Murdoch's Hacker Speaks Out

This article from a Swiss newspaper recounts the appearance of Christopher Tarnovsky at the European Black Hat conference (link is to a Google translation of the French original). Next month Tarnovsky will testify in a lawsuit brought by a maker of satellite TV encryption systems (Kudeslki) against an Israeli company (NDS), for whom Tarnovsky worked until recently. (NDS is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.) While with NDS, Tarnovsky cracked Kudeslki's crypto, but claims he didn't post the result on the open Net. His responses to audience questions are amusing, in particular when someone from Microsoft asks him about breaking the Xbox 360 console. Tarnovsky replies (in the translation): "I have been offered 100,000 dollars for the break, but I replied that it was not enough."

Cheapskate

[that_itch_kid]

"I have been offered 100,000 dollars for the break, but I replied that it was not enough."

Any 4 year old can break an XBox 360 with their own toys. Tonka trucks > all.

Re:

[Nerdfest]

I can't imagine who'd pay large amount to break the protection on a console ... a competitor, perhaps? Hasn't the 360 already been somewhat cracked anyway?

Re:

[sumdumass]

I can see it happening. I wouldn't personally do it but there are people who would view it more as a chance to slap MS then getting unrestricted access to the console. Some people are just like that I guess.

  I suspect that the 100,000 might be a collection from different sources with the goal of enticing people who might have the ability to accomplish the tasks. But I think the motivator is to slap MS.

Re:

[kesuki]

"Hasn't the 360 already been somewhat cracked anyway?"

only the HDD, only the HDD.

there are guides on how to copy movies to the 360's hd via Xsata etc, but they haven't gotten a way to say backup game discs to the 360's hd yet, or to put in a mod chip so you can play games backed up to hd-dvd-R discs.

the former is a better goal, more useful than the latter, after all the current crack lets you offload to a PC that could have an array of 750GB HDDS or something like that. HDs are way cheaper than hd-dvd-r's

Re:

[kesuki]

I'm going to take that back, there ARE mod chips, but any game that doesn't fit on a single DVD isn't going to work (the only modchip/programs i've seen are for DVD sized games) and it's a very painful 4 step process that requires about 7 programs total, and 3 hacks against the x-box 360 itself to do it all.

I know the original Xbox had a single disc compromise that would let you backup and play games from the Xboxes HDD , without needing a mod chip or anything but i don't see that yet for the 360 (at least

Re:

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I'm going to take that back, there ARE mod chips, but any game that doesn't fit on a single DVD isn't going to work (the only modchip/programs i've seen are for DVD sized games)

That's fine, becaue the only games I've seen are DVD-sized games. The HD-DVD addon was only for movies. And now even that is dead.

Re:

[kesuki]

then i would imagine that they would stop using HD-DVD capable drives in the xbox 360 to save manufacture cost?

that would have to save a significant cost for making new consoles if no games now or ever will use HD-dvd

Re:

[LrdDimwit]

If you wanted to go into business selling mod chips, you need to hire guys like this.

Don't you know?

[GameboyRMH]

Tonka trucks are made of plastic nowadays.

Re:

[electrosoccertux]

"I have been offered 100,000 dollars for the break, but I replied that it was not enough."

Any 4 year old can break an XBox 360 with their own toys.

Tonka trucks > all.

I wonder if this means it would take over 3x the work for him to crack it, or if it's only not enough because the benefit to the buyer (MS) is much greater than $100k. IE, with MS's Xbox360 install base, they should be willing to pay a lot more than that.

Or maybe only 5 euros doesn't float his boat. :D

Re:

[Greivetimus Prime]

I am a professional at it with a hammer.

Reverse engineering genious

[Anonymous Coward]

For those interested, his companies blog is http://www.flylogic.net/blog/ [flylogic.net] Pretty interesting stuff...

Re:Reverse engineering genious

[dascritch]

For more comprehension about the story : Canal+ (main pay-channel in France, and very big group in pay sat tv) accused Murdoch to have helped hacking its signal. It was during the commercial aggressive war between TelePiu (Canal+ in Italy), Canal+España, Premiere and other subsets agains BskyB and other Murdoch's companies

Re:

[dascritch]

Oh... Just one thing : European countries are very small, and Movies/Sport rights are sold by countries. That means that if you want BskyB in France, you can't except by a portage via an UK address. Or if you are living in North Africa (french-speaking), you can't have Canal Satellite (Canal + sat tv operation), but a stripped down for Africa market... If there is a distribution system in your country (By example, Algeria during its troubled 1990s, was a big pirated viaccess "consumer").

