FeeFiFoFum!
Sorry, no, I don't know anything about Sky+. Though recall in the distant past, a hi-tec enterprise hidden deep in the Cambridgeshire fenlands (betwixt haystack and cowsheds) that was churning out its very own (non-)brand of Sky viewing cards. At its height, manufacturing peaked at thousands of units per week
These illicit devices used a humble PIC16 microcontroller to provide an SPI/UART interface to connect by serial cable to a PC. The "special" card was inserted into the viewing card slot of the Sky Box. Just as a real viewing card should be inserted. However, the PC ran Sky's decryption algorithm and fed the decrypted data back to the Sky box via the UART/SPI. Thereby allowing the householder to enjoy the full services of Sky TV while spending the Sky subscription fee on something more sensible instead (e.g. beer and popcorn)
Mister Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG (billionaire proprietor of Sky TV) didn't like these liberating entrepreneurs one jot. And so the Dirty Digger (as he is known to friends) hopped into bed with the
Rt.Hon. Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the Day. Determined to stamp out this vile new trade, they worked late into the night on a final solution. By day-break they had drafted the notorious
Prevention of Sky TV Viewing Card Terrorism Offences (Death By Hanging) Act 2007. And alas soon it was to become law.
Of course Mr Murdoch and Sky TV are no strangers to hacking themselves. Back in March,
BBC Panorama revealed that Murdoch had paid contractors to hack the encryption system of rival ONDigital, to destroy its revenue stream [1] Naughty boy - slap his legs!
LEGGING IT: Rupert Murdoch leaves the Leveson Inquiry into the
News International phone hacking scandal[1]
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17494723
