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From: Lippman@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.video
Subject: Re: Satellite Signal Scrambling
Message-ID: <860320154557.978784@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 20-Mar-86 10:45:00 EST
Article-I.D.: MIT-MULT.860320154557.978784
Posted: Thu Mar 20 10:45:00 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 30-Mar-86 08:17:40 EST
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It is not so simple as that.  The sound is encrypted using the DES
standard, and you cannot ignore a turn-off.  You need the current key to
hear the broadcast.  The video is "soft encoded", meaning that sync is
suppressed and so on, but the time base is not altered.  That is like
cable scrambling and is not hardto beat.  It is intentionally not hard
to beat because broadcasters think their material is sufficiently
devalued without sound; they do not have to introduce pitcure scrambling
and potential degradation of the signal to induce you to buy the
service.

I am afraid that the depressing news for those who expect to use their
satellite dish for aunauthorized reception of either movies or network
communications is that you will not be able to do so unless a moratorium
on scrambling is legislated.  Simply home-brew electronics will not work
here.  These people are not idiots, you know.

There is worse news for Canadians, since mnay cable providers do not
have the license to distribute the movie in Canada.  Therefore the boxes
might not even be for sale there fora while.

It could be worse:  In Australia, they are adopting the ecnryption
system developed by Scientific Atlanta, which "hard encrypts" the video
as well.  You can spend many long evenings figuring out how to beat this
and failing badly.

--Andy