Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

Then DNS via HTTPS is really going to cause problems for this simplistic approach.

The present "solution" seems to be based on detection of these servers and their IP addresses. That those protecting the services will always be playing catch-up and only those IPs detected can be blocked. Unless a general solution is found, dodgy boxes are likely to remain in use.

The reporting in the media on this isn't good because most technology journalists have no background in Technology and often, as was the case in the flurry of coverage a few weeks ago, only recycle press releases. DNS can be a complex issue even for people who do understand it.

Regards...jmcc

Im also on Vodafone with 1 of their gigabox routers. Nothing blocked so far.

That's one of the big problems in Conditional Access Systems. (The encryption systems that protect broadcasts.) The number of people attacking a system will always be larger than the number designing or defending it. That means that a system has to be designed to be resilient to hacking not immune. This means that a system has to be able to recover from a hack with minimal modifications.

It is essentially impossible to design a widely used system that would be immune to hacking. In reality, it is all a trade-off and though it is not spoken about in the company of technology journalists (I don't consider any of them to have much of a clue about piracy, hacking or the security of systems used to protect broadcasts), there is an acceptable level of piracy in any system.

In the past, it was Grey Market piracy where a smartcard or decoder for a subscription would be used outside the territory for which the broadcaster had rights. The Internet changed all that. The only extremely secure method of protecting a broadcast would be to have encryption straight to the brain. That's not currently feasible. That means that the only option available to the broadcasters is to target the operators of dodgy box networks rather than the users. Broadcasters are also limited by the legislation in various countries in that what might work in Germany, as mentioned above, may not work in Ireland.

Targeting individual dodgy box users can be counter-productive. It is better to try convert these users to subscribers. However, the poor implementation of broadcast rights means that this incompetence creates the necessary vacuum for piracy. This problem is decades old. Getting ISPs to block IP addresses is like a game of whack-a-mole because IP addresses can change. It does make for nice press releases.

Regards...jmcc

Previously the broadcasters put a watermark on the screen to help identify the subscriptions been pirated.

The pirates simply blurred out these watermarks to overcome this

Now a company is claiming it can

use single-frame forensic watermarking technology to protect digital content from pirate streams. The tech is unique as it protects every frame with an embedded watermark so precise that it can work with a screenshot or photograph.

As described this seems tricky to get around depending on what embedded means but I wouldn't put anything past the hacking community.

What do you think jmcc?

So to cut costs they are going to take away a revenue stream i don't see that happening.

Hmmmm - I wonder could someone PM me a good provider. Just for research purposes of course, on the possible impact on PL TV rights.....

Again though that's fine. Tell Halaand and Sterling to take a pay cut before trying to make iptv users feel in anyway morally obligated to sign up for Sky.

Any of the PL clubs can easily afford to get rid of a crap player that isn't performing and that will pay for the entire support staff for a year.

Most of the stuff is contracted out like catering, cleaning etc so that argument makes no sense.

These proposed systems are interesting but they have to be backwards compatible with existing systems. That's where the problems arise. Despite all the talk about open standards, the reality is that the developers of Conditional Access systems tend to be wary about adding external protection systems and the company may be hoping for a trade sale (being taken over) by one the big players.

The original idea of putting the smartcard's ID on the screen for a time was intended to catch pubs using personal subscriptions either within the rights area or outside it. Adding a hidden digital watermark may work but it would depend on where in the signal it was added. If it was a few random pixels, it would be more difficult to remove but it could not use fixed position like other schemes. Some of the more naive companies in the field will often patent their systems and that could provide insights on how they generally, rather than specifically, work.

Identifying the subscriptions used is a short-term approach in that it may be easy to replace them. Targeting large networks of dodgy boxes would still be the most effective method. The more users a particular network in a dodgy box network has, the higher the risk of detection.

The broadcasters and the developers of the systems are all constrained by two things: the cost of a countermeasure and the technical difficulties of deploying that countermeasure. There are very few, if any, cheap and easy fixes.

Rolling out any fixes or software upgrades would also have to be done incrementally so as to keep the whole system stable. While the broadcasters might want to apply upgrades quickly, the reality is that the operators of the systems that protect those broadcasts have to be very conservative in order to keep the system operational.

Regards...jmcc

It will. And that's where they will have clauses in their big earners contractors. 5 percent a week off lads earning 50k a week will be their first port of call.

Toilets need to be cleaned and burgers need to be made.

Your argument isn't logical. Nobody is losing their jobs because I and many others aren't singing up for sky. There is no direct link between the number of IPTV illegal streams and Sky subscriber number.

I would also like some information for research purposes.

"Identifying the subscriptions used is a short-term approach in that it may be easy to replace them"

Would it not be very expensive for the pirates to replenish all their subscriptions if this new technology could identify the compromised subs instantly?

Exactly. Identifying what device to apply the watermark to is extremely difficult if not impossible and very expensive. It just can't be done to any effect.

The Times in London did a fairly big piece on IPTV a few weeks ago.

The vast majority of these illegal servers now are in a few towns in northern Iraq!

Pretty mad stuff.

So can you explain to me how all this will pan out if piracy becomes a big factor in the upcoming rights auction?

How will it affect broadcasters, clubs and the public?

And I don't want to hear what you want to happen, I want to hear what you think will happen.