Syndicated Hack Watch Column 02-93 (March 93) Title: Red Hot Dutch To Be Banned? This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in a silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands. William Shakespeare - King Richard II The porn channel Red Hot Television may well be banned by the UK government. It is no longer called Red Hot Dutch since it does not uplink from Holland any more. It now uplinks from Denmark. Some how the title "Red Hot Danish" would not sound right and it appears that Continental Television, the owners of Red Hot Television opted for the more conservative name. The current feeling among some of the more conservative members of the UK government is that Red Hot Television is polluting and corrupting the British public. It is in a sense a cultural insularity. As you can see from the quotation from Shakespeare's Richard II, this element of insularity existed even then. Perhaps these people are the victims of selective amnesia. Shakespeare's writings were often of a more colourful nature than these people would ever care to admit. The reason that this information is not immediately obvious is because it requires some knowledge of the slang of Shakespeare's time. Regicide and homicide. Sex and politics. If Shakespeare was around today he would probably be working in Hollywood. The prime minister of the UK mentioned in a speech recently that the UK had a thousand years of history to be proud of. A thousand years? What happened to the other thousands of years? The years of Celtic history, of Roman history, of Anglo-Saxon history? It seems that this thousand years of history began with the Norman invasion of Britain. This culture of which the British are proud is a tapestry woven from the threads of many cultures. The epic Beowulf, reckoned to be the first epic in the Anglo-Saxon language is actually based on the Irish epic Tain Bo Fraic. The Anglo-Saxon king who wrote Beowulf was educated in Ireland. Throughout England, the Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon and Norman influences can be seen in the landscape and heard in the everyday speech. Other influences from subsequent migrations are also making themselves felt. Seen in the light of the previous paragraphs, the arguments in favour of maintaining cultural sanctity by banning Red Hot Television is not logical. But then the psychology of human beings is never logical. Many of those in favour of banning it are male and either in or past their forties. Of course there are other arguments in favour of banning the channel. Some of these are based on the fact that the movies are exploitational and immoral. In the background you can almost hear that great moralist Saint Augustine feverishly indenting parchment. Interestingly enough Saint Augustine became extremely moral when after a life of debauchery he was afflicted with impotence. Legally, the UK Government are on even thinner ice. If they proscribe Red Hot Television, they are, in the opinion of some legal experts, in contravention of EC law. The situation may arise that while it might be legal to ban Red Hot Television under UK law, it would be illegal for the UK government to ban the channel under EC law. EC law has precedent over national law. However, the EC may chose to allow the UK government to interpret the law in a flexible fashion. In the light of the present situation, it would be stupid for the UK government to ban Red Hot Television. By forcing the channel underground, they would cause the viewing figures to mushroom. Now if they were clever, they would create a new tax. The programming on Red Hot Television is definitely hard core porn, one viewer referred to it as zero-simulation programming. In its defence it could be argued that there is a similar level of programming available via TV1000 or Canal Plus. Title: The Advent Of Opt Out While in the United States, local advertising on cablenets is the norm, it is relatively new in Europe. Perhaps there is an exception in the UK. The Independent Television Franchises in the UK who sometimes slot in advertising during networked programmes. Cablelink are awaiting the licence from the Irish Government to sell opt out advertising time on various channels. Apparently Sky One and Sky News will be restored to the Cablelink cable and MMDS nets after this licence is granted. Cablelink will then sell advertising time which will be inserted in place of the UK originated adverts. Among the subscribers on Cablelink's nets Sky One is sorely missed. Sky One however is not considered that much of a loss and many people would prefer CNN. The likelihood of Cablelink being granted a licence to sell opt out advertising may have increased. The advertising revenue cap that the Broadcasting Act had placed on the state monopoly broadcaster, RTE has been removed. There are also some rumours that RTE is thinking about running a channel on ASTRA. Title: Red Hot Television To Scramble With Enigma on March 20th Red Hot Television will introduce its new Enigma 1 scrambling system on March 20th. The new scrambling system is based on line video cut and rotate scrambling and is believed to have other elements that have not yet been announced. At one stage it was considered that Red Hot Television would use the Cryptovision scrambling system. There has been no reason given for Red Hot Television's choice of system. Some hackers believe that the reason could be connected with the present deployment of Cryptovision. This system is used in Scandinavia on cablenets and also in Ireland on the Cablelink cable and MMDS nets. With a potential pirate market of some 200,000 decoders in Ireland, the system could become the target of a hack. At present the main deterrent in Ireland is the fact that hacking a cable system for the purposes of commercial piracy is a crime punishable by a fine of twenty thousand pounds and or a two year prison sentence. Anyway the Irish hackers are currently more concerned with hacking satellite borne channels as the law does not cover these channels. Title: Card Tricks EuroCrypt Update It appears that the Card Tricks Pseudo Card has greatly disturbed FilmNet and TV1000. The response from the would-be viewing public was phenomenal. The release date for the P-card is now March. The sheer quantity of orders has caused a backlog. What is now apparent is that the EuroCrypt card system has been compromised. The EuroCrypt system was based on the concept of the detachable secure microcontroller. This concept is a good concept though any hack on such a system would be catastrophic. There are three types of hack; non-critical, critical and catastrophic. A non-critical hack can be rapidly overcome by a slight modification to the system and often has a lifetime of a few weeks. A critical hack is naturally more dangerous. While it does attack the very heart of the system, it is possible for the system to recover. The catastrophic hack is perhaps the most dangerous for a system. In order for the system to recover, an element or indeed the complete system has to undergo a redesign. The hack on the EuroCrypt system can be designated a catastrophic hack. The central element of the EuroCrypt system, namely the smart card, must now be redesigned. This would not be a major task as it would involve replacing the existing EPROM card with an EEPROM card. The problem here is that the control word generation algorithms and the HASH algorithms have to be rewritten. The new smart cards will be EEPROM and therefore slightly more secure than the EPROM type that has just been hacked. One thing is certain, those associated with the EuroCrypt system will never again have such blind faith in the system.