Re: What Happened To Channel 1

>> snipped-for-privacy@nospamplease.cox.reallynospam.net (T>>> Sort of how the FCC has pretty much admitted that anyone with a
>>> modicum of technical knowledge will be able to defeat the broadcast >>> flag. >> I think you've mentioned this before, but what does it mean? The >> system as originally conceived requires the digital representation of >> flagged content to be protected by encryption on bus and media. I >> have more than a modicum of technical knowledge and I don't see an >> easy way around the proposed system in concept. Has the original >> system been abandoned? Or are you aware of some implementation flaw? > *Somewhere* in the TV set, the signal has to get decrypted, before it > can be presented to the CRT, or other actual 'display'. > Thus there *is* a "cleartext" signal running around inside the box. > Thus, someone with a reasonable amount of skill can 'tap' the cleartext > signal, and "voila!"

The original proposal required that the undegraded digital representation of flagged content never appear on a bus (even the LCD driver bus) in the clear, specifically to thwart such an attack. (CRTs do not present the same kind of problem as LCDs because the video can be converted to analog before it ever leaves the final driver circuits. Of course, even if you could access the LCD driver bus you would be getting a decompressed and possibly otherwise manipulated version and not the original stream.)

Thus, there would be no clear text version of the signal "running around inside the box" to tap. You would have to probe the dies of the appropriate integrated circuits themselves. Although this is certainly not impossible, it requires more than a modicum of technical knowledge and also requires some specialized and rather expensive equipment. Anyone willing to go to those lengths would be better served by building an ATSC receiver from scratch.

This brings me back to my question: has the original approach been abandoned? If not, I'm having a hard time understanding some of the comments I've read that tend to minimize the impact of the broadcast flag implementation. The only explanation I can think of is that people have become so accustom to Macrovision, SCMS, and similar stupidity that they don't understand that this time it's for real...

And there's always the "idiot method" -- just point a camcorder at the TV.

The purpose of the broadcast flag (and all the associated DRM) is to protect the undegraded digital representation of flagged content. Your approach of creating a degraded analog rendition of the content does not defeat that intent. In fact, as of now, we will supposedly still be allowed to access the analog output of receivers, perhaps even at HD resolution. If a copy to analog and back is what the FCC (or anybody else) is considering a defeat of the broadcast flag then I'm afraid they have really missed the point.

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

man. So they got together under this basis -- that they had a common enemy.

And when you and I here in Detroit and in Michigan and in America who have been awakened today look around us, we too realize here in America we all have a common enemy, whether he's in Georgia or Michigan, whether he's in California or New York. He's the same man: blue eyes and blond hair and pale skin -- same man. So what we have to do is what they did. They agreed to stop quarreling among themselves. Any little spat that they had, they'd settle it among themselves, go into a huddle -- don't let the enemy know that you got [sic] a disagreement.

Instead of us airing our differences in public, we have to realize we're all the same family. And when you have a family squabble, you don't get out on the sidewalk. If you do, everybody calls you uncouth, unrefined, uncivilized, savage. If you don't make it at home, you settle it at home; you get in the closet -- argue it out behind closed doors. And then when you come out on the street, you pose a common front, a united front. And this is what we need to do in the community, and in the city, and in the state. We need to stop airing our differences in front of the white man. Put the white man out of our meetings, number one, and then sit down and talk shop with each other. [That's] all you gotta do.

I wo