I made a post to this thread and started wandering if anyone here knows more about how the “universal” access cards work on DirecTV. (I think they may be called “H” cards or something similar) http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/003194-2.html
The moderators of the message boards at dbsdish.com will usually stop all discussions about these “special” cards, so all I’ve heard are rumors. I’ve also seen these things on ebay… Does anyone know more about them? How do they work? How might one find one of these cards?
There’s several ways this could work. One is by somehow cloning the Smartcard that sits in the settop box so that many cards had the same identification number. Then by paying for the services on a single account, you could cause the satellite to inadvertently entitle all the cards to view the services. One way to combat this practice is to force the ID on the card to match with the settop box in some way. However, this leads to certain limitations that DirectTV may prefer to avoid.
Handy is right that satellites are one way, but many of these systems have a back channel over phone lines to enable things like web browsing and impulse pay-per-view (IPPV). It’s possible they could use the same channel to spy on you, at least to the extent of finding out the ID number on your Smartcard.
I know of a few people who have he mini satellite dishes who have purchased blank program cards so they receive ALL channels - adult, pay-per-view, NFL Sunday ticket, etc. - EVERYTHING! A vendor I use, has purchased a machine (computer, I believe) that de-programs your card. I think he charges $200-$300 for this service. Those that have this card, don’t plug in the phone lines and I think they cancel their accounts.
I am sorry if all this seems a little vague but I don’t have a satellite dish nor do I have cable.