----- Original Message -----
From: "Klaus Schmidinger" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, February 06, 2002 11:03 AM
Subject: [linux-dvb] Re: original firmware vs. CIM modules


> Wouldn't it be nice to have a "symbiosis" between the convergence firmware
> and the original Technotrend firmware? The convergence firmware is very
good
> when it comes to recording, replay and OSD - what it greatly lacks is the
> CAM support that the Technotrend firmware provides.

I don't think that the CA support is bad because of a lack of time or
interest but it is deliberately crippled because Convergence feared that
someone would write things like software CAMs, key loggers etc. on top of
their driver. Convergence wants to do business with companies who don't like
their services being cracked. So, it's no good idea to be known as the guys
who brought pay-TV cracking to Linux ;-) I can understand that opinion
outright!

Now, someone hasn't only written a software CAM but he also used
Convergence's firmware as the basis and he must have "ported" the driver to
Windows. I don't know how hard it really is to trick the driver/firmware
into believing that some piece of software is acting like a CIM (which
should normally only be accessible by the hardware on the DVB card) but it
is obviously possible.

There are two possible consequences now: remove all CA-related code from the
driver/firmware. Of course, the old firmware is still available so this
doesn't really help ...

The other option would be to say "It happened, we have got the first
software CAM publicly available. People will use it - we can't stop it. Leo
Kirch is busted anyway, so why not make the crowd happy ;-)"

I hope Convergence will do the latter because the CA problems are simply
annoying for the users and it hasn't stopped programmers from doing bad
things.

Just my thoughts ...
hh



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