News

25th April 2002
Well, more and more is being learnt about the current videoguard systems in use around the world..... There is also one of the biggest, almost unbelieveable scandals to ever hit the tv industry being unfolded in the courts and we will see more information about this over the coming months/ years. This story seems better than anything Hollywood could even think up. It seems that NDS the company who created Videocrypt and the current Videoguard encryption system have allegedly been involved in secretly HACKING other RIVAL ENCRYPTION SYSTEMS. Then as if that was not enough, they appear to have put the codes and information out for free on the internet for all to use..... Now why would they do this??? Well Canal Plus/ ITV Digital and a bundle of other companies that all use the SECA encryption system are alleging that the reason for this was to undermine their businesses within the industry and to sway them in to using the NDS Encryption system instead!!! If this turns out to be true, then NDS and possibly even Sky themselves (as they are all owned/ operated by the Murdoch Group of companies) will be in very deep shit. The very recent collapse of ITV Digital could be blamed on the fact that the system was hacked and therefore, they have not managed to acheive the level of subscriptions they estimated. Anyway, as I said, this all has HUGE ramifications. You could go into hyperdrive on conspiracy theories.... i.e. It turns out that the man most responsible for NDS and for funding these alleged hacks (The R& D was apparently done in secret labs in Israel) is an Ex-Metropolitan police officer and he in fact had dealings in the controversial Lawrence and Vais cases. Now, could the Lawrence murder have been to do with NDS discovering that Stephen Lawrence found out about the Hacking going on and was threatening to go public??? Etc, etc.... You can see that a lot of incidents and events in the past, could turn out to be related to this whole issue....
Anyway, enough for now. more info on the Videoguard system as it becomes available.

29th August 2001
Well, more info is surfacing all the time on this encryption system. One thing that is going to help a lot is the introduction of CI Cams for Videoguard. These are to be restricted to subscribers of one or two pay packages abroad (Spain and Italy - I believe). Hopefully these will open up more modifications and understanding, while also creating a much larger market for any commmercial crackers out there... Let's hope they get it done, as S*y is starting to take the piss over their subscription rates and something is needed to stop them ripping everyone off!

19th July 2001
Various info is surfacing on Videoguard. Check out the forums over at www.skybusters.com for the latest discussions

10th May 2001
More info has become available for Videoguard. Including a circuit diagram and other documents for the Sony S*y Digibox. I will be posting these shortly.

27th March 2001
Ok, I give up, there are so many rumours and NO FACTS about a S*y hack. Until there is some concrete news..... That's it. I know there are claims from various camps about there already being hack, but this info is being kept quiet. If anybody had any PROOF of a hack, please let me know (If it needs to stay non-public, then so be it). Until then, I will contain looking for all the information I can find on the NDS Videoguard system.

12th March 2001
Officially the hack seems to be 'in test'. It seems that it may well be a card and quite possibly a clone of an original. No PPV as yet, but any subscribed channels should work ok. This type of hack should not really be too dodgy if being used by people in the same household. S*y should allow multiple cards for a single household anyway. However, they are robbing b*st*rds and refuse to follow the example set by Canal+ (I believe) in France and offer up a second card for a couple of quid extra a month. However, they don't so bring on the hack!

News

1st May 2002
Well, that's the end for ITV Digital. As of this morning it has been shut down. What will happen now??? Well, Free to Air channels are staying as is ITV Sport, which will now be free-to-air until the end of the season... so a little tiny bit of good news for those with boxes. Will someone step in to replace the boxes... hmmm, well that is a good question...
Likely front runners are:-
Microsoft (looking to get into TV/ interactive makret in the UK for years... this could be their golden opportunity)
The Football League (one of the main creditors and losers from the ITV Digi shut down. They may decide to try and find some partners and take the tv money directly from the subscribers!!!)
???? The mystery parties... (who else has enough money to take this thing and see it through to profitability??? Not many. Sky would, but cannot by law - due to monopolies laws)

