Satellite Watch News December 1996

News From The North
The strange gets even worse....


There have been a lot of new developments since last month. Some good, some bad, some unbelievable.

First, the good. The good news is that the MAIN files are once again being produced. As of the last writing, there have been three new files released in quick succession to counter ECM's. The first file lasted approximately 2 weeks. This was MAIN16. MAIN17 was released about 2 days after MAIN16 went down. At approx. 9pm EST Thursday, Nov 21, MAIN17 also failed. Within minutes MAIN18 was released.

Now, the bad news. The first bad news is the way the files are being handled. Here's a bit of background of what's going on. As you may or may not know, the so-called "battery" group more or less abandoned all their customers in terms of producing new MAIN files for their product. The "group" were now depending on their rivals, the "L" card group, to produce a file. In fact, the battery group hadn't produced a file for months, the last being MAIN05. However the fact that they were no longer writing files didn't seem to stop them from selling cards. The "L" group successfully recovered from the next ECM, and produced MAIN13, which lasted for about a month. This takes us to Aug. 22nd. The "13" itself seemed to be a bad omen, and this proved to be true. It took some two weeks for MAIN15 to hit the streets, only to be plagued with post-release problems. A patch file, named FIRST.ENC or BOOTUP.ENC circulated which finally fully restored the cards once again. Many people didn't even have their cards loaded yet when the file once again failed six days after its release. The "L" group again created another working file, but didn't distribute it publicly. They chose to recall the processors and reload them with a new `boot-strap' routine. It was thought that this would restore security back to the MAIN files, and prevent them from being ECM'd. This thought proved to be wrong about 2 and a half weeks later. The "L" group effectively gave up. It had always been questioned whether they had the capability to produce a working file. In fact, there were apparent bugs which started with MAIN13, most noticeably the blackouts on many sports channels.

So then, a member or members of the battery group brought in a third party engineer to try to produce a working file. The actual identity and origin of this third party remains unverifiable. What is verifiable, is that he knows his stuff. In a relatively short period of time, given the task at hand, a working file was successfully produced.

Now this is where things turn ugly. Dealers, users, sellers and anyone else was advised via several internet pages to attend a certain chat location. Those who attended were advised that a file was ready and working, but there was a problem. The programmer needed to be paid. He had, after all, proven himself and was well worth the money. By this time, of course, most people were so desperate they would have gladly paid something to get going again. The amount needed to meet the commitment was quite negligible given the monies generated by the cards in general. The fact that members of the same group who developed and marketed a product would turn to it's customers to support its own product is quite simply intolerable, unethical and downright rude. What will be next, a 900 number for orders?

The reason this is so unfair was illustrated with the release of the MAIN16. A few people did pay to support the programmer. Within hours of the file being released to those few, it was everywhere. Anyone else who was thinking of paying now had no reason to. They had the file. When it failed, those in charge decided this time they had to identify the guilty parties who would be so bold as to actually give the file to someone.
Serial numbers were added within the new file, each paying user getting a unique serial number. Once again, this miserably failed. Within hours of its release, the file was being freely distributed, and eventually made its way to the internet. A witch hunt was begun, the person whose serial number it was must be cut off! How dare he give out that file he paid for! Soon, people had many different copies with different serial numbers, and it became quickly evident that it could not be controlled. When it was ECM'ed, MAIN18 was released without the serial number. If my guess is correct, by the time you are reading this, it too will have been long ECM'd.
The "group" is threatening that they will rewrite the "boot-strap" software and force a dallas reload. Then only cards which have been reloaded will work with future main files. The catch is, only those who have paid for the previous main files will get their cards loaded with the new "boot-strap" program. The rest will have to pay. Once again, greed takes over.

The whole reasoning behind the dallas rewrite is that it will restore security to the main files, and they will not be shut down as quickly. This may not be true. In fact, the experience of the "L" card group shows it will not help. Many people believe the "L" card file was shut down because the 5000 processor is less secure than the 5002 processor on the battery card. If this is true, then News DataCom is sure doing a lot of work in a short period of time. This would also mean that everytime a new main file is released they need to tailor an ECM for that file.
A more likely scenario is that News DataCom has learned the weaknesses of the cards, most likely from information gained during the raids. This makes a lot of sense if you understand a little bit about how the cards work, and the differences between the original plastic card and the electronic cards. The main difference is the microprocessor. In the plastic card, it is a Motorola 68HC05, while the electronic cards all use one form or another of the Dallas 5000 series, which after you take away the security is nothing more than an Intel 8051 processor.
Another important thing to know is that the DSS datastream can contain 6805 code to be processed in the card. There is no way for an 8051 to directly process 6805 code. I suspect News DataCom is exploiting that weakness, and will continue to perfect their ability to do so. The frequency of the ECM's is getting shorter and shorter. This will wreak havoc on end users, as only those with a programmer will be able to keep up. Perhaps at some point even that may be impractical.

Throughout all of this, the plastic card continues to run uninterrupted, at least on the clone side. Some more 3M's were recently knocked down, rendering the card useless, except for those with the ability to cure the famous `99' loop. As I stated last month, it appears the plastic will be the only sustaining solution. The current `pure' clones will run until the card swap is complete, which will be at least a few more months. There will be a fix for the new generation of cards. Most likely, a plastic fix will be the most reliable. I think most people would shun the thought of buying another device which relies on support from somebody who may not be there tomorrow. Once bitten, twice shy.

Now, the unbelievable. The parties who were raided back in July have succeeded in getting their things returned. Considering the King TV case in New Brunswick, this is not terribly surprising. It is a major victory for the industry as a whole, not to mention a personal victory for all involved. The big question is, what will happen to all the seized cards and cash? The group was supposedly disbanded, hence no support. Who will take possession of these cards in lieu of the now-defunct group? Will they have any accountability to the users who were left out in the cold for months? I doubt it. The take the money and run attitude seems to be the order of the day.
Hopefully, next month I will have more good news, and less bad news.
'til next month!
Dean

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