August 1995 -- Volume 7 Number 6
About 200 people attended the CableLabs summer conference "New Revenue Horizons: Getting There First" which was held July 31-August 3 at the Keystone Lodge located in Keystone, Colorado.
The agenda was broken into four areas: alternative distribution systems to cable, non-technical issues that shape technology deployment, new services for cable and reports on cable's deployment of telephony, high-speed data and digital technologies.
July 31 was devoted to a series of tutorials presented on key technologies and market opportunities. This was the first CableLabs conference to feature tutorials intended for individuals relatively unacquainted with several subject areas. Robert Cruickshank of CableLabs Operations Technologies Projects Dept. presented on cable modems and integrated services digital network (ISDN); Rhonda Hilton and Dr. Majid Chelehmal of CableLabs Engineering Department presented on asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and MPEG -2 (digital video standard Moving Pictures Experts Group); Scott Wattawa of CableLabs reported on media servers; and Michael Moon of GISTICS, Inc., presented a marketing perspective on CD-ROMs and the multimedia industry.
Providence Journal Company President and COO Trygve Myhren gave the opening keynote speech on August 1. Speaking on behalf of a company with broad interests in broadcasting, cable programming and newspapers, Myhren focused on changes that are coming in broadcast television and on some historical lessons for the cable industry. He advised the conference that cable soon may face multichannel competition from broadcasters once the broadcasters begin transmitting digital signals.
And, as multichannel broadcasters use more spectrum, Myhren cautioned that must-carry and retransmission consent will become major public policy issues once again.
Myhren was followed by CableLabs staff presenting on two major CableLabs focus areas: near-term strategies for telephone and high speed data issues, and digital deployment.
Operations Technologies Projects Vice President Scott Bachman provided an overview and an update on telephony and high-speed data work, while Craig Owen, project manager for network integration and planning, presented an update on hybrid fiber/coax telephone service, including PCS approaches.
Deployment Issues (Back to Top of Page)
This session was followed by Stephen Pearse, senior vice president with Time Warner Communications, who reported on his company's telecommunications deployment efforts. Mark Coblitz of Comcast spoke briefly about reasons for Comcast's decision to enter the telecommunications market as part of a consortium.
Dr. Richard S. Prodan, CableLabs vice president of engineering, led off a digital deployment session by reporting on the CableLabs conformance testing program for interoperability of digital video. He was followed by TCI Technology VP for Marketing and New Business Development Rich Fickle, who made presentations on digital deployment and on the TCI National Digital Television Center and the Headend in the Sky project.
The final speaker of the morning was Grace Ascolese, vice president for research at the Cable Television Administration and Marketing Society (CTAM). She discussed consumer attitudes toward technology as reflected by the recent CTAM consumer set-top box study. Grace's appearance is part of an ongoing CableLabs -CTAM effort to increase understanding between the marketing and technology departments of their member companies.
CableLabs' Dr. David Reed and consultant Dr. Leland Johnson reported on a study that is in progress on the comparative costs of cable and telco provision of competitive services. NCTA Vice President for Law and Regulatory Policy Daniel Brenner provided an overview on regulation and legislation, dovetailing with Congressional debate on telecommunications legislation the same week as the conference.
C-Cube Microsystems President and CEO Dr. Alex Balkanski gave a Silicon Valley perspective on digital transition issues and the technology trends affecting cable and other telecommunications and information technology companies alike. The day concluded with an executive roundtable discussion on technology deployment moderated by Fred Dawson and including Scott Chambers, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Chambers Communications; Hugo Davenport, chairman of Cambridge (U.K.) Cable; and Viacom Cablevision President and CEO John Goddard.
August 2 was devoted to trends outside the cable industry, both in terms of potential competition as well as sources of potential collaboration. The day started with a briefing on DBS by CTAM's Ascolese and featured a report on one company's competitive response by David Gill, director of market research for Cablevision Industries. On the phone company front, David Nicoll of NCTA briefed the group on video dialtone status, and Cruickshank reported on telco efforts to compete in high-speed data delivery with ISDN. (This presentation built on the foundation built by Monday's tutorial on the same subject.)
Zenith Electronics Vice President of Research and Development John Bowler discussed developments in digital technology for multichannel multipoint distribution service (MMDS), or wireless cable, that may have competitive consequences for cable. Chris Cookson, senior vice president in Warner Bros. Technical Operations Division, then discussed the strategic implications of the advent of the new digital video disc technology.
The afternoon sessions were focused on potential new services that could be delivered by cable's high-speed data capabilities. TCI Technologies Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Bruce Ravenel provided a keynote immediately after lunch. He focused on the Internet as an area where cable's data transmission capabilities give it a significant advantage. While cable has definite speed and capacity advantages over telcos, even using ISDN, Ravenel said, the content is the key. He urged operators to support local content in online services. The latter portion of his speech had to do with the TCI @Home service.
The remainder of the day involved presentations on multimedia from Wes Trager, vice president of engineering and advanced technology with Acclaim Entertainment, Inc., and from Cole Larson, chief technology officer with Worlds, Inc. Continental Cablevision Senior Vice President of Engineering and Technology David Fellows spoke on potential synergies between cable and multimedia companies. Fellows then engaged Messrs. Trager and Larson in a follow-on dialogue.
Consultant Les Larsen presented a case for utility management via cable. Naveen Jain, a senior technical marketing manager with Microsoft Corporation, followed with a presentation on the Microsoft Network online service.
Three speakers addressed aspects of the role of cable in the burgeoning Internet to the home market. Featured were Dr. Rick Schell, engineering vice president with Netscape Communications; Thom Kozik, business director with Discovery Channel On-Line; and Richard Blatt, senior product marketing manager with Bolt Beranek & Newman.
