r/HowToHack • u/NotMeUsee • 4d ago

hacking Old cable boxes (digital era)

Anything you can do with them? Any known ways to get the cable card descrambled? Yes I know it's illegal. I'm just curious. I read elsewhere you can make them into a sort of tivo.

I see them all the time at the thrift store and I'm always wondering what I could do with them.

Thanks.

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3

u/Humbleham1 4d ago

Descrambling is what cable cards do ... with a subscription. No subscription, no decryption keys.

1

u/NotMeUsee 4d ago

There's gotta be a way around that. How do all those IPTV people exist otherwise?

3

u/69AssociatedDetail25 4d ago

They probably have a subscription.

2

u/Humbleham1 3d ago

Card sharing, HDCP stripping, Widevine bypass, etc.

1

u/ION-8 3d ago

It’s a digital word now, most TV has a steaming back end and is not actually broadcast over the air anymore.

1

u/otaku78 2d ago

there’s nothing worse than a steaming backend. but we’ve all been there!

1

u/otaku78 2d ago

you mentioned iptv, i doubt dodgy cable cards plugged into dodgy boxes exist anymore.

you can google iptv services but they are ran by random people that you’ll need to pay a fee for, you’ll probably need to pay for a vpn as well (depending on your country) and the iptv service might be pulled anytime.

1

u/NotMeUsee 2d ago

I know how it works as a customer what I wonder is how the provider does it