Re:

[mrtom852]

European countries are very small, and Movies/Sport rights are sold by countries. That means that if you want BskyB in France, you can't except by a portage via an UK address

Isn't this against EU law?

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[jimicus]

Isn't this against EU law?

Very likely, but Murdoch runs a large company and like most large companies the law is what they say it is unless and until ordered otherwise by a court.

Re:

[innerweb]

Very big companies listen to courts? I thought all they listened to were threats at gunpoint.

InnerWeb

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[Dunbal]

and like most large companies the law is what they say it is unless and until ordered otherwise by a court.

      And then they can just ignore the multi-billion dollar fines, a la "Microsoft"...

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[blowdart]

Well partly satellite footprints take care of this, but no, it's not illegal because broadcasters purchase rights per country, and it would be illegal for them to allow viewing outside of that country. Indeed there's an entire directive, 93/83/EEC over this. Copyright and licensing trump the free movement of goods.

Re:

[StikyPad]

I recognized most of those words as English, but I still have no idea what you just said.

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[chrb]

NDS was accused of cracking the ITV Digital cards in the UK shortly after the released of terrestrial digital TV. NDS UK alledgedly posted the crack on a pay-TV hacking web site (House of Ill Compute) which it had some shady financial links to. This led to widespread counterfeit cards, and was blamed for the financial collapse of ITV Digital. The major beneficiary of the ITV Digital collapse was the other pay-TV service launching at the time - Sky Digital, which was, funnily enough, also owned by Murdoch. S

Trial date

[Anonymous Coward]

The trial begins April 8 2008 , details on Pacer 8:2003cv00950

Most info on this trials documents has been sealed or blacked out like a UFO conspiracy
mostly to protect the outlandish claims of Echostar and their consultants from public
embarassment

Its all lies and soon the trial will reveal everything, this lawsuit loss and the 100 million or so they
owe Tivo after losing that lawsuit will be the final nail in Echostar's coffin.

JJ Gee enjoy your retirement.

first?

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn... no comment yet. Now i really have to actually read the article.

Sky TV uses Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

in their set-top boxes in the EU/UK but they wont reveal the source code (try google'ing it or looking at their site you wont find it),
probably because you could decrypt the encryption on the Satellite stream,
shame that some companies (like murdochs) see Linux as free meal ticket and refuse to contribute anything back

still a GPL violation has never bothered billion dollar companies before, "i got mine screw you" seems to be the mantra of businesss/society thesedays

Re:Sky TV uses Linux

[LiquidCoooled]

If you can break the encryption by looking at the code, then they are doing it wrong.
The formula is not important and a good encryption algorithm should be free.

The key used is the protected part and should not be a part of the source code.

Re:Sky TV uses Linux

[Computershack]

If you can break the encryption by looking at the code, then they are doing it wrong.
The formula is not important and a good encryption algorithm should be free.

The key used is the protected part and should not be a part of the source code.

You can't break it by looking at the source code because the key is stored on a smart card which itself is then encrypted by hardware built into the card and in addition is tied to the serial number of the Sky card and the serial number of the box. It's not as simple as being able to read a PIC 16C84 and program a homebrew card anymore. Nobody has managed to break this in several years as we're still on the same generation of smart card because Sky were renown for issuing new editions once the old one has been cracked and we've not had new ones for years. They've obviously found a very successful way of safeguarding their service. If someone has found a crack they've kept very quiet about it.

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[NotQuiteInsane]

Quick point about DVB and most CA systems -- you generally have three keys. The Control Words (two 64-bit keys with embedded checksums) roll every 10 seconds or so and are used to decrypt the video itself. An ECM key decrypts Entitlement Control Messages, which contain an encrypted version of the CWs. Lastly, the EMM key decrypts Entitlement Management Messages, which update the ECM keys (among other things).

