[HN Gopher] The FCC responds to my ATSC 3 encryption complaint -...
___________________________________________________________________
The FCC responds to my ATSC 3 encryption complaint - they want to
hear from you
Author : tech234a
Score : 220 points
Date : 2023-07-13 17:38 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.lon.tv)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.lon.tv)
| ddingus wrote:
| OTA TV is a matter of public interest.
|
| The electromagnetic spectrum is OURS collectively. Public
| broadcast licenses are rooted in the idea of a well informed
| public is good for everyone.
|
| Encryption is just a move to monetize what is otherwise a public
| resource.
|
| I object to that and will be making a comment to that effect.
|
| Thanks for the heads up.
| KingLancelot wrote:
| [dead]
| ww520 wrote:
| Public spectrums are public goods. They're indirectly funded by
| our tax dollars. Putting DRM encryption on it is similar to a
| private company putting a gate on a national park and charging
| people to go into the park.
| macNchz wrote:
| > Putting DRM encryption on it is similar to a private
| company putting a gate on a national park and charging people
| to go into the park.
|
| Sadly not all that far from reality given how Booz Allen
| Hamilton has profited off of running recreation.gov.
| https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/why-is-booz-allen-
| renting...
| BizarroLand wrote:
| To belabor the metaphor, it's like a private company putting
| a gate on a national park and charging people to go into the
| park, but also no maintenance is ever performed and there is
| no financial overhead to keep the park operational. It's like
| being charged to breathe.
| phh wrote:
| The electromagnetic spectrum is used by many private companies,
| like carriers. Would you want to disband that as well, and make
| it free for everyone to use?
|
| (I'm a huge proponent that all infrastructure should be public,
| but I still think that carrier usage should be paid by the
| users, at least beyond some minimal usage)
| tenebrisalietum wrote:
| Apples and oranges.
|
| Broadcasting is a "one-to-many" operation, where the target
| "many" is indeed the public. Concern about public interest is
| relevant.
|
| Carriers create a "one-to-one" service. Users of the service
| are not being addressed in a public manner except in an
| infrastructural way (broadcast addresses in a content-
| oriented as well as infrastructural method). Concern about
| public interest can only be limited to "can any member of the
| public obtain this service?"
| eddieroger wrote:
| Exactly. It's also a very finite resource, and while some
| of the spectrum is allocated for private use, it is the
| FCC's job to protect that which is for public interest as
| well. Broadcast television is the only kind of television
| some people can receive, and it is in our collective
| interest to keep that open and accessible.
| alfalfasprout wrote:
| What's even the point of this? It's a solution in search of a
| problem that doesn't exist. Who is even pirating OTA content
| anyway? And if you have the tuner if it doesn't have HDCP then
| can't the content be captured anyways? Even if it has HDCP, HDCP
| is broken already.
| phh wrote:
| > HDCP is broken already.
|
| IMO this encryption can be interpretated as "you are supposed
| pay to view this channel". They could have foregone encryption
| with just a flag except that it would be trivial for any
| Aliexpress atsc hdmi dongle to simply forget that about that
| flag.
|
| That being said yeah they probably require hdcp which.. Well
| you can find HDMI splitter (that goes from 4k to 4k on hdmi1
| and 1080p on hdmi2) that "simply forget" about hdcp 1&2. (no
| idea whether that's on purpose but that's not the reason I
| bought it in the first place)
| dylan604 wrote:
| > IMO this encryption can be interpretated as "you are
| supposed pay to view this channel"
|
| Growing up, I didn't have cable and only had OTA networks.
| This was before FOX was a network at all, so VHF was only the
| Big 3. During the day, they only aired soaps, so it was the
| UHF bands that offered anything different. One of those was
| TBN, and I would tune in for laughs. One day, Paul Crouch
| said that if you were watching his program "right now" and
| did not send him money, you were stealing from him. So your
| "you are supposed to pay for this channel" is not too far off
| from the beliefs of some of the broadcasters.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Who is even pirating OTA content anyway?
