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From: karn@petrus.UUCP (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: net.video
Subject: scrambling the forbidden fruit
Message-ID: <6@petrus.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 24-Jan-86 03:52:04 EST
Article-I.D.: petrus.6
Posted: Fri Jan 24 03:52:04 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Jan-86 22:28:04 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 37

I think I can make several predictions about what effect Videocipher II
feed scrambling will have.

1. The vast majority of dish owners will not buy decoders. HBO is hardly
worth buying anymore; only inertia has kept me from canceling my own cable
subscription.  Most of what's on it these days is repetitive trash that can
be rented from the video store anyway. At the least, I suspect that in rural
areas where dishes are popular, there'll be a surge in tape copying and
bicycling among homes "sharing" a subscription. The big winners will be the
VCR manufacturers and tape renters, as if they needed the extra boost!

2. Video-only "descramblers" will appear on the hobby market within months.
Perhaps even in time for Dayton.

3. Commercial piracy will not be significantly affected. HBO has no way to
know WHERE their paid up "home use only" boxes are, so dishonest bar, hotel
and CATV operators will still be able to rip off the signal for relative
peanuts.

4. Some hacker WILL eventually break the system and publish the results.
It's just a matter of time until somebody with access to the right
facilities grinds off the top of the battery-backed CMOS chip and reads out
the contents of the primary DES key register with a scanning electron
microscope. Or somebody will construct a specially-modified version that he
sends back to the factory for key reprogramming. The special modifications,
of course, allow the key to be read back out when the unit returns.

I guess my attitude is best described by a scene in the Bond movie "Diamonds
are Forever".  "Q" is working a row of slot machines in a Nevada casino.
Each one he pulls promptly comes up all bars, with copious coinage pouring
down the chutes. He completely ignores the money, making no attempt to
remove it.  But he's just delighted that the little device he cooked up in
his spare time was able to defeat the slot machine mechanisms.

Obviously, these are my personal observations and opinions.

Phil