Now if you know the card protocol, you can put a monitor on the smart card bus between the set-top

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Cracks are dead easy, just pay 20K to have the card shaved, and a scanning microscope to read the bus signals - then a lot of time for analysis. Or if really well heeled, and ion deposition scope to repair cut debug circuitry (Cambridge University has good researchers). This is a little more than the seed capital to some. If its hardware, it is breakable, no buts. Many smart people could have done it, especially disgruntled shareholder(s) or media /program buyers, or someone making a play on shorting. No en

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[Z34107]

I'm guessing if you were "really well heeled" you probably wouldn't be as interested in stealing satellite.

Either that, or you're really bored...

Re:

[comm2k]

Nobody has managed to break this in several years as we're still on the same generation of smart card because Sky were renown for issuing new editions once the old one has been cracked and we've not had new ones for years. They've obviously found a very successful way of safeguarding their service.

I think not much people want to crack it (anymore) as the service can be accessed by other means (not cracked but circumvented).

Re:Sky TV uses Linux

[demallien2]

Lol, you are a GENIUS! Why didn't anybody think of that before?!?!?

Or, we have thought of it, it's just not as easy as you think. The problem is that the decoder has to have the key, otherwise the paying client can't watch TV. A pirate reverse engineers the decoder to find the key. The defence against this type of attack is to try and hide the key - one solution is to hide the key in hardware - the smartcard option. Another is to hide the code in software, using code obfuscators, virtual machines, whiteboxes. The final option is to obtain the key from a server, using two-way comms.

None of these solutions is fullproof, the first two choices are just security through obscurity - they can, and will, be hacked given enough time/incentive. The third option is problematic because what happens if the key server goes down? Plus, you need to have a whole head-end server infrastructure to support the solution, which the operators don't like. I know, I implemented the client half of such a system for a major content protection company a couple of years back.

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[jimicus]

Or, we have thought of it, it's just not as easy as you think. The problem is that the decoder has to have the key, otherwise the paying client can't watch TV. A pirate reverse engineers the decoder to find the key. The defence against this type of attack is to try and hide the key - one solution is to hide the key in hardware - the smartcard option. Another is to hide the code in software, using code obfuscators, virtual machines, whiteboxes. The final option is to obtain the key from a server, using two-w

Re:

[demallien2]

And I, as a big bad pirate, will just make sure that my box doesn't call home on the return channel by unplugging the phone line, or putting in a firewall between the decoder and its head-end.

So then what you need to do is make it so that my box doesn't work UNLESS I call home, for example it needs to call home to get the key in the first place. This is the key server that I mentioned above, with the inconveniences that go along with it.

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[jimicus]

Two things I am fairly sure of:

1. It has a built-in modem and uses an analogue phone line. You'll need to set up a box with an FXO port to defeat it; it's not as simple as firewalling ports on your router.
2. It refuses to operate if it can't phone home for any length of time.

These things have been properly thought through, y'know.

Re:Sky TV uses Linux

[demallien2]

Yes, yes they have. Not by you though, apparently.

Jiminicus, my job is to crack decoders. Well, at least half the time. The other half is spent designing systems to make the cracker's life difficult, by blocking the attacks that I have used myself.

For example, with your scheme, I would reverse engineer the official decoder, and then patch the code that checks the return code, so that the check always returns TRUE. Now, that can be defeated by making it so that the value returned by the server is actually a key. My next attack would then be to try and convince the server that I am a real official decoder, and that it should give me the key. Unless care is taken, I could probably get the necessary information for this by launching a man-in-the-middle attack on an official decoder.

The typical defence against this attack is to protect the link by using certificates signed by the encryption provider, and linked to the decoder's serial number. As a pirate, I then just extract the official certificate either from the decoder itself, or from the conversation of a real box. I can then clone the certificate/identity of the decoder, and the server will talk to me as though I'm a real decoder.

The response to that attack is to verify that there are not two decoders connected at the same time that use the same identity. But this is not as simple as it sounds. For performance reasons, servers are distributed to handle different 'parks' of decoders. But I have to maintain a synchronized list of currently logged in decoder identities across all servers. This is a definately non-trivial task, or at least that's what my collegues that work on the head-end code tell me.

