The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998/hackers_encyclopedia.iso/etc/hardware/hasdss.txt

Text File | 2003-06-11 | 9.6 KB | 208 lines

Has DSS Been Hacked?
By John McCormac - Editor Of Hack Watch News

According  to available information, the Digital Satellite  System
smart card has been hacked. The pirate cards will enter the market
in soon. The price for the basic tier pirate card will be $150.

Four  tiers of pirate cards are planned. The first tier will  only
include the basic programmes. The second tier  card  will  include
the subscription movie channels. The third  tier  card  will  give
access to the sports packages. The last card will give  access  to
all services and will include a ceiling of $500 in  Pay  Per  View
credits.

The  best  description for what is in formation is  an  "Alternate
Access  Control  System".  The pirates  will  be  supplanting  the
official DSS management with their own. Subroutines that marry the
pirate card to an individual IRD will be included to prevent or at
least deter piracy of the pirate card.

This  has  been  a major problem in Europe. The  majority  of  the
pirate  smart  cards  for VideoCrypt are  based  on  the  PIC16C84
microcontroller.  Despite its security, this chip was  popped  and
the programs  are routinely extracted. As a result of  this,  the
program for hacking VideoCrypt spread rapidly throughout  Europe.
A repeat of this situation is the last thing that the DSS  pirates
want.  Therefore  they may go for a more  secure  processor.  Some
sources have commented that one of the Dallas microcontrollers  or
the new Zilog microcontrollers might be used.

The main pirate operations will take place outside the USA. Canada
has  been  mentioned as one particular site. Others  sources  have
mentioned   islands   in  the  Caribbean.  Piracy   of   satellite
television  signals  is  a  serious business in  the  US  for  the
channels, the pirates and the Law.

The Hack And How It Might Have Happened

You have got to wonder at the kind of mind that would put a patent
number  on  a smart card. It is just like telling a  burglar  what
kind  of  lock your door uses. And yet this is  exactly  what  has
happened with the DSS card. The text that appears on the  card  is
as follows:

'This  card  is  the property of News Datacom  Ltd.  and  must  be
returned  upon  request.  Incorporates  Videoguard  (tm)  security
system.  Provided  for  reception of authorized  101  W  longitude
satellite  services.  Protected  by  U.S  Patent  4,748,668,   and
others.'


That patent referred to on the smart card is the Fiat Shamir  Zero
Knowledge Test. It is an authentication algorithm that the decoder
runs to see that the smart card inserted is a genuine smart  card.
The same authentication algorithm is used in the analog VideoCrypt
system  in Europe.  This  may not be  the  only  commonality.  To
understand what  may have occurred, we have to go back  to  early
1994.


In  Europe,  the VideoCrypt system, using the issue 07  card,  was
hacked.  The  full source code of the hack  had  been  distributed
freely on the Internet and via BBSes. The Digital Satellite System
was preparing for launch in the USA. It was gut wrenching time for
the executives in DSS. The common element between Europe and  the
US  was News Datacom. The DSS executives were worried  about  the
security of their new system. Would what happened in Europe happen
in the US?


Slowly  but  surely  the  press  barrage  started.  The  satellite
television  trade  press began to run articles about the  new  DSS
system.  They  were,  in  hacker terms,  content  free  text.  The
majority of these articles were written by clueless people without
any  knowledge of what really happened in Europe. One  article  in
particular  stated  that VideoCrypt had been  unhacked  since  its
introduction in Europe in 1989. Yeah right! And the 500,000 Pirate
VideoCrypt  smart cards and the Omigod emulator programs  did  not
exist.  It was a replay of what had happened in Europe - the  puff
pieces in the trade press and the inevitable hacks.


Well  the 500,000 pirate VideoCrypt cards were very real and  they
forced  Sky to issue their new card ten months ahead of  schedule.
There was an even greater problem. The 08 card they had planned to
launch  was almost identical to the hacked 07 card.  Instead  they
had to go for the 09 card.


The  09 Sky card was different from the 07 in  two major ways.  It
had  a  different  architecture  and  it  had  a  very   different
algorithm.  Sky  started to distribute this new card  in  February
1994 but they did not switch over to the card until 18th May 1994.
That day is known as Dark Wednesday by European hackers.