|
| Literally everyone even remotely interested in TV content?
| parl_match wrote:
| > Who is even pirating OTA content anyway?
|
| It's sports. Local games are often shown on broadcast TV while
| packages to view them in other regions are expensive. There's a
| huge network of sports streamers with ATSC tuners, most of whom
| who charge (a lot less than the package).
|
| It'll maybe shut down the sports streamers for a year or two,
| at the cost of social good. Doesn't seem worth it to me!
| enzanki_ars wrote:
| It would only stop pirates for a whopping 24 hours at best.
| If there is a will, there is a way to bypass video DRM. It
| has to be decrypted at some point to appear on a display, and
| that's the place where it's possible to bypass any DRM
| without much issue. HDCP is useless [1][2][3], and unless
| Roku is failing to implement it right, my basic HDMI splitter
| from Micro Center is more than enough to strip it and feed
| info HDMI signal into a raspberry pi for ambient light
| effects. And in order for people to actually use ATSC 3.0
| encrypted streams with an overwhelming majority of TVs on the
| market in use, folks will have to have some form of HDMI box
| that does the decryption anyway...
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| bandwidth_Digital_Content...
|
| [2}: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| bandwidth_Digital_Content...
|
| [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| bandwidth_Digital_Content...
| BizarroLand wrote:
| Cheap HDMI splitters often have the HDCP circuit only on
| the incoming side and send decrypted signal out of the
| receiving end.
|
| You can easily bypass any HDCP signal with $25 worth of
| stuff off Amazon and record it to your local PC with FOSS
| like OBS or even the built-in camera softwares.
|
| All this does is make people have to spend more money to
| get less service. It disproportionately negatively affects
| the poor for no social good.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| It won't shut down the sports streamers at all.
|
| These people, and their customers, have a very different use
| case and this won't block them at all.
|
| They can just use an HDCP stripper and an HDMI capture card
| and then re-encode it.
|
| Failing that, they can just point a camera at a TV.
|
| Sports viewers care a lot less about quality.
|
| I'm not saying you're wrong that they are doing this because
| of sports, but, it won't do anything to curtail that.
| jeffbee wrote:
| I fail to see how encrypting the stream helps them stop
| this. If a sports re-streamer is just capturing OTA and
| distributing it verbatim, can't any random TV that could
| have received the OTA also receive said stream?
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| I believe that none of the consumer TVs have decryption
| for ATSC 3.0. It's another box to be connected, and
| possibly connected to the internet to get updated keys.
| semiquaver wrote:
| This is the real WTF. How many times are they going to
| break compatibility with OTA TV? A TV purchased in 1955
| could receive broadcasts for 50+ years until the digital
| cutover. Now I'm hearing that tvs purchased just a year
| or two ago can't receive a signal without an upgrade box?
| It's absurd.
| xur17 wrote:
| Don't the sports streamers just rebroadcast the mlb.tv (or
| equivalent) transmission? I highly doubt it will stop them at
| all.
|
| Like any other drm, this will get worked around quickly at
| the cost of a worse experience for those following the rules.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> > Who is even pirating OTA content anyway?
|
| >> It's sports.
|
| That's silly. Sports are way more valuable to the consumer
| when watched in real time. There is very very little value in
| saving a copy.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| They aren't saving copies. They are doing real time
| streaming.
| flerchin wrote:
| You can pay for NFL sunday ticket at $200/m, or you can pay
| $0-$1 to a dodgy streamer who's rebroadcasting the OTA feed
| from in-region.
| parl_match wrote:
| You're silly:
|
| > There's a huge network of sports streamers with ATSC
| tuners, most of whom who charge (a lot less than the
| package).
| ww520 wrote:
| The point is to build a cable-like company without spending
| money to build the cable infrastructure, by using public
| spectrum.
| supertrope wrote:
| To gain more control over the customer. To block recording so
| they can monetize live viewing and DVR/on demand/DVD sales
| viewing separately. To prevent pirate streams. To ensure
| commercials can't be skipped. To enable paywalls. They want to
| get this rolled out and to set the expectation of DRM before
| ATSC 3.0 is popularly adopted.