Other options for a cracker include trying to find a way to compromise the head-end server, and then poke around on it to dig up signing certificates and other good stuff to circumvent the protection. Or he might launch a denial of service attack - most server solutions have a 'degraded' fall back mode where the TV signal is encrypted with a key kept locally in the decoder, to be used if the key servers fail for whatever reason. That key can of course be extracted by the traditional means.

Believe me, many, many, many people have tried to come up with solutions to this problem. The server approach that I have just outlined is the most secure that we have found to date, but as I have also described, it has problems too. Not to mention that it is expensive/complicated to implement.

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[tqbf]

Which is why modern smartcard-protected systems don't have trivial boolean checks; they use the card as an encryption server to decrypt data necessary to access the stream. There is no opcode byte you can patch to bypass the card, because the card is mathematically inline with the stream. It sure sounds like the systems you work on are easy to beat. The P(n) DirecTV cards, not so much.

Re:

[demallien2]

You're not paying attention. In my previous post, I was describing attacks against a server-based protection scheme, not a card-based protection scheme. But if you read all of the posts on this topic, others have already pointed out how to attack cards - there are physical means to get inside the card, and watch what is happening on its internal bus. Sure, it's out of the reach of a bored teenage hacker, but the pros have the necessary equipment.

Also, the prvious post was in reply to Jiminicus, who ap

Re:

[Glyndwr]

You're half right. They have analogue modems in, yes, but the box itself doesn't give a monkeys if it's plugged in or not. My SkyHD has never been plugged in and has been working A-OK for months. The box tries to dial out at 3am each day and silently fails.

Time was, if they scanned their server logs and noticed your box hadn't dialled in for a while, they wrote you a letter and shouted at you. This is because they log all your TV watching habits and sell them on to a ad firm who are a wholly owned subsidary

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[jimicus]

Fair enough. I was just outlining what could be done using a very little knowledge - what is done is something else altogether.

AIUI people who live in military-owned houses have caller ID disabled on their line and it can't be re-enabled - presumably they can't have multi-room?

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[Glyndwr]

I bet that is the case, yes. I do know that if your BT phone line defaults to not sending caller line ID, you need to tell the Sky box the call prefix to make it come back on for the dial out call -- the entire system is literally tied to the caller ID and nothing else. If you have Multiroom it's strictly non-negoitable, you must have a phone line, it must be plugged in, it must send caller ID.

I also strongly suspect this is why they still use a built-in modem and not the Ethernet port. It'd clearly be pref

Re:

[wolrahnaes]

It's still not rocket science to "tunnel" the modem traffic with VoIP over to the location it's supposed to be. Hell, depending on how much of the system you control you can even spoof the CID and not have to tunnel it.

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[jimicus]

No, but intercepting and tunnelling the modem traffic would require an FXS-card equipped PC - not exactly common, cheap consumer hardware - to defeat.

In this day and age, it's probably easier and rather less risky to just download what you want to watch through torrents. Though that probably wasn't the case when Sky Digital first came about.

Re:

[tepples]

Don't modern Sky digital boxes have a telephone connection?

Even if they did, would you want your cable box to make a telephone call every time you change the channel?

Re:Sky TV uses Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

No current BSkyB box uses Linux... they're all OS20, UCOS, Nucleus, or VxWorks.

Some prototype work is being done on Linux boxes, but they're not available yet.

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons...

Re:

[NotQuiteInsane]

No current BSkyB box uses Linux... they're all OS20, UCOS, Nucleus, or VxWorks.

OS20 being STMicroelectronics' operating system for the ST20 chips?

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons...

Because you work for Pace? (well let's face it, there aren't exactly many companies making STBs for BskyB). :)

Re:

[jrumney]

I presume you are talking about the Sky Broadband boxes, which are Netgear routers, for which Sky passes on the written offer to download the source from the Netgear website that Netgear provides to comply with GPLv2. While Sky has locked down their routers beyond what the standard Netgear firmware does, it is not clear that they have modified any GPLed source to do this, most likely all they have done is changed configuration files.

