chip inside the receivers,, which would costs a fortune, and probably would be difficult to send OTA updates to it,, or they could use like iptv with encrpytion on the cable,, problem with this is lots of countrys simply dont have the bandwidth to use there cable service as much as this, but something you probably see a lot more of in furture..

[satman]

They could in theory also do something thru the box talkback system VOD system,, talking to there server thru the net on the box,, this would also cut out cards..

[wod1]

if a provider wanted to be totally secure they would use a system like powervu as that never been breached that i know of

[elmoro94]

It's very dificult to stop cs, but they can make it unwatchable (alot of freezes). As lonf as there is no feedback from the subscription card to the providers, then CS is possible

[satman]

if a provider wanted to be totally secure they would use a system like powervu as that never been breached that i know of

,, only other viable option would be chip inside the receivers

powervu i think uses this method ^^^^

[ces]

my friends where there is a will there will always be away


ces

[Toilet sniffer V]

my friends where there is a will there will always be away


ces

Totally agree. There's nothing you can make with technology that with enough technology you can't undo. Hackers are always playing catch up but they always do manage to catch up. It will always be this way.

[satman]

Wish people would stop considering themselves un-beatable for the great good of these hackers... are any you hackers? any you actually know any hackers?..

any you have any idea how much it costs to hack such things,, not much these days are done by hobbyists,
@toiletsniffer,,,, so can you tell me why the above example ( powervu ) has never been open via keys or cardshare.. and also how you reckon hackers could beat a VOD or iptv system?. ( the later *may* be possible but would love to hear your thoughts on this. )