Tiny_Lewis • User • The Register Forums

Who killed ITV Digital? Rupert Murdoch - but not the way you think

Saturday 31st March 2012 13:47 GMT Tiny_Lewis

But Sky was hacked, too....

A few other posters have come close to this, but not touched on it.

Sky cards were comprehensively hacked in the early 90's. Back then one needed a "laptop" PC or an Amiga 1200, attached to the STB via a serial link, and a certain type of dodgy card. I can't remember the exact details as it was nigh on twenty years ago, but I do remember it being done in 1992/93.

To counter this, Sky would every 6-9 months issue a new series Sky card, though until the issue of Series 10 it had little effect. S10 cards however were a game changer, and as I recall proved impossible to crack for sometime, if ever.

So if piracy was to blame, how come widespread piracy didn't affect Sky in such an adverse manner?

And it hasn't gone away. Dreambox is an alternative STB (there are plenty, all based on Linux, such as SpiderBox, OnBox, etc). As an aside, a genuine dreambox 800HD costs £400, a clone costs £150... I digress. Without a subscription, Sky gives, what, 30-40 free-to-air channels. Now plug a Dreambox into the Sky dish, and get about 400 FTA channels.

It gets better - or worse if you are Sky - as a cheap £6/month subscription and an internet connection allows one to watch EVERY encrypted channel on that satellite; on Astra 28.2E thats approx 1400 channels, including every Sky channel. For £6 a month.

A motorised dish kit costs about £45. Mount your dish on that, and there are approx 35,000 channels available (ok, it takes 3 days to tune in!)

Instead of cracking the cards, this is even more insidious; its called card-sharing, and even more problematic for the broadcaster.

So how come piracy didn't take Sky down way back when?

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GiffGaff goes titsup again in 'leccy cable gaffe

Friday 16th March 2012 15:14 GMT Tiny_Lewis

BCM and service delivery...

The root problem here is not the burst water pipe/power outage.

It is the complete lack of business continuity management and service delivery ethos that is plainly missing.

This is not rocket science. I was doing this 15years ago at BAT, 10 years ago at Global Crossing, and more recently for SME's. Most people will tolerate an outage, as they understand that things break. But they only understand when you communicate with them, and keep them informed. Giffgaff have been less then proactive in this case. It was my comment on the GG forums that provoked the response quoted earlier re a message on the GG landing page. At midday there were over 7000 people on the site, in all likelihood seeking an update or logging an issue. I would not be surprised to find the server has since buckled under the load, leaving everyone in the dark.

In terms of BCM, it is shocking that they use a single location to hold the access and accounting servers that control network access. This was evident when trying to obtain an account update and logging a service call because one could not use the network. Good network design would have had multiple AAA servers, for load sharing as well as resiliency. One wonders how many other SPFs exist in GGs infrastructure.

This is not 'new'. 9/11, anybody? Why does an inherently fragile technology market insist on recruiting the under-30's, who have no memory/experience of major outages or service delivery, and whom thus blithely assume that "because it hasn't happened... it won't", as opposed to the >40's who have been there, seen it, done it, recovered from it, and mitigated against it :-)

Someone in GiffGaff deserves a rollicking - and then being given responsibility for BCM going forwards, as you can be sure they won't make this mistake again.

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