|
| Broadcasters have given some bogeyman reason of deepfake edits
| of broadcasts being possible. But I'm sure that will still be
| possible after encryption.
|
| The last time this came up it this anti-feature was called the
| "broadcast flag" bit that would instruct hardware to refuse the
| viewer's command to record.
|
| Some cable TV operators let you DVR most channels except for
| premium channels or PPV events. Others block recording on every
| single channel just because they can. In either case any
| recordings are lost when the box breaks or is otherwise
| swapped.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Not sure about who is pirating, but OTA signals are typically
| higher bitrate than a cable subscription. So the image is
| typically better as long has you have good reception.
| cogman10 wrote:
| ATSC 3 uses HVEC (instead of MPEG2 like ATSC 1) so the
| quality will shoot way up assuming encryption doesn't spoil
| it for everyone.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I don't see how encryption would affect the image quality.
| Obviously not being able to decode the stream makes things
| difficult, but that has nothing to do with the codec used
| to compress the video.
| mgulick wrote:
| For anyone using an HDHomeRun or any other OTA capture card, this
| effectively kills the ability to watch and record content using
| Plex/Jellyfin/Emby/etc.
|
| Only "certified" devices are allowed access to the encryption
| keys. Only closed, fully locked down black box recording systems
| will ever be "certified". Don't have a Windows machine with a
| fully verified HDCP chain? Sorry, you can no longer watch OTA TV.
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| > Sorry, you can no longer watch OTA TV.
|
| And nothing of value was lost.
| xur17 wrote:
| > Only "certified" devices are allowed access to the encryption
| keys. Only closed, fully locked down black box recording
| systems will ever be "certified".
|
| I really really hope this doesn't go through, but if it does, I
| can't wait for the day when these keys are inevitably leaked.
| mgulick wrote:
| This has already happened unfortunately. In my area (Boston)
| nearly all of the ATSC 3.0 channels were encrypted the day
| they went on the air (CBS, ABC, NBC). As a result, they are
| unwatchable. We need to petition the FCC to force
| broadcasters to remove the encryption.
| londons_explore wrote:
| These modern systems tend to have a seperate key for every
| consumer. Ie. every single device ever produced has a
| seperate key.
|
| If any device is cracked/leaked, they find out which one is
| cracked and send out new keys for every other device _except_
| the one that was cracked.
|
| Through clever use of key hierarchies, you only need to send
| out a small number of new keys over the air to make sure
| every legit user gets a new one, but your leaked key doesn't
| get replaced so anyone using that gets locked out.
|
| There is no master key to leak - if you leak one key, you
| only lock out one device. All other keys are ephemeral.
| axus wrote:
| Is that what they do with satellite TV? Not knowing
| anything, I'd think they'd need a unique connection for
| every user, like Internet streaming, to have unique keys.
| kaetemi wrote:
| Encrypt video broadcast with a master key pair. Then just
| continually broadcast the decryption key, encrypted for
| every customer individually, alongside. If there's a
| mysterious "activation" period after turning on the
| device initially, it's probably something like that.
| Rotate the master every so often to kick off users.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| It's funny how this is actually worse than cable. I still have
| and use the old HDHomeRun Prime (no longer made), which has a
| cablecard inserted into it (which your cable company is legally
| required to provide, or at least it used to be?) and it emits
| unencrypted video on every channel, except for I believe
| "premium" channels which is basically only HBO.
| mgulick wrote:
| Up until 2 years ago, I used to use an HDHomeRun Prime with a
| cablecard for just basic cable (only a dozen or so channels)
| because I had terrible antenna reception in my apartment (I
| was only about 2 or 3 miles from the transmitter, but with a
| hill in-between). It cost me something like $60/month for
| just the basic cable (from RCN). Fortunately I've now moved
| and have great OTA reception on ATSC 1.0 so I was able to
| ditch the expensive cable service.
|
| I really think the basic broadcast channels should be free to
| watch on whatever medium you choose. These should be free on
| clear QAM cable without needing a cable card.
| zucked wrote:
| I thought I read somewhere that the provision that required
| cablecard specifically access is no longer in effect. They
| still must provide access, but what that is seems murkier
| than ever: https://www.nexttv.com/news/fcc-abandons-
| cablecard-navigatio...