So, the only way to make th Terrestrial platform successful for pay tv is to make it a decent rival offering to Satelite. Now that is a very hard task and I would have to say it is currently IMPOSSIBLE unless more multiplexes are allowed. Without the options to have more channels, at least another 16 or so (two more multiplexes) there is no way to offer a decent selection compared to Sky Digi. Now many experts have confirmed that any possible interferance from digital on current analogue broadcasts has proved to be false. Therefore, there is space available currently to give over to digital terrestrial and the government has got to get the ITC to licence these options as well.
Assuming an extra 16 channels came online along with all that was previously broadcast, then the channel offering would be reasonable. Then add to that a cheaper subscription than Sky and they have it made. This should now be possible, as the Set top boxes will not need to be subsidised anymore, as Pace and others come out with fully unsubsidised boxes for £50-£150. No dish installation necessary! Lets just see what happens, but I would have to put Microsoft (along with some partners possibly) in the front seat currently as they have the will (it seems) and the money to make this work. It could also open up an opportunity to have an 'XBOX' channel maybe??? Broadcasting demo games to download to your xbox possibly.... I see that as a possible future prospect that would interest Microsoft a lot in their fight against Sony and to a lesser extent Nintendo for console supremacy... Imagine it, plug your Xbox into your set top box and get the latest episode of your favourite game.... hmmm, time will tell.
For those just wanting to know when you might get programs back. The ITC is re-advertising the licences today. Then it will accept applications during the next 4 weeks. It will then take another 2 weeks to decide who to award the licence(s) to. So at absolute best, you would be talking 6 weeks. That would only happen if there was an obvious front runner, who started preparations early. otherwise, you will probably be talking another 2-4 weeks before a service gets up and running. Total 2-3 months. If someone actually wants it!


29th August 2001
Ok, well MKF handled those v6 cards just fine as they came into play over in the UK. So you could all continue to experiment with your cards and see learn how the system works. Well, development has not ceased entirely on SECA and SECA2 is rumoured to be just around the corner. In fact cards have already started to turn up ready for the new system. It looks like the upgrade will be two-fold. Firstly a new card edition will be released... we already know that the bugs in previous card versions have all been closed... although there should always be some new ones creeping in ;) There will then also be a software upgrade to the boxes. This is likely to be in the form of an over the air FORCED upgrade. It may also only trigger on boxes with current valid cards, but we shall see.... Once this changeove has happened, the newly upgraded system will kick in and the fight will be back on...
On the ITV Digital front, it seems that the broadcaster had over-estimated viewing figures, under-estimated Sky's fight over price of carrying ITV Sport (which has still not happened) and was also the subject of the unbelieveable story above about NDS (the people behind sky's encryption system) hacking ITV Digital's system (SECA) and deliberately releasing the information on to the internet to allow the system to be hacked and therefore undermined!!!! All in all not a good state of affairs.
Now The ITV Digital Terrestrial platform is to be put up for sale as a 'Going Concern' - you can say that again. First thing anyone who takes it on will have to do is pay the football league £178 million. However, even if ITV Digital was not a pirated platform, I see no future in it, UNLESS it is able to open up at least two more multi-plexes of channels. The simple fact of the mattter is that, for hardly anything extra, viewers can get 5-10x as many channels on the Sky Digital platform as they can on the ITV Digital platform. So, adding two extra multi-plexes (and we know from various experts around that it is easily possible in more than 90% of the country - possibly all of it) would allow another 16 channels or so to broadcast. This would then allow some of the more key channels that are missing currently to be added and give the whole thing a much better rounded set of channels. Without this however, I know of nobody who will/ would subscribe to the terrestrial over sky, even with a significant price difference (which there isn't now). So come on the Government, you need to aid terrestrial television against the might of Sky....

29th August 2001
Well Mkfind.co.uk finally came back up this month..... Also it seems there may be some version 6 seca cards creeping into the Pre-Pay boxes from ITVdigital. No too much of a problem, as there has been a lot of work going on with these cards over in europe and some interesting programs are now starting to surface..... We will just have to wait for these cards to become the 'norm' and then reduce them to a waste of effort as well!!! There are ways to obtain the keys in these cards.... so don't panic if your thinking it is going to be game over... The games have only just begun!.

