How does a satellite account get verified?

[jmcgsd]

Not exactly keeping me awake at night, but I am curious about how a satellite provider (DISH, Sirius, etc.) validates that a legal device is connecting and determines what services are available to that device? I presume that even though there is no large transmitting antenna for the device, it somehow transmits a signal to the satellite, but would like a more detailed explanation.

Thanks.

[GordonThree]

There's no way the set top box is broadcasting to the satellites. Not that it's technologically impossible but it would add a lot of costs for little benefit to the company. Take a look at the weird LNB used by satellite Internet setups.

I've never had a red button receiver, but my guess is there's an amount of side-band info like weather, news headlines, etc being downloaded alongside the video and the button toggles a display filtered by details from your account information.

[Dutch_12078]

accsys wrote:

Bill.Satellite wrote:
No, no signal is broadcast to the satellite from the receiver.

Bill, are you sure about this? I have noticed a certain amount of ability for two way communication (the red button) such as sports scores, etc. I guess these could always be broadcasts and the receiver only displays what you are asking for, if you ask for it?

Bill is correct, the receivers do not broadcast any satellite signal back to Dish. Some models like the Hopper series do use an Internet connection though, to manage interactive data for the various apps. The Internet connection is only needed for the apps and VOD, not for general program reception.

[2oldman]

Ya, the red button does activate weather reports.

[accsys]

Bill.Satellite wrote:
No, no signal is broadcast to the satellite from the receiver.

Bill, are you sure about this? I have noticed a certain amount of ability for two way communication (the red button) such as sports scores, etc. I guess these could always be broadcasts and the receiver only displays what you are asking for, if you ask for it?

[magicbus]

GordonThree wrote:
Check out this talk on cable and satellite encryption... Very interesting!

33c3 Security Conference: How Do I Crack Satellite and Cable Pay TV?

edit: fixed clicky

Thanks. Very interesting and I think it explains the answer to the OP's question about "how" the validation works.

Dave

[wa8yxm]

The satellites have a "Control Channel" A carrier that is not carrying Television Signals.. NOTE: same is true of cell pones.

This "Control Channel" sends a signal.. Basiclly it goes like this

He receiver number 1172738911182.. You are authorized for the next 30 days.

This will be sent several times to insure that your receiver gets the message.

It then works. For 30 days (or however long the Authorization was for).

[Johno02]

Satellite receivers, nothing is transmitted back up. Cable Boxes and cable modems can be and are interrogated. On a service, call, the tech can check your boxes and see what they are doing.

[RoyB]

If they are not legal units or decoded with your SAT info then you simply just don't see anything... When you call DISH or DIRECTV to have them turn you back on which used to happen to us when we moved a SAT RCVR and had to unplug it, they send down the activate code to your SAT RCVR and then will ask you if it came on now... I finally figured out I could this this on-line with my account number so started doing that all the time I needed to and not bother a real person...

The SAT guys used to tell you it was required to hookup a telephone line to the SAT RCVR but that hasn't happened here at my SAT RCVRs for many years now... In the old days that was always neat to have because they would also display on the bottom of your TV screen when you got a phone call using CALLER-ID data...

Same thing occurs with all of the various BOXES all of the cable tv guys require you have... They get programed to work under your account number via the cable line - nothing gets sent back up the line to the cable company for the ones I have used...

Roy Ken

[GordonThree]

Check out this talk on cable and satellite encryption... Very interesting!

33c3 Security Conference: How Do I Crack Satellite and Cable Pay TV?

edit: fixed clicky

[chuckbear]

The satellite companies don't "verify" that your device is able to accept the programming for your account, whether radio or TV. The data packets sent down from the satellites have the radio ID or TV box card numbers encoded in the packets and will only work on devices with those ID numbers. the TV box card must match with the receiver ID number on file in order for them to decode the data packets and convert them to video and audio. If everything does not match properly, the data packets are not decoded. No verification process going on by the satellite companies, it's a matter of matching the correct data. Chuck

[jmcgsd]

Bill.Satellite wrote:


No, no signal is broadcast to the satellite from the receiver. I am not sure what you mean by a legal device. The antenna certainly doesn't care and the satellite just broadcasts a signal so anything that can receive that signal will receive it. The signal is scrambled and the receiver decodes it so you can view it. The "card" that DirecTV use and the internal card that Dish uses is what tells the receiver that you are allowed to view the programming. Years ago there were a lot of folks using illegal cards and computer programs to defeat this options but that's all pretty much gone these days.
Maybe you could explain what illegal device you are hoping to use.

Let me clarify:
I understand that devices have unique IDs. The radio ID for Sirius, the card that is installed in a satellite TV receiver. Somehow those IDs are detected by the Provider and used to determine that your account is valid and also what channels you have associated with it.

This is accomplished without any parallel connection through the Internet or a phone line. So how is it validated if there is no transmission from the device to the satellites?

[2oldman]

How Stuff Works has an article on how Sat TV works.

[Bill_Satellite]

jmcgsd wrote:
Not exactly keeping me awake at night, but I am curious about how a satellite provider (DISH, Sirius, etc.) validates that a legal device is connecting and determines what services are available to that device? I presume that even though there is no large transmitting antenna for the device, it somehow transmits a signal to the satellite, but would like a more detailed explanation.

Thanks.

No, no signal is broadcast to the satellite from the receiver. I am not sure what you mean by a legal device. The antenna certainly doesn't care and the satellite just broadcasts a signal so anything that can receive that signal will receive it. The signal is scrambled and the receiver decodes it so you can view it. The "card" that DirecTV use and the internal card that Dish uses is what tells the receiver that you are allowed to view the programming. Years ago there were a lot of folks using illegal cards and computer programs to defeat this options but that's all pretty much gone these days.
Maybe you could explain what illegal device you are hoping to use.

[windviewer]

Receivers have unique identifiers, such as the receiver ID (RID) number for DirecTV and the CA-ID number for Dish Network, that help the satellite company keep track of which receivers are assigned to each customer.