Dr. Mario Vecchi concluded the conference with a review of the prospects for interactive services, as well as some insights on Time Warner Cable's plans in this area.
August 3 was set aside for the CableLabs' Technical Advisory Committee meeting. The agenda featured a series of reports, many from CableLabs staff, on the results of work in progress. These included report on a members-only section of the CableLabs World Wide Web home page; consumer electronics compatibility, the work of the CableLabs/NCTA Science and Technology Policy Caucus, advanced television, MPEG conformance testing, digital characterization of cable's return path, cable test bed creation and deployment at CableLabs' facility, cable modem testing, spectrum management, link-layer data encryption, and a presentation of flywheel powering by SatCon Corp.
CableLabs also arranged to have on site a number of technology demonstrations illustrating topics under discussion at the conference. These included a demonstration of the Grand Alliance HDTV system, recently tested by CableLabs' Alexandria, Virginia Advanced Television Test Center. Also on hand was the Time Warner - Toshiba - Pioneer digital video disc technology. And a roomful of computer and high-speed demos included an Internet commerce server, online services, virtual reality accessories for video games, a media server, flywheel powering, and a side-by-side demonstration of data transmission over telephone modems, ISDN and high-speed cable modems.
A number of CableLabs committees took advantage of the gathering to meet on topics of interest to the industry, and to give CableLabs further guidance on work plans for the coming months. As always, informal discussions yielded useful insights, taking advantage of the mountain environment to spur "outside the box" thinking.
CableLabs has filed a patent that describes a new and greatly improved technique for providing conditional access for network-based applications, such as downloaded electronic games. The concept, which was developed by CableLabs employees Tom Williams and Claude Baggett, is an attempt to prevent the piracy of proprietary software which may be downloaded over a network, such as a cable system, to personal computers or specialized machines in the subscriber home or office.
Frequently, games that run on personal computers are duplicated by users and given or sold to others. This process is illegal and violates the copyright laws pertaining to such software, resulting in losses to the software industry of billions of dollars each year. In order to thwart software pirates, the games industry has initially required the use of a hardware key in conjunction with the running of the game.
This key typically plugs into the printer port of the PC and responds to certain calls from the game software. If the plug is removed, or is not the one associated with the specific copy of the software being run at that moment, the operation ceases to function. While some success has been derived from the use of these hardware keys, they are as easy to pirate as the software. Often the pirates offer the software in a modified form with the hardware key calls removed or bypassed. Either way represents a successful pirating of the software.
Based on the success of the Sega Channel to date, network-based games, or other software that is downloaded over the network, may prove to be a very large revenue source for the cable industry. This will no doubt lead to many attempts to steal and duplicate these services. The work of Williams and Baggett was to discover a cost-effective way to render such software piracy unprofitable.
The essence of the patent is that the software required for a given application is divided into two parts, both of which are essential for operation, and are non-trivial in their complexity. Part 1 of the software represents the bulk of the program and can be delivered to the customer by transmission over the network, on computer disk, or by CD-ROM. This part is stored in an unencrypted format on the hard drive of the PC, or utilized directly from the medium, therefore encrypting it for delivery is not essential.
Conditional Access (Back to Top of Page)
Part 2, however, is always delivered exclusively over the network and in an encrypted format. It is also stored in encrypted form in secured RAM in the conditional access card. At the software developer's discretion, Part 2 may contain one segment of essential software, or several segments that are accessed on a realtime basis during the execution of the software program.
Part 1 of the application treats Part 2 as if it were a subroutine in the software. At times determined by the developer, Part 1 will call upon Part 2 and deliver to it certain arguments which have been derived from the operation of the program to that time, and which serve as input to the routines contained in Part 2. The encrypted Part 2 is decrypted within the confines of the secure microprocessor in the conditional access card and there operates upon the arguments supplied from Part 1, returning the processed arguments back to the PC to be used in that portion of Part 1.
If Part 2 contains several distinct segments of software that are to be used at different points in the execution of Part 1, the arguments transferred between the parts may vary in number and implication. Also, the arguments transferred from Part 1 are not fixed in each iteration of the application, but depend upon several independent variables which cause them to vary widely each time. Note that the unencrypted version of the software stored in the conditional access card is never found outside of the secure microprocessor. It's actually only kept in unencrypted form during the calculation of the return arguments.
The conditional access card is the property of the cable operator and is issued to the subscriber at the inception of service. The card, when issued, contains a unique address in EEPROM and an initial operating key. The unique address is associated with the subscriber's account to which the service is billed. The initial operating key is unique to the cable system, or portion thereof. The relationship between the headend processor and the conditional access card forms a public key/private key partnership. This condition exists whether the system is operated in one-way or two-way modes.
The card also contains several tamper detectors and generates an audit trail which will identify the methods used in attempting to compromise the security. Note that no part of the cryptographic system resides outside of the conditional access card. When substantial piracy is detected, or on a periodic basis, the firmware of the card can be changed, thus making existing cards obsolete, requiring the pirate to expend new funds to compromise the system again, and redistribute the new cards to existing customers, who will not have access in the interim.
There are many cryptographic processes that may be utilized to change or bolster the effectiveness of the conditional access card, which are to be determined by the approach's success in the marketplace. As the business becomes more profitable, and the attacks upon it by pirates become more intense and sophisticated, the system can be upgraded in a cost-effective fashion, helping the industry to retain its rightful revenues from services rendered.
Copyright © 1995 Cable Television Laboratories, Inc. All Rights Reserved.