Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #tvpiratehistory
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The pirate business isn’t always friendly - November 30 1996, RON.EXE released by pirate DirecTV hacker “Fast Eddie” included a rant directed at competing Canadian pirate Ron Ereiser. It was also the first “freeware” hack shared on the internet for DirecTV.
#tvpiratehistory
#tvpiratehistory
This was a significant release for DirecTV hackers. At the time of RON.EXE, there were not many options available to the public for programming DirecTV smartcards - pirate dealers kept a tight grip on the few hacks developed.
RON.EXE was released during the “F card” DirecTV smartcard era. For many pirates on the internet, it was the first software they could download and use with an inexpensive smartcard programmer to hack DirecTV cards - an alternative to the battery cards.
A table of contents thread for my satellite TV pirate history of the 90s/2000s series. There are still a lot of untold stories - I will share more memories as they come up.
The thread with each story will be linked below.
#tvpiratehistory
The thread with each story will be linked below.
#tvpiratehistory
If this kind of history interests you, think about supporting @internetarchive - without the Wayback Machine, a lot more hacking history would already have been lost forever.
archive.org/donate/
archive.org/donate/
“Black Sunday”, the most well-known counterattack against DirecTV “H card” pirates, in 2001.
A thread about a small piece of hacking history - memories of the DirecTV “HU card” and the pirates that hacked the smartcard to watch free satellite TV.
#tvpiratehistory
#tvpiratehistory
The smartcard used by DirecTV after the “H card” became known by pirates as the “HU” card. This was the third smartcard series for DSS (P3 card - period 3). Sometimes referred to as “the football card” because of the artwork on the back of the card.
Oddly enough, the “football card” was not the one OJ Simpson was busted for pirating. That was the previous generation of smartcard, the “H card”.
A thread with some of the story of the “battery card” - the first pirate card sold for hacking DirecTV in the mid 1990s.
#tvpiratehistory
#tvpiratehistory
The battery card was a PCB slightly longer than a credit card, with chips on it to emulate a smartcard. Visible on the top of the card when inserted in a satellite receiver was a coin cell-type 3V battery.
Because the chips are thicker than a smartcard, the board would extend out of the cardslot to make room for the chips. Inside the satellite receiver, the battery card emulated an original smartcard. The satellite receiver wouldn’t know the difference.
In a Discord chat, a link came up to an article from 2008 looking back on the 2001 “Black Sunday” countermeasure against DirecTV satellite pirates. I wanted to tell a bit of what I remember of the background to Black Sunday for some additional context.
blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the…
blog.codinghorror.com/revisiting-the…
In the late 90s and early 2000s, satellite TV piracy was a big business. Online streaming, at least anything practical for home users, didn’t exist yet. 56K dialup modems were standard. Satellite TV was unbeatable both for selection as well as quality.
A thriving pirate business existed, in which pirate dealers would sell modified smartcards that enabled access to all the TV channels on the satellite.
