Saturday, March 5, 2011

The AdS: pirate VoD your neighbors

Today in the AdS, let's talk about us. Indeed, one of the editors of Tom's Hardware is among Numericable and just bought a TV. By scrutinizing the data sheet (normal at Tom's), he discovers that his television incorporates a DVB tuner capable of working in DVB-T (DTT) but also DVB-C, the standard used by Numericable.

And to simplify installation, so he decided to use the TV's tuner instead of the decoder provided by Numericable. Good news, a scan frequencies later, it works. And a little surprise waiting for us ... Indeed, if the tuner picks up all channels offered by Numericable - some calling for a decoder card - there are also some channels that do not have names.

Early inspection later, one of these channels pass a fairly recent film and the other an American series with a doctor who thinks he is Sherlock Holmes, the original version with subtitles. Weird, so. Some research later, our writer is aware that such channels are linked to purchases VoD, it can actually see when neighbors decide to pause during playback.

The technical explanation is quite simple: Numericable working in DVB-C, which is a broadcast technology to "broadcast" type. In simple terms, all persons who are on the same headend (the connection point between the backbone and coaxial cable Numericable) receive the same TV channels. When a person uses the system demand video, the video in question is sent to the user on a channel dedicated to this purpose, but all subscribers of the area receive.

As long as we stay on the conventional decoder Numericable, this is not a problem: it hides the channel in question and offers access in case of purchase. With an external tuner, this is no longer the case. And - unlike other premium offerings of the company - VOD channels are not encrypted ...

In practice, it is mostly fun, but not really useful: even if you can see what your neighbors are buying, it is impossible to know when it begins broadcasting, and what has been chosen ...

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