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Comment by parl_match | Hacker News Reader

One argument that the pro-encryption camp is using is that it provides Integrity to TV. Encryption provides an important quality, such that it prevents someone from interfering with a broadcast and broadcasting their own, psuedo authoritative, pirate signal.

This can also be achieved with signing. These arguments are spurious. Please comment to oppose encryption.

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The ATSC 3.0 Security Authority [1] already describes signing and encryption as separate features.

[1]: https://a3sa.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Security-Systems...

You can't reasonably sign broadcast. Encryption is done at 188B packets to be robust to packet loss.

That being said that argument is still BS because the attacker can just send a non encrypted signal.

Why couldn’t a 188B packet stream be signed? If it can be encrypted, it can be signed easier.

188 byte Transport Streams are allowed in ATSC 3.0. but it's a legacy mode. All ATSC 3.0 stations on the air use UDP over IP packets.

My intuition is that if it can be encrypted, it can definitely be signed. Is that wrong?

Fine. Let's agree to that -- encrypt everything and publish all of the decryption keys. Make a huge fine to encrypt anything with a non-published decryption key.

That sounds like something you could lawyer out of or wait until the enforcement authority focuses on something else. Encryption here only benefits the content owner and comes at the cost of the user. There's no value here in adding encryption.

What does that accomplish?

It reveals how silly the argument of parent commenter is.

When was the last signal intrusion? LMAO

35 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom_signal_hijacking

So yeah, it is not much of a pressing issue.

Hasn't happened since digital TV. It's more likely that a broadcasting station is hacked and the stream is hijacked there rather than hijacked using a rogue transmitter.

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