From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>
Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 09:59:25 +0800
To: mpd@netcom.com (Mike Duvos)
Subject: Re: [NOISE] Cable-TV-Piracy-Punks
In-Reply-To: <199603300210.SAA09465@netcom3.netcom.com>
Message-ID: <199603302117.QAA17076@jekyll.piermont.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



Mike Duvos writes:
> Once you have both audio and video streams in digital form,
> having ones encryption "hacked" is more a function of
> cluelessness on the part of those engineering the encryption and
> authentication mechanism than some latent vulnerability on the
> part of the technology.

Not true at all, Mike. Consider the threat model.

You have a single satelite sending out a single encrypted stream to
millions of people. Your goal is to let some people view the signal
and others not view the signal in spite of the fact that some of the
people viewing the signal might be willing to leak information (such
as the keys!) to the people who aren't supposed to view it.

In other words, you are trying to do something that no amount of
technology can really do. At best, by using enough tamperproof
equipment you can stave off the inevitable for a while.

Perry