From: mcohen@vax.clarku.edu
Subject: What's this ""bullet"" thing?
Organization: Clark University
Date: 17 AUG 92 21:45:27 GMT

I'm no fan of cable-TV (I had it once, and discovered ten times zero is still 
zero).  But I do understand it, to some extent, technically.  Suddenly there 
are articles up the wazoo on "cable pirates" and this mysterious "bullet" 
cable companies can "fire" into the cable system to disrupt illegal or 
homemade cable converters/descramblers (?).  TV Guide this week has a 
full-pager on it, as did last week's local Sunday paper.  I can't expect TV 
Guide to give much of a techy description of such a thing.  Hence this note.

From what I understand about cable systems and descramblers, each cable box on 
a network has an "address".  Cable company sends out packets across the 
network, containing an address and a data stream.  If your cable box sees a 
packet with its address, it looks at the data portion of the packet.  The data 
contains which channels, if any, the cable box can descramble.  (Can you tell 
I'm a PC/LAN guy?).  How close am I?  Apparently you can buy "black market" 
cable boxes (doubt they're really black market) that have a "test chip" 
installed to authorize the cable box for all channels.  (either that or make 
your own cable descrambler, which I imagine is beyond most.)

Two part question for the net, one technical, the other legal(ish).

1:  How does this "bullet" function?  I can think of no means for a data 
packet to selectively "deactivate" the functions of one particular node (box), 
especially if the address isn't known.  If this is a "function" of the cable 
box (a particular data packet to perform this function), why are cable 
companies waiting until now to use it?  And isn't there a "reset" button on 
the cable boxes (to purge memories, like erasing preselected stations on 
electronically-tuned radios) that would make this rather moot?

2:  If this "bullet" actually does damage the private property of an 
individual, isn't there something mildly illegal about that?  An analogy would 
be me blowing up your camera because you took a picture of me without my 
permission.  Of course stealing cable is illegal itself, but I don't 
understand the legality/ethics of sending out a signal to selectively destroy 
the physical device of that crime.  Does anyone have an opinion on this, or 
better yet, a legal understanding of this type of deterrent?

According to the articles, this "bullet" was used effectively in Brooklyn.

Forgive my analogies to PC/LAN's, but that's the world I know.  Last thing I'd 
want on a customer's LAN is packets playing "seek and destroy" with PC's!


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