19th July 2001
It has come to my attention that somehow MKFv4.2 has been leaked. It does not have much extra in it, but it is still a BETA version. As such, it could still have very harmful bugs in it. The team that test this program try to make sure that people's cards do not get damaged. This latest leaked version is NOT ready for release and therefore I would advise staying away from it, until it is officially released on this site. Be assured, that as soon as it is ready and worth releasing we will do so.

17th July 2001
If you have lost channels on your I*Vd*g*tal since July 11th (i.e. Red dot on your screen) then make sure you do a store channels as O*d*g*tal no longer exists and now it is called I*Vd*g*tal. They also rejigged some of the channels and therefore a store channels is the only thing that can bring them back. Plus you also get the new I*V sport channels in your channel line-up ready for August 11th. Although may need to make changes to your educational cards/ MOSC's to allow viewing of these channels after you have subscribed to them ;-)


20th May 2001
Another great day is upon us, as the latest incarnation of mkfv4 is now here. The Release of MKFv4.1. New version supports some excellent new features. Check it out..

18th May 2001
'How To' guide for MKFv4 has now been updated. This should help those looking to use some of the main features in MKFv4.

14th May 2001
Sorry for the lack of updates, but computer hardware changes/ re-installations, etc have caused a bit a delay in getting info updated. Everything should now be back to normal and updates should happen more regularly again. I am still finishing off the 'How To' guide for MKFv4. This should be completed soon.

4th April 2001
The Day has finally arrived - MKFv4 has finally been released! Go get it now from the mkfind site. This is the ONLY program you need for MOSC on Seca Cards.

2nd April 2001
The excellent Gohan Seka Tools has had an update. The latest version is 1.24c and is available from the Seca-Place page or the MKFind Site.

31st March 2001
MKFIND and the MKFv4 Preview Site have both been moved to www.mkfind.co.uk
Check them out. This site will still continue to cover other Encryption information for SECA and other encryption systems in use today.

27th March 2001
The new preview site for MKFv4 that is in development has just been updated. This program is going to be all you need for Seca Cards.... There isn't anything left to add.... nearly.... Anyway, take a look.

22nd March 2001
Today we have the last release of MKFind - V3.11. The extraction routine has been improved and some other extras added. Also, the new preview site for MKFv4 that is in development has just been started. This will be updated as and when I get a chance.

12th March 2001
Look out for the Release of MKFind V3.1 Final by Mal with help from friends Raff, Andmor, Dasdl, Pushkin, Jabo and Panda. This has an extremely useful extra added to it - Extraction of MK's WITHOUT overwriting any data on the card. Download site will be on this site in the next day or so. I will also be adding a Home Page for MKFind with FAQ's, Tutorials and all sorts of info to help you make the most of this program.

12th March 2001
Tutorial Completed on Gohan Seka Tools. Go to the Seca Page for details.

5th March 2001
Look out for GohanSekaTools - What an excellent Brute Force Attack program. It can quite happily brute force 3 bytes of a Seca Key in about 1 second! 5Bytes takes around 8 Hours (at worst) on a P2-300mhz.Obviously much faster on those quicker machines that are out there. I will provide a link for this soon.

26th February 2001
New O*D*gital Codes for March Now Available in the Seca-Place.

6th February 2001
Look out for 'Graphical' update to the MK01 Extraction Tutorial. Also going to move on to using Keywarp for brute force extraction, as it goes rather faster than the standard bruted force attack

3rd February 2001
Added a Few extra bits of info to extraction tutorial

27th January 2001
February Remote Update Codes

25th January 2001
Tutorial on Extracting MK01 Without Logging!!!

22nd December 2000
Merry Christmas - January Update Codes (OnD*gital Changed over early!!!)

20th December 2000
Seca Information Page Established
Expect To See tutorials and information for getting 'Inside' SECA. Any Educational Material related to the Seca Encryption System will appear here.