longstockings said:
Could they not write a tutorial or something so that everyone who wanted to could begin hacking channels open.
That would be ace.
I think that would be over simplifying it a little, such a 'tutorial' would be a 5000 page masterpeice written by someone with a PhD in computer technology specializing in cryptology. It just isn't that straight forward!
Here's a tutorial for you: hit the internet and don't stop till you're done!... read up about encyrption, when you've got the basics concentrate on those systems you'd like to compromise, learn to code, C for example is a good start, learn to reverse engineer compiled images back into assembler, learn to code assembler too while you're at it. Learn to code for embedded processors such as ARM/ATMEL. Learn the ins and outs of the hardware platforms, memory configs, I/O and some basic electronics too.
To date this community has benefitted from some very clever people offering their services for free, you could of course employ (_http://www.rentacoder.com for a start...) someone to crack a encryption scheme for you, but then that would cost more than a sub or two!
I for example have 8 years experience of writting software, whilst the basic concepts of what is going on in a receiver/CAM make sense to me, I know nothing of the tecnical details of crypto schemes, I have a good base to start with, but it would take me a good few months/years to understand it all properly in order to compromise such a crypto algorythm, and even then, I just might not get there.
So you see, it just ain't that easy. And of course because of the nature of the hobby people are not willing to share information to a depth of technical knowledege that one would need to be able to carry forth work on decrypting a scheme. And the reasons are clear - you might as well say "I'm a hacker perfoming illegal activities, authorites, please lock me away now".
I once foolishly asked if I could get the source code for the receiver I own - I didn't get very far, I was told only XXX had it and he wouldn't give it to anyone. I think to get this info you have to be a member of some closed hacking community, which you could get into given time and effort - back to my original statement - hit the internet and don't come back until you're done. Time & effort - it takes a lot, I personally would like to be out and about windsurfing, cycling and walking, whilst some poor sole in Iran or Russia spends half their life behind a computer hacking away at satellite receivers and the like. We are very lucky indeed to be able just to pick up things off the net and make good use of them - I'm sure its not a thought that goes through a first time poster's head when they post "I WANT KEYS FOR TP$" or "MY TAQUI44A CHANNELS DON'T WORK HELP - EMAIL iwantkeys@now.com".
mmm, I've rambled on enough, food for thought.
-CTS