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| That's probably true. But I guess if you already have a
| cablecard, it's not going to suddenly stop working. Mine is
| still working just fine.
| dpiers wrote:
| Comcast "forced" me off of mine by upping my rate to
| $180/mo for the cheapest cable-only package when there
| were contract deals available with internet and more
| channels for $110/mo.
|
| No contract rates available without turning in the
| cablecard. Switched symmetric GB fiber provider for
| $65/mo and pay for streaming TV during the NHL season.
| mcny wrote:
| > Switched symmetric GB fiber provider for $65/mo and pay
| for streaming TV during the NHL season.
|
| Good, everyone who is able to switch away from cable
| should switch away from cable.
|
| Signed, a time warner spectrum hostage
| tiffanyg wrote:
| Cable _television_ (and, to some extent "television" in
| general) has the stink of a dying industry all over it.
| Of course, "cable TV" during my lifetime has often been a
| type of business run, in many areas, as a sort of
| personal piggy-bank / for "rents" extraction, and not in
| any kind of public or consumer oriented manner at all
| [1]. But, really, at this point, cable is just milking as
| much as it can out of the generations that still are very
| dependent on it as it sinks into oblivion.
|
| Cable wasn't exactly great, well, ever ... but, even
| through perhaps about 2015, it was at least somewhat
| watchable. In the past few years, I've had the ...
| (mis)fortune of being in a household with cable (after
| years of only even being able to watch when I went to
| someone else's home). Commercials were bad enough 10
| years ago. Now, they hardly show any scenes in shows /
| movies before there is a commercial. Movies with runtimes
| of 1.5 hours, will run for 2.75 hours on TV. This can be
| on "broadcast" stations as well as cable-only. The
| barrage of ads only drops off after about 10pm.
|
| Even worse, they now have very "dynamic" time slot ads,
| 5s ads interspersed with 15s ads etc... Plus, the ads
| themselves often enough feel made for the "TikTok"
| generation.
|
| Just an absolute mess.
|
| I'll never look back at TV with any deep nostalgia,
| though there is a bit of nostalgia for some aspects. It
| was never a highlight of life - like Seinfeld quips in
| one of his stand-ups: "... everyone on TV is doing
| something better than what you are doing ... you never
| see someone on TV sliding off the couch with potato chip
| crumbs all over their face ..." (something to that
| effect). But, it's really "jumped the shark", these days.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/30/obituaries/john-j-
| rigas-d... (I can't quickly find some of the material I
| was looking for - practices of companies in the 90s,
| fighting any kind of innovation while fees exploded etc.
| ... There were noteworthy laws enacted, incl. 1992 cable-
| related act and the notorious 1996 telco act ... lots of
| bad anti tech anti consumer crap mixed in all of it, and
| lots of private corralling of money, in any case)
| kelnos wrote:
| Cable has definitely gone downhill. I remember we got our
| first cable box (a fairly large black metal box with a
| channel selector dial on it) in 1985 or so, and it was
| actually pretty good. Not that many channels, but as I
| remember it (I was very young, so it's a bit fuzzy), most
| channels had no commercials at all, even between
| programs.
|
| I haven't had cable since 2005 or so, when I canceled it.
| I think I got cable TV just because I assumed that was
| just what I was supposed to do, since I'd had it for
| nearly all my life. But after a year or so of living on
| my own, I realized I rarely watched it, and got rid of
| it. Haven't looked back, and I aggressively avoid being
| exposed advertising as much as possible. When I'm
| visiting family the TV is usually on in the background
| (with some cable channel on), and it's astonishing to me
| how little actual programming is there these days. Feels
| like mostly ads, and, as you point out, normal-length
| movies have their time slots expanded by at least 50% to
| account for ads. Gross.
