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                         |==========================|

                         ||      Cable Piracy      ||

                         ||           by           ||

                         ||       Psycho Bear      ||

                         || Thanks: Mad Poo Bandit ||

                         |==========================|



     After reading another G-file on cable theft that was almost completely

inaccurate and totally wrong, I felt that I was obligated to write a G-file

about cable piracy that really does work.



BACKGROUND:

-----------

     There are two ways to scramble pay-channels (HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, The

Movie Channel, Disney, Playboy, Bravo, etc.).  I call them the "old" way and

the "new" way.  (Yeah I know it's dumb)

     The "old" way of scrambling channels works this way:  The cable company

sends a clean, unscrambled signal of ALL the pay-channels, and only at the

"junction box", "cable box", "green dome" or "beige dome" are they scrambled

(this is not really true...a few channels like Disney, in my area, are

scrambled...so you'll just have to go without Goofy).

     The cable company sends a clean signal out to a neighborhood in large 2

inch diameter underground cable.  At every 4 houses; 4 houses square, that is

to say you, your next door neighbor, the house behind you, and the house

behind your next door neighbor (or every 2 if your house backs up to a street

or a park etc.) this underground cable comes out of the ground and into a

"green dome" ("beige dome" if it's every 2 houses) is split into 4 separate

coaxial cables (the same size as the cable in the back of your TV), and the

signal boosted.  Then, depending on what each of the 4 houses subscribes to,

certain channels are scrambled.

     The cable company scrambