Is there a descrambler for digital cable?

You're not talking about stealing cable are you? I do believe that digital cable has closed a lot of the holes that analog cable had in terms of unscrambling the device. For one thing, the cable boxes today phone home to find out if it is should server up the channel. And the box's unique identifier [mac address] has to be in the cable company's database. The last bastion of easily being able to do what you're describing is on satellite. But DirecTV can and does nuke smart cards that aren't paying for the service. Having said all of that, I'm sure some enterprising people may have cracked the code.

From what I've heard, it's impossible to descramble digital cable at this particular point in time. You can get analog descramblers though.

Just pay for the cable, sheesh.

I'm of the personal impression that a combination of a decent TV-out PC and Bit Torrent is well enough to match any experience you'd otherwise have with stolen cable, minus PPV fights and other sporting events. I had Star Wars: Episode 3 two days before its theatrical release. And I downloaded it at E3 on a connection sponsored by the ESA/Anti-Piracy groups present. Then, I played it in front of the LucasArts trailer in the main hall on my laptop. Bottom line? Why not torrent?

I had Star Wars: Episode 3 two days before its theatrical release. And I downloaded it at E3 on a connection sponsored by the ESA/Anti-Piracy groups present. Then, I played it in front of the LucasArts trailer in the main hall on my laptop. Bottom line? Why not torrent? Keep in mind that bit torrent is not anonymous. Downloading and sharing over bit torrent isn't any different then hosting a file on your web server, other then the bandwidth saving.

What Paris Hilton said, only: Once you download a torrent, unpack it, then delete all but one file... restart torrent to seed, but set download rate to 1b/s It isn't illegal to have most of the .rars for a file on your system, it's illegal to have the movie... RIAA and others can't say that you have the movie if they see on bittorrent that you only have 95% of it

Paris Hilton, your info has to be at least about a decade out of date... Primestar? Wooo-boy... :^D I'd say cable and satellite, as far as the encryption goes, are relatively similar in a basic sense. Top layer encryption uses strong security to hide a simple key that can be used to decrypt the actual video frames (which use a "weaker" security system). Usually the video is decrypted with this new key inside the same chip that does the MPEG decoding. The key for the MPEG video changes a lot. You can get an idea of how often it changes by falsely triggering the smartcard slot on your receiver and removing the smart card. You'll get a few seconds of video until the key changes again. To stop people who don't know how to solder from having fun sometimes the smartcard is soldered into the receiver as a regular IC. Have fun looking for it. Sure, you might be able to reverse the key for the encryption the MPEG stream uses in a few months. But that would give you a few seconds of video. Yay... So, of course, you want to break the high level encryption! But that uses crazy encryption that would take a mere mortal millennia to reverse the key from. So, of course, how do they hack it? They figure out a way to steal the key for the higher level encryption. The actual method of encryption is usually based on public information so all that's left is to run it through the standard decryption routines and voila! you're done. Getting that key is a story in and of itself. What I've said applies to standard satellite signals. Old wacky stuff like DirecTV is more weird and depends on using unknown / hidden algorithm "black boxes" (ie: You put 8 in the black box and for no apparent reason 28372 pops out) to encrypt the information at the high level. At the lower level it's the same. Your cable box is probably the same as the satellite receivers, except nobody has either figured out the high level encryption or the keys to it from what I've seen. Oh, and your cable box, unlike a satellite receiver not plugged into the phone line, is liable to phone home and even if it doesn't, the cable co can come around with an impedance meter and figure out you're stealing. And stealing cable really *IS* stealing. If that cable is running through your neighbourhood you voted for it to be there. It costs money to upkeep it. You have the choice of it not being there. Unlike satellite where, against your personal choice, signals are forced to you on public airwaves that are supposed to be *free*. So don't steal cable, eh? :^D

It isn't illegal to have most of the .rars for a file on your system, it's illegal to have the movie... RIAA and others can't say that you have the movie if they see on bittorrent that you only have 95% of it The problem with that eventually nobody will be able to get that last 5%. I hate when my downloads stall at 95%. And I'm no lawyer, but I wouldn't be suprised if they could still prosecute you for distributing the movie. You can download extensions for Azereus to block RIAA IP address.

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/11603.html