| kelnos wrote:
| I wish I could switch. It's ridiculous that in San
| Francisco my only realistic choice is Comcast. No fiber
| (despite being _one block_ from the 3rd Street fiber
| trunk), and MonkeyBrains won 't guarantee the speeds I
| want.
|
| Either way, kudos to you for voting with your wallet
| here. I wish we could all do that in every situation.
|
| I'm a little bit surprised they didn't offer you a better
| rate when you called to cancel. A friend of mine has been
| riding a 1-year signup promotion for a good 5+ years now;
| every year when they're about to switch him to regular
| pricing, he calls them and tells them he's unhappy with
| the new rate and will cancel. But in your case, I guess
| Comcast's profits are solid enough (and they know most
| people don't have an alternative) that they can be choosy
| about their customers.
| dexterdog wrote:
| You can thank your local corrupt politicians for
| maintaining Comcast's monopoly in your area. Comcast pays
| good money to have those votes, money it takes from you
| and your neighbors.
| afavour wrote:
| Unfortunately not always the case in NYC at least. Verizon
| (FIOS) had basically every channel unencrypted. When I had to
| switch to Spectrum I discovered they encrypt basically every
| channel save for ones available over OTA.
| krackers wrote:
| When I looked into this, it seemed the "premium" channel
| restriction (formally called "Copy Control Information") was
| something that was done client-side in software, because
| Windows Media Center was one of the only software able to
| play copy-once content. Have people tried cracking the drm
| scheme used?
| ScottEvtuch wrote:
| My local cable company gets around this by strategically
| pricing everyone towards using their new cable boxes which
| are essentially digital TV over DOCSIS internet. The prices
| for the IP TV plans (which they still call "cable") are less
| than $100 per month, but I was quoted over $300 per month for
| a traditional cable plan that could use a CableCard.
| kelnos wrote:
| Yeah these sorts of practices seem to be everywhere. I have
| Comcast Business (for internet) at home, and even for that,
| they want you to use their provided cable modem + "security
| gateway". I told them I wanted to use my own modem and
| router, and they told me that would cost more! I can only
| assume they gather data about your home network and sell it
| to third parties, and don't want to lose that revenue
| stream. And I assume that device also broadcasts that
| "xfinity" public WiFi network as well.
|
| I of course think the practice is disgusting regardless,
| but it surprised me that they'd do it on their business-
| class product too. Would be really nice to see some
| regulation aimed at prohibiting this sort of thing.
|
| (To be fair, I recently called Optimum for cable internet
| setup at another address, and told them I wanted to use my
| own equipment, and they still gave me the same price. At
| least some companies aren't engaging in this bullshit. They
| did try to upsell me to a much faster package than I
| wanted, and tried to get me to add their cellular product,
| but I guess that sort of thing is a normal practice
| anywhere, and at least the sales rep wasn't pushy and it
| was easy to say no.)
| mike_d wrote:
| > I can only assume they gather data about your home
| network and sell it to third parties, and don't want to
| lose that revenue stream
|
| Nah. You are just paying for the privilege of breaking
| their unified management platform.
|
| As an ISP "power users" break the uniformity that leads
| to economies of scale in management, and often over-
| estimate their own abilities leading to increased support
| costs.
| projektfu wrote:
| With Comcast, you can disable the public Wi-Fi on your
| end (just log in) and you can also ask them to put your
| cable modem into "bridge mode", to use with your own
| router, but to get static IPs you need your router in
| router mode and it will get a dynamic IP and the static
| IPs.
|
| I was sick of the way that Comcast prices creep up so I
| switched away anyway.
| thebeardisred wrote:
| Direct link for comment:
| https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/express?proceeding[name]=16...
| tech234a wrote:
| To clear up some confusion in this thread: According to the ATSC
| 3.0 Security Authority [1], the ATSC 3.0 standard already allows
| for signal signing without the Widevine DRM encryption. Signing
| is already required, but encryption is optional [2].
|
| Encryption is not necessary for authentication.
|
| [1]: https://a3sa.com/
|
| [2]: https://a3sa.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Security-
| Systems...
| martin1975 wrote:
| Funnily enough, I just got my HAM radio General license -
| precisely because I can't stand s*t like this. Now I'm just
| waiting for someone to clamp down on HAM frequencies......
| Infernal wrote:
| And of course we peasants aren't allowed to encrypt our
| signals.
| jeffdubin wrote:
| The failure was letting encryption into the standard in the first
| place. This will be a never ending game, with big broadcasters
| continuously lobbying the FCC and congress for the ability to
| monetize the broadcast bands. If we allow broadcast television to
| become a subscription service, then just kill TV broadcasting and
| repurpose this spectrum for mobile (cellular) use. I'm not
| endorsing this idea, I'm only saying that by going down the path
| of encrypted transmissions, broadcasters are no different than
| any other ISP - except they'll own the pipe AND control the
| content.
|
| You want to stop this in its tracks? Convince Amazon to start
| buying some TV stations. Congress would be livid.
| bee_rider wrote:
| > If we allow broadcast television to become a subscription
| service, then just kill TV broadcasting and repurpose this
| spectrum for mobile (cellular) use.
|
| We should definitely do this, at least. Maybe keep educational
| stuff like PBS going, but no need to waste bandwidth on soap
| operas or sports.
| toast0 wrote:
| In the US, this has happened three times already: in the 80s,
| channels 70-83 were reallocated to cell phones; in 2008,
| channels 52-69 were reallocated to cell phones; in 2016,
| channels 38-51 were reallocated to cell phones. So cell
| phones have already taken half the spectrum originally
| allocated to OTA tv.
| bee_rider wrote:
| We should take half that remaining spectrum and reallocate
| it to wifi.
| toast0 wrote:
| Seems like it's in the wrong part of the spectrum to be
| very useful for wifi. IMHO, it would propagate too easily
| for dense residential (or dense office), which is where
| congestion is most apparent.
| MAGZine wrote:
| yes, instead we can waste the bandwidth on reddit, twitter,
| instagram, and netflix.
| mcny wrote:
| > then just kill TV broadcasting and repurpose this spectrum
| for mobile (cellular) use
|
| I would much rather prefer it become an unlicensed spectrum. I
| absolutely abhor the idea that spectrum goes to the highest
| bidder in our current regulatory environment that greatly
| favors incumbents.
| coding123 wrote:
| That's not feasible unless there's some regulatory body
| requiring spectrum sharing (CDMA or GSM or something else?)
| ooterness wrote:
| By "unlicensed" they presumably mean a loose framework for
| short-range transmissions, like the rules used for ISM
| bands.
|
| The ISM bands at 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz used for
| WiFi, Bluetooth, etc. are the best-known examples.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| Would the TV bands actually be useful for that? Wi-Fi has
| actually been going _up_ the frequency bands looking for
| spectrum, from 2.4GHz to 5GHz and now 6GHz. Each one adds
| significantly more bandwidth (but worse propagation for a
| given transmitter power). If we were to make a "Wi-Fi
| 7R"[0] with 900MHz support, which is right next to some
| of the upper UHF TV stations in the US, wouldn't that be
| terribly slow and have lots of interference from
| overlapping base stations? I mean, 2.4GHz is already
| crowded to the point of unusability in a lot of dense
| areas.
|
| [0] The R stands for "range"
| mcny wrote:
| I think this is one of those things where we should open
| it up (with limits, I'm not saying we should allow 10kW
| base stations or something obscene like that) and see
| what innovation we usher in?
|
| I'm guessing it will be good enough out in the middle of
| nowhere or something that needs just reliable low speeds?
| LocalH wrote:
| It's not about turning OTA into a subscription service. It's
| about taking control of which devices are allowed to view OTA
| channels. It's about taking control _away_ from the end-user in
| terms of what they can do with the signal that they record with
| their equipment. Privately sending that video to wherever I am
| physically located? Not if they don 't say you can.