Given how strong Busybox has been in pursuing violations, I'd be surprise

Encryption U R Doin it wrong

[amias]

even a lolcat wouldn't rely on security by obscurity

Crypto patents and secrets are the reason

[StandardCell]

All of these boutique conditional access companies (NDS, Nagra/Kudelski, Irdeto, Conax, etc.) have a big stake in developing their own unique flavors of crypto and security to avoid payment of royalties to various providers of security IP. Some examples are Certicom for elliptic curve public key and digital signature, Cryptographic Research Inc. for smart card differential power analysis. The truth is that there are only so many ways to accomplish what they're tasked to do, and the trade secret route is u

Re:

[jonwil]

Why not simply use encryption algorithms that are free of patents like AES and RSA? Assuming the hardware is good enough (and unless the guys that design the smart cards aren't doing their jobs it should be) the fact that they are using a documented algorithim to perform encryption shouldn't matter.

Re:

[sorak]

in their set-top boxes in the EU/UK but they wont reveal the source code (try google'ing it or looking at their site you wont find it), probably because you could decrypt the encryption on the Satellite stream, shame that some companies (like murdochs) see Linux as free meal ticket and refuse to contribute anything back still a GPL violation has never bothered billion dollar companies before, "i got mine screw you" seems to be the mantra of businesss/society thesedays

IANAL, and I don't know about GPL version 3, but my understanding about GPL is that you can release a product that contains both open and closed software, and you only have to GPL the software that directly contains GPL code. (As opposed to that which was produced by GPL development tools, or that which runs on a GPL operating system)

Correct my if I'm wrong, but hasn't Red Hat been doing this for years?

Le translation

[ettlz]

At the bottom. I don't think this is either the spirit or the intent of the original French but

Human reproduction and distribution reserved.

Re:

[onlau]

Google translates "Droits" (Rights) to "Human"!

Re:

[Mantaar]

Doesn't sound so absurd if you consider that Google's algorithm is based solely on stochastic measures, without applying too much linguistics. Like, dictionaries. They sure as hell have one, but it's probably only another weight in a complex system.

Unfortunately, that's the only link I could find regarding that 2005 contest which Google won. They're probably still the best... http://www.astahost.com/googles-translation-wins-hands-down-t11662.html [astahost.com]

There's a problem with the linguistics in computational l

Re:

[Tongsy]

These are not the Droits you are looking for *waves hand*

Re:

[Hanners1979]

Well, they don't have to worry about Slashdot readers breaching the first of those rules...

NDS sounds like a nasty company

[BadAnalogyGuy]

http://osdir.com/ml/encryption.general/2002-06/msg00009.html [osdir.com]

Tarnovsky was in cahoots with another pair of hackers and when they turned state's evidence, one of them had a very unfortunate accident that left him dead.

Tarnovsky no doubt wants to get his profile as high as possible to make it more difficult to have an unfortunate accident himself.

Not for nothing, NDS comes from the same country that developed Kra Maga, a very vicious martial art based wholly on Cobra Kai's slogan.

Re:

[Eli Gottlieb]

Not for nothing, NDS comes from the same country that developed Kra Maga, a very vicious martial art based wholly on Cobra Kai's slogan.

Well yeah. It was invented for fighting off Nazis in Hungary, then moved to fighting off invading armies in Israel. It needs to be vicious.

Police?

[Max_W]

I can break any door with a sledgehammer and an ax. Because I exercise regularly. But I does not mean I should or would.

Kudeslki?!

[comm2k]

Kudelski not Kudeslki.. :|

Break an Xbox?

[airencracken]

Who needs this guy to break an Xbox, from what I've experienced, they're quite capable of breaking themselves.

Re:

[thatskinnyguy]

Hell! I got 3 for the price of 1 with the warranty!

Re:

[jandrese]

I've thought that the Red Ring of Death has turned out to be a fairly effective way of discouraging people from installing modchips. If you know you're going to have to send your console back to Microsoft at some point for repair, it's suddenly a lot more expensive to install a warentee voiding modchip.

It's OK because everyone else does it?

[NotQuiteInsane]

In his view, the lawsuit against NDS is an attempt to racketeering. "Of course I broke cards Kudelski, he begins annoyed. I was paid by NDS to do so. It's an activity that leads all companies in the sector. But why would I published these codes for free on the Net? I am not stupid, and I never had the intention to take that risk."

Interesting.. so AIUI all the CA (conditional access) vendors routinely break each others' systems. That's not surprising in itself (I'll admit to having learned a fair bit from reverse engineering other peoples' code). It does seem a tad unethical though, especially the alleged release of the code. I wonder if the code release was a decision made by upper management at NDS / News Corp (and it wouldn't surprise me in the least if that turned out to be the case). From the outside, this looks a lot like a protection racket... "Buy our system, because it would be an awful shame if your revenue stream were to be... terminated"

Manual translation from french - FWIW

[Apogee]

"Kudelski will lose their case", states the man who pirated their chip cards

Image legend:
Christopher Tarnovsky: "Why would I have published these codes on the net for free? I am not stupid, and I never had the intention of taking that risk."

Main text:
PAID ACCESS SYSTEMS. A key witness in the court case opposing the Swiss group against the media giant News Corporation was passing by in Amsterdam, attending a conference on computer piracy. We met him.

François Pilet, Amsterdam
Saturday, March 29 2008

The audience is glued to the lips of Christopher Tarnovsky. In front of a podium of hackers and security specialists - with an average age of 25 - the self-taught electronics specialist revealed the techniques that allow him to break open chip cards that block access to pay TV chains in the whole world.

The scene takes place in the Mövenpick hotel in Amsterdam, where the European edition of the Black Hat conference was held Thursday and Friday last week. This is one of the prime professional meetings dedicated to computer piracy. Among the twenty or so speakers invited to this big get-together, Christoper Tarnovsky talked for more than one and a half hour in the "Lausanne" room - a sign of destiny (Tr. note: Lausanne is a Swiss city close to the headquarters of the Kudelski Group).

Employed by NDS

The 39 year old American is accused of having been recruited in 1999 by the Israeli company NDS, a competitor of Kudelski, to break the security codes of Canal+ (French Pay TV) and publish them on the Internet, and to have repeated the operation, to the detriment of the Swiss group and its clients. The publication of these codes allowed hundreds of thousands of savvy users to access encrypted TV channels without paying the subscription fees.

The American satellite TV company Echostar also uses Kudelski cards to protect their content. They confirmed having lost hundreds of millions of US dollars due to these pirate activities and demand one billion US$ of damages from NDS, a subsidiary of the media group News Corp.

This April, Christopher Tarnovsky will take the witness stand in a California court in defense of NDS, his employer for ten years following 1997. According to him, Kudelski and Echostar have wholly invented the conspiracy they claim having been victim of in order to mask the weakness of their encryption.

In his eyes, the case against NDS is nothing short of an extortion attempt. "Sure, I've broken the cards of Kudelski", he annoyedly states. "I was paid by NDS to do it. This is an activity that all companies in the trade do. But why would I have published these codes on the Net for free? I am not stupid, and I never had the intention of taking that risk."

Having become an awkward asset, Tarnowsky is no longer employed by the group since a year. He started his own company, Flylogic, through which he offers his know-how to electronics manufacturers, to test the resistance of new products to pirate attacks before they are launched.

Christoper Tarnovsky details the general weakness of systems based on certain chips designed by a handful of companies like Motorola and Infinenon (sic), systems used in products as divers as garage door remotes, car alarm systems and TV decoders.

"Unbreakable? That's wrong!"

"The manufacturers of semiconductors claim that their chips are unbreakable. The companies integrating them into their products trust the specifications they obtain. They believe that their secrets will be well kept. That is wrong, of course."
He showed pictures of his laboratory, set up with second-hand equipment worth a couple of thousand dollars. The centerpiece is a powerful Zeiss microscope to access the heart of the chip, where the precious codes are hidden. Successive layers of silicone are peeled away, using acids and lasers.

The engineer then explains how he takes over control of the card by short-circuiting one by one its protections with long microscopic needles. It takes a few minutes fo

Re:

[kesuki]

I wonder if the Chinese will hire this guy to crack the chip encryptions scheme discussed a while back... http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/06/2115223 [slashdot.org]

sounds like he really knows what he's doing and he might just be the guy to break EPIC protection for the Chinese.

Kudelski's technology is used by DISH Network.

[kriston]

Please note: Kudelski is the company that developed Nagravision (and please spell it correctly).
Nagravision is what "secures" DISH Network, Bell Open Vu, and a large number of smaller satellite-delivered television properties.
NDS is owned by the same company that owned DirecTV at the time of the Nagravision breach.
The story is predictable.