bounty

Wired has an interesting article on a guy who has hacked common hotel TV systems using a USB TV tuner and an IR transmitter. Seems like a bit too much hard work for me, but there ya go

MisterNice

Slashdot posted it also. Sounds like too much puffery to be valid without mucho hours of work. I would like to see some data too.

I assume franks newest objective would be to program the Las Vegas slot machines to give him a jackpot on demand, give 66 MPG on a new MBenz and blow up all suicide bombers in their initial planning stages. Also eliminate all disease, vanish humger, uglyness, flat feet, JuniorJets(tm) etc.

MisterNice

rebadc

Go to the Hauppague web site.

I have the USB PVR box which is quite small. You take the cable from the wall as input and watch TV on your laptop.

Anytime someone buys a PPV from OnCommand you can watch it as well.

You must add these channels after you do a automatic chanel set-up.

winkydink

This guy presented this at Defcon, so you can pretty much bet it's doable. I'm willing to bet it isn't all that difficult to automate the whole thing. I'd expect that there are only a handful of systems used by hotels worldwide. Solve for one, solve for many.

jolou

I recently purchased the pcmcia card AverTV Cardbus Plus from Avermedia. Tried it only once in a hotel so far and - as posted by rebadc - could watch TV on my notebook, by taking the cable signal from the wall.

I guess the rest of what is in the article on Wired is doable for someone with sufficient IT skills.

ScottC

I usually do things the other way around, I carry a portable DVD player and use a small modulator to hook up to the TV, so I can watch a decent movie without having to use a 9" screen...

ByrdluvsAWACO

Why is Linux needed or is it just the hacker's bias? The article didn't say.

ferrari_fan

Pretty much all attacks on hardware or low level OS are started on linux. There is no bias 90% of of the time it is just shell scripts. Other times it is x86 assembly for linux. Remote r00ting, TCP/IP attacks, buffer overflow on programs, WiFi hacking ...yup pretty much all get started with shell scripts which run on *nix. some attacks can be emulated in windows with Cygwin.

i have to see if i can read some more info about this ...

H2O_Goalie

I suspect that Linux would be necessary if the "hacker" were intent on doing some exploring around the hotel's network/IS infrastructure. If you were just looking to watch TV, I'll bet the USB TV tuner and remote would be enough.

BambooTom

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.

kpalle

very interesting, BambooTom. If the movies are stored on a raid array, i'd imagine that it would have to be quite big!!!

ScottC

Hardly... a 100Gb drive will hold up to 120 movies, and a 100Gb RAID is pretty cheap nowadays. If they are in low quality (and they usually are) then each movie could be as small as 450Mb, with most hotel offering no more than 10-20 movies they don't need much in the way of storage.

freeupgrade

Bamboo,

Plesae don't take this personally, however, I think LodgeNet movie selection is really poor with respect to B (i.e. porn) movies. On Command (your competitor) really rocks in this area, with fresh new films each month.Why can't LodgeNet change these movies more often?? I can think of one film in particular that has been out there for like 8 months now. Also, the LodgeNet films are more expensive vs. On Command, as no packages are offered re: unlimited viewing.

Bottom line: LodgeNet is a ripoff with outdated films and ridiculous prices.

BambooTom

No offense taken
I fix their systems, they sign my checks.
I have nothing to do with pricing or programming.

alanh

My understanding is that the person in the article used an IR blaster to get to menus on the system that aren't normally available to the guest. Since he had complete control over the IR signal, he was able to generate signals that the guest remote doesn't.

For example, he was able to reprogram the ID on the TV so it was identical to one in another room. He was then able to view that guest's portfolio.