|
| It's disgusting, and the FCC should be ashamed for not flatly
| rejecting encryption on OTA channels in all its forms.
| Meph504 wrote:
| I hope you submitted that as a comment, as I think it is well
| said, and should be heard.
| technick wrote:
| Thank you for posting this here, I was unaware of this going on
| as it hasn't reached my state.
| phh wrote:
| Anecdata: France has a few encrypted channels, and except that
| there is a monopoly on those channels [1] I think it's quite
| fair. They take like a sixth of the available bandwidth.
|
| That being said I understand the uproar is about channels
| switching from FTA to subscription, which isn't legal for
| channels here
|
| [1] all those channels belong to the same company, but
| realistically they are the only long-term subscription based
| channels in France
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| what public even means is getting redefined completely.
|
| but this must have something to do with the deep understanding
| rePUBLIC (continuous re-negotiation of this public/private
| boundary ? but i'm guessing having been unable to finish reading
| that old Plato book)
|
| why this is scary is because of deep connections between privacy
| and identity (sense of self even) but I'm already rambling
| supertrope wrote:
| Public like oil drilling on public lands. Private companies
| exploit public resources such as finite spectrum, petroleum, or
| unpolluted water.
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| and people, people are a resource up for exploitation by this
| point
| tgorgolione wrote:
| Also note the related petition:
| https://blog.lon.tv/2023/06/30/lets-save-free-tv-and-stop-at...
| ryandrake wrote:
| Is there any example in history where the FCC was trying to push
| through one of their anti-consumer rules that would benefit the
| usual corporate donors, where the "public comment period"
| actually convinced them not to do it? I've always thought of a
| public comment period as a "suggestion box positioned on top of a
| shredder." They don't care what we think--aren't they just
| collecting comments because they have to?
| s3p wrote:
| I would like to see this as well. I recall during the net
| neutrality wars [1] that well over 1 million comments left on
| the FCC website were fake. I wonder whether these comments are
| monitored at all.
|
| [1] https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/06/80-of-the-22-million-
| comme....
| babypuncher wrote:
| In 2016 the FCC enforced Net Neutrality regulations on ISPs
| after a period of public input that showed overwhelming support
| for the rules.
|
| This was undone a year later. This time, there was another
| period of public input, but the public consensus was ignored in
| favor of giving Ajit Pai's corporate BFFs what they wanted.
|
| Right now the FCC is in a 2-2 partisan deadlock, but that will
| likely change shortly with the nomination of a 5th comissioner
| making it to the senate.
| esaym wrote:
| Encrypting public TV transmission.... I didn't know that was a
| thing. Truly speechless.
| throwaway914 wrote:
| I'm sorry this sounds non-constructive. I only have an internet
| plan at home, and I switched to PlutoTV on my Fire Sticks/Google
| TV sticks. I used to really love HDHomeRun because of how I could
| stream it around the house, and I did love seeing local broadcast
| channels. I think the only forward-looking option here is to
| stream via the internet. I submitted a response to the filing. I
| keep thinking of how public music radio stations have suffered a
| slow death and been taken over by countless religious groups.
| parl_match wrote:
| One argument that the pro-encryption camp is using is that it
| provides Integrity to TV. Encryption provides an important
| quality, such that it prevents someone from interfering with a
| broadcast and broadcasting their own, psuedo authoritative,
| pirate signal.
|
| This can also be achieved with signing. These arguments are
| spurious. Please comment to oppose encryption.
| tech234a wrote:
| The ATSC 3.0 Security Authority [1] already describes signing
| and encryption as separate features.
|
| [1]: https://a3sa.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Security-
| Systems...
| darkarmani wrote:
| Fine. Let's agree to that -- encrypt everything and publish all
| of the decryption keys. Make a huge fine to encrypt anything
| with a non-published decryption key.
| phh wrote:
| You can't reasonably sign broadcast. Encryption is done at 188B
| packets to be robust to packet loss.