The  connection  here  is  the timing. It  would  have  been  very
convenient for News Datacom to draw heavily on the Sky 09 card for
the new DSS card. Most of the ROM routines could have been  easily
adapted for the new system. The main changes would of course  have
been in the EEPROM. The EEPROM of the smart card is the area  that
contains the main cryptographical routines.


The operation to pop the 09 Sky card in Europe took a few  months.
It  involved completely reverse engineering the smart  card.  Some
preliminary  code  was  sold in June last year at  an  auction  in
London.  It was a start but it took a further four  months  before
the system  was totally compromised. Perhaps the  most  important
part of the operation was the discovery of a back  door  in  the
smart card's code.


When VideoCrypt was developed, the overall structure of the system
was,  compared to systems like VideoCipher II, simplistic. It  was
also reliable. But the designers may never have expected it to  be
handling over two million subscribers.


As  a direct result of this loading, the designers of the  system,
News  Datacom,  had  to incorporate some newer  levels  of  access
control  into  the system. Upgrading the decoders was out  of  the
question.  There were too many and it would be very  difficult  to
track  all of them down. Most of the standalone decoders had  long
ago disappeared into Mainland Europe.


News Datacom's solution was clever and at the same time  extremely
stupid.  They incorporated a method of programming the  card  over
the air  into  the  code of the 09 Sky card.  The  over  the  air
instructions  were  included in the standard access  control  data
packets. They looked just like more card identity numbers but they
were not. The hackers labeled them "Nanocommands".


The  over  the air programming scheme was clever in that  it  gave
them  more  control over the cards - they could  easily  implement
ECMs by updating the card's EEPROM and they could actively  change
the channel authorization. In effect they could even run a limited
form of Pay Per View.


Of  course there is a downside. All of the security of  this  card
relied  on  the  hackers not finding out the  core  algorithm  and
obtaining  a  working knowledge of the card addressing.  The  core
algorithm had been sold at auction in June 1994. The rest was only
a matter of time.


The  cracks in the edifice were beginning to show. By the  end  of
July, VideoCrypt was crumbling. The Phoenix hack had worked.  This
hack  relied  on an understanding of how the access  control  data
packets were encrypted and structured. (The Phoenix hack  allowed
hackers to activate or reactivate all channels on Sky cards  using
a computer and eventually a standalone programmer)


Naturally  when Sky tried to retaliate against the  Phoenix  hack,
they used the Nanocommands. The hackers were watching. It was true
electronic warfare. Sky and News Datacom versus the hackers.


Gradually  the function of each nanocommand was ascertained.  Even
now it is difficult to believe what happened next.  One was  found
to read  a byte from the EEPROM as the input for a round  of  the
algorithm.  Another  of the nanocommands was found to act  like  a
BREAK command. It would dump the current result out as the key.


The  hackers had the algorithm and knew the result just  prior  to
the  byte from the EEPROM being used. They could dump out the  the
result  just after the EEPROM byte had been processed through  the
algorithm. Since they then had the main components, it was  simply
a case  of  starting  the algorithm from  the  first  result  and
stepping  through the values 0 to 255 as the input byte. The  hack
has become known as the Vampire Hack.


Of course this attack was not perfect. The resulting data from the
Vampire hack of the 09 Sky card did not make sense. The  processor
used  in  the smart card was based on the 6805 but  the  data  was
definitely not 6805. There was a little bit more decryption to  be
done yet. But eventually it the hackers cracked it.


Now  what  happened  with  DSS? The speed of  the  hack  seems  to
strongly  indicate  that the same card type was used for  the  DSS
system. This would mean that the same techniques that were used to
pop the 09 Sky card could be employed on the DSS card.


The real test of the pirate cards lies ahead. As with the European
VideoCrypt,  the DSS smart card may be over the air  programmable.
This  would  mean that DSS could update their cards over  the  air
without having to immediately issue new cards. The  pirate  cards
would of course require upgrading.


The  main  difference is that the American  hacking  industry  has
experience  of  such  upgrading.  The  technology  used  to   hack
VideoCipher  II can be used for this upgrading. The  pirate  cards
may  well  come  with  a  modem  module  that  can  be   used   to
automagically update the card.