HMO emulation with no hack extraction

[DealDataLOVER]

--+ Try not to flame it's just an idea +--

With the coming of a p2p sharing of ty files, I thought of an idea that might be worthy of looking into now.

What if you could extract files from a tivo with no hacks or mods? Using the HMO software, what if an emulator recreating the characteristics of a tivo was placed on a pc (using win or linux which of course a linux install cd-r would be better) thus tricking HMO tivos that another tivo exists. Then by sending the files through the tivo, you would have ty files ready for conversion or sharing. I know that if this was done two things would need to be found.

The first is what is triggering the tivo to find that second tivo. Could there be check found in the tivo bios? How many checks are passed? Of course this would take a lot of investigation.

The second would be that an exact file structure would have to be created so the tivo will of course not find a difference in file system.

If this could be done then you could also be able to send ty files to the other tivo.

I brought this up to start a discussion because we all know with technology a month in time could open up new doors and information.

Now being informed that this is for SA's only, it will still be a huge step in giving tivo owners the opportunity to save their information. I just recently saw the new phillips with DVD+r built in which obviously is giving the opportunity of archiving. IMO this just points out if you don't have $$$$$ and you bought our first tivos, then you're out of luck when it comes to archiving.

[mrblack51]

heres the biggest problem to the no-hack model: encryption. tivo already saw replaytv get sued over their show sharing, and saw replaytv people emulate another replay with their pc, allowing easy extraction.

tivo avoided both of those issues by encrypting the stream. no-one has ever admitted to decrypting a scrambled stream directly extracted from a tivo. what you suggest would be that we could break encryption or find the proper method and key to encrypt our own shows, etc. As such, its a bit out there to think about it.

the reasons above are why we went about things the way we have. many have looked at decrypting shows that were recorded before using a noscramble patch, and so far no solution has been found. its much easier to prevent encryption from occuring then trying to break it after the fact.

[DealDataLOVER]

Great post and thank you for the informatoin Mr.Black . So, as of right now we can slide past their system but we can't break it. However, if (and that's a HUGE if) this was broken, is this the only actual protection that's holding dev's back?


Also, if you have any information on their encryption I would love to learn more about it. Obviously their is probably not much of this but worth asking JIC.


Has anyone been able to trace the encryption process? I would assume just like other big tickets the encryption would be implemented in the bios. So to even start the bios would need to be extracted.

[AlphaWolf]

A problem your facing is that even if you find out how the encryption is done (e.g. passing of keys, etc), odds are that the stream has been passed through the mediaswitch asic, which would definitely not be an easy thing to reverse engineer. Yes, its possible, but not sane.

[DealDataLOVER]

Originally posted by AlphaWolf
Yes, its possible, but not sane.

Well it was worth a shot asking and who knows, if someone does figure it out, it would make a lot of people happy. I personally just hate that for us to able to rip stuff off of our tivos is illegal but for the people with the phillips burner it isn't. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you have a VHS copy of a show then it is legal because it's not an exact digital copy. However if you have it off a tivo, that envokes the DMCA and then it's seen as illegal? So how come the phillips burner tivo isn't seen as illegal?


Any thoughts?

[MuscleNerd]

Anyone intelligent enough to reverse engineer everything involved with TiVo's encryption would also be intelligent enough to avoid risking DMCA-related litigation -- they'd keep their findings to themselves.

Also, in case anybody was wondering: MRV will not allow you to transfer an unencrypted (due to noscramble, etc) recording to another TiVo. The MRV transfer itself is *always* encrypted.

[AlphaWolf]

Originally posted by rc3105
tivo & dtv have gone fishing and litigation is allready in progress. if mfs_export_descramble does appear anonymously don't expect to find it here


--
Riley

litigation for what?

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by rc3105
dtv doesn't want sopranos or ppv floating around, tivo is scared of TiVoNap or whatever you want to call it and the DCMA makes a good pretext for harassing people

tivo's allready using the dtv style letter / lawsuit trying to get folks to incriminate themselves (and yes they've allready filed at least 2 that I know of)


--
Riley

Are you referring to/implying mpauley's efforts are embroiled in this too?

[DealDataLOVER]

Speaking to Mpauley (creator of the tivo p2p), he said one reason why they haven't gone after him @ this point is due to the fact all the TY files still contain all the commercials and therefore are not finished products. I don't really know how true that is but from the standpoint of television and the commercials still getting their time, it seems possible (possible, but easily BS).

[BubbleLamp]

Originally posted by rc3105
not my place to comment on his legal issues, but can you think of a higher profile target?

--
Riley

It was a concern of mine when he first launched look-ma, and I said so then. Maybe they'll leave the Leave it to Beaver episodes alone.

[DealDataLOVER]

I think that a lot of you can agree on what I am about to say so here it goes. There are 100's of shows out there that will never go back into syndication or be released in a digital form ( laser disc, dvd, megabit etc ). And somtimes the ones that do go digital don't even give you all the episodes (Muppets for one example). I think the ONLY reason this whole ripping thing is illegal is due to the fact that if you can have a digital copy of the new season of FRIENDS, then you won't go buy the 40.00 dvd set when it comes out. I am all for this and I would rather have new shows released to dvd because hell they give you artwork, extras, and there are no screw ups with dvd software ( ). However, for the old shows (such as leave it to beaver, save by the bell, or just shows that SUCKED to millions of people but 50 people liked it and wanted a set of the shows, this is where the software should be allowed. When companies see 1,000,000 hated the show, but 50 people liked it, are they going to make a set of dvds? No! It's not worth it to them, but those shows are worth it to the people who cared about that show and gave it ratings and support while it was on. Maybe there could be a limit to what can be shared or something be worked out?

(excuse my spelling and grammar, didn't have coffee this morning )

[AlphaWolf]

You guys keep mentioning litigation, but I have no idea what you are talking about as I haven't seen mention of it anywhere other than this thread.

[burriko]

Originally posted by DealDataLOVER
However, for the old shows (such as leave it to beaver, save by the bell, or

saved by the bell is available to buy on dvd though. although why anyone would buy it is beyond me.

[DealDataLOVER]

Well you just proved my point. To you that show is horrible others still might want that show. So who's to say which get digitized and released and which don't?

[MuscleNerd]

Originally posted by DealDataLOVER
Maybe there could be a limit to what can be shared or something be worked out?

The little guy is never going to "work something out" with the media mega-corporations. With the DMCA in place, they can stomp all over you any time they want, regardless of the un-popularity of the shows being traded. Although, as seems to be the case with the RIAA, they would probably go after the show uploaders, not downloaders -- they have more legal standing against uploading.