HBO DESCRAMBLING/SCRAMBLING- --------------------------- As many of you know on January 15, 1986 HBO began scrambling the signal it transmits via satellite to cable companies for local distribution. What this did was effectively keep all dish owners from stealing HBO signals, since then several other cable programmers have begun to follow suit. What HBO came up with is an encryption system called Videocipher II. It was developed by M/A-COM, an electronics company in Burlington, Mass. What this device does is it distorts the video and converts audio signals into digital information and then scrambles these numbers so they can be de- crypted only with a special descrambler. HBO's digitized information is en-crypted using the data encryption standard(DES), which was developed to protect unclassified government info. With DES, once the signal is digitized, it's translated into an scrambled signal called cipher. The form of the cipher is determined by an algorithm for mixing up a digitized signal and a key, a 56 digit string of 1's and 0's that work like a password. This password directs the algorithm. The password is what makes the scrambling unique. Even if someone could figure out the algorithm, he cant do shit without the password. And HBO says it is very unlikely that someone ever will since there are over 72 quadrillion possible passwords. The hard part of HBO's system is not in the scrambling, but its in the descrambling. First HBO sends a unique signal via satellite to every local cable operator's or subscribers descrambling box(used with dishes). Then each of these descrablers deciphers its signal with its unique password. In other words, a descrambler can only recieve a message sent specially to it. But even when this message has been de-crypted, a clear transmission of HBO does not come through because the message is not the program itself. Instead the message tells the descrambling unit which cable services it's allowed to recieve and gives the unit another password called the monthly key. Like the first password, the new key is a 56 digit series of 1's & 0's. But unlike it, the monthly key is the same for ALL cable operators and, as its name implies, it is changed every month. This way a descrambling unit with an out-dated monthly key wont be able to descramble any more info sent by HBO. However if the descrambler has the right key, it receives yet another message from HBO, which contains information about the program being shown at that moment. Before the program comes on, one more major decryption must take place. And before that can be done, the descrambling unit must determine whether or not the customer is supposed to receive whatever HBO is sending at that time If he is, then his descrambling unit gets the program password, a key that changes every hour! This password descrambles the last code that HBO sends, and the program comes in clear. So as you can see it is a very complex operation. Lets put it this way, if you had access to a mainframe and test every combonation(72 quadrillion) you might be able to get the right combo once every 10,000 years, but un- fortunately the program code changes every hour. And even if you did happen to get lucky and get it on the first try, you will still have to try and get the next program code in an hour.. Another way you could try is to get the unique descrambler key for a certain box, but that 'supposedly' is impossible because the chip with the descrambler key on it is designed so that the information on it cannot be copied. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- This information was provided by: The Infiltrator of 305. & AMPHRAS & Co. ------------ DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS....