[mythtv-users] SiliconDust to Announce CableCard Product at CES [RUMOR]

Devin Heitmueller dheitmueller at kernellabs.com
Thu Jan 7 16:39:41 UTC 2010


On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 11:33 AM, Ronald Frazier <ron at ronfrazier.net> wrote:
>> But that's the same basic idea, even if there is another device in the
>> chain. The question is how it gets decrypted. I'm assuming the
>> decryption key is passed from the cable card to the PC only through an
>> authenticated chain, but as I just explained, it wouldn't be difficult
>> to extract the key and pretend to be the windows system (ie: rather
>> than a man-in-the-middle attack, you are simply killing Alice and
>> sending in your look-alike replacement.
>
> To be clear...I'm not thinking for a second that I'm more clever than
> the engineers that designed this system. It's just, as someone very
> interested in tech security topics, I'm very curious how they think
> they've solved this. It seems you'd have to carry the authentication
> chain right past the PC to the end device. Perhaps HDCP can provide
> this server, but if that were so I don't see what all the fuss up to
> now about "only certified system can use cablecard" is all about,
> because in such a case, the decryption key would be passed through
> encrypted for the HDCP display device, and there was never any threat
> from the PC.



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