On page 57 of January silicon chip magazine, an ad by Jaycar for a smart card programmer seems to imply that hacking of smart cards for extra channels is possible? Does any one know if this is the case, or is it just Jaycar trying to flog these programmers?
if you're taking pace decoders like used by austar then yes a modified card can give access to closed channels, when I was working for austar I heard that a faulty card had been found that gave incorrect access some of the time.
does it say "jaycar accepts no liabilites for the potential for unlawful use" or is it more specific?...
I expect they are just covering their a$$...
I expect most commercial smart cards have the rom read disabled so first you'll need to reverse engineer the way that the card communicates with the CA module...
hmm otoh they can enable disable channels from their end which suggests the at the list of available channels is in the eeprom (which if you can read it) all you'd need to do is figure out which bits to twiddle and how to forge the checksum.
The CA module has a PCMCIA connector, dunno what happens if you plug it into a PCMCIA slot - I only ever stuck them in decoders.
From what I understand it is no longer possible. The boxes get a new code from the provider every few minutes so you need some method to get that code every few minutes. Boxes are available that do it but they have to connect to your PC and your PC has to be always on and connected to the internet.
Electus sold a Heap of a Cards to a supplier last Year, and they think it was for Pay-Tv hackers. But from the customers I know, who seem to know a LOT of what's going on, the code is not cracked and they are not being used for Pay TV . The biggest thing that is currently still being used is called Card sharing, which is done over the Net, via secure Web sites, and allows you to share a Valid card with anyone any where. You need a Permanent Internet Access, and a Card interface that's b/t your Box and the PC.
SO I think Jaycar/Electus are just hoping they can sell / off load these old cards that no one wants any more. Allan
ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.