|
| That being said that argument is still BS because the attacker
| can just send a non encrypted signal.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| My intuition is that if it can be encrypted, it can
| definitely be signed. Is that wrong?
| drmpeg wrote:
| 188 byte Transport Streams are allowed in ATSC 3.0. but it's
| a legacy mode. All ATSC 3.0 stations on the air use UDP over
| IP packets.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Why couldn't a 188B packet stream be signed? If it can be
| encrypted, it can be signed easier.
| LocalH wrote:
| When was the last signal intrusion? LMAO
| drewg123 wrote:
| 35 years ago:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking
|
| So yeah, it is not much of a pressing issue.
| ronsor wrote:
| Hasn't happened since digital TV. It's more likely that a
| broadcasting station is hacked and the stream is hijacked
| there rather than hijacked using a rogue transmitter.
| jrockway wrote:
| My first thought was that broadcasts should never be encrypted;
| everyone has a license to decrypt the signal and that was a
| condition of giving them a chunk of the RF spectrum free from
| interference.
|
| I thought about it some more, and think you need encryption to
| authenticate the broadcaster to the viewer. For example, without
| encryption I can drive by the old folks home and broadcast my
| video of "the world is ending, kill yourself before it's too
| late" and do a lot of mental damage to people. With encryption,
| this attack is blocked; I don't have ABC news' key, so I can't
| pretend to be them.
|
| All in all, I'm not sure what the right public policy decision is
| here. I guess analog TV worked pretty well. Broadcast intrusions
| are fun to read about anyway:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking
| fortyseven wrote:
| You could have done that for almost the last 100 years. It has
| not been an issue.
| Meph504 wrote:
| I don't think this invalidates your point, just I would say
| reduces it significance in the choice to allow encryption.
|
| Additionally, I haven't seen an old folks home that doesn't
| have cable in many years. OTA signal is more common for the
| under privileged and rural communities. where a local
| transmitter wouldn't reach many anyway.
| Retric wrote:
| You can sign a message without encrypting it, thus ensuring
| everyone realizes it's from you while allowing everyone to see
| it.
| ianburrell wrote:
| Authentication, proving validity, doesn't require encryption.
| Authentication uses cryptography, but the signal doesn't need
| to be encrypted since can add a signature to prove who came
| from and that hasn't been tampered with.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > For example, without encryption I can drive by the old folks
| home and broadcast my video of "the world is ending, kill
| yourself before it's too late" and do a lot of mental damage to
| people.
|
| I mean, yes, you can take a homebrew transmitter and do that,
| just like you could have done for decades. But you're still
| operating an unlicensed transmitter and are performing
| broadcast signal intrusion.
|
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-47/chapter-I/subchapter-A...
| already defines specific limits which prevent pirate
| broadcasting.
|
| Why is DRM necessary? And why is it only necessary now?
| afgrant wrote:
| The "unlicensed" aspect was never preventing this. Do you
| deny the basic benefits of end-to-end encryption?
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| It actually explicitly prevents this, legally speaking.
| That was my whole point. This was already explicitly
| illegal.
| mbreese wrote:
| Is end to end encryption even beneficial in a public
| broadcast medium? I mean, you'd need to send the encryption
| key as part of the broadcast. There isn't an out of band
| channel to transmit a key, so how could this even work in a
| secure way? Or will they require an internet connect for
| key distribution? That seems antithetical to the purpose of
| broadcast TV.
|
| Signing the signal is all you need to be able to validate
| that the signal came from the broadcaster. But even this
| assumes that the public key will be transmitted often and
| the rogue pirate broadcast a bad key.
| op00to wrote:
| Only the rich and powerful should have the key to broadcasting.
| We mustn't let those poors tell lies. It's to protect granny!
| The rich and powerful have never lied to us, so they're the
| obvious party to hold the only key.
| lasermike026 wrote:
| We should do something like the UK does. We should have the
| American version of the BBC. I hate the networks totally and
| completely.
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