I work in the hotel entertainment industry (lodgenet)
and it seems to me this would pose a challenge. I dont see how someone could hack into the hotels PMS (property managment system) from the
standard wall outlet. Sure if you have a tuner you can view all available channels on the line but you could only access certain information screens
if a person in another room is actually using that function and reviewing his or her mail or folio.
When one person decides to review his bill or use tvbased email, that information is sent to a modulator(channel) so it can be viewed from the tv.
so anyone with a tuner can view it as long as they are on the right channel at the right time.
How a person can hack into the actual hotel database is beyond me.
In order for a person to be able to use the cable line to access the hotels computer they would 1st have to go through the PPV/Services providers host computer, on top of that they would need to be able to modulate their information request on the frequency that the host uses to communicate
with the in room terminals. Our system uses two different frequencies
forward and return.
I'm not much of a programmer, I'm a glorified cable jock who works with computers as part of the hotel specific equiptment so I guess anythings possible.
The future trend and it's coming soon is for the signal to come encripted from our server and decripted at the terminal which is inside the television (smart card).
No more cable boxes on top of the tv and even if you did have a tuner you would prob only be able to get FTG(free to guest) channels and nothing else.
The MPAA is really coming down hard on our company to make sure that the stealing of movies is as hard as possible. At our local office we've already been inpected by the MPAA and by Sony Pictures in regards to our tape based
sites (older systems).
For about the last 2 years we have been installing all digital systems where the movies are delivered to the site over satellite then stored on on huge raid array then streamed to the room from a server.
Last edited by BambooTom; Aug 1, 2005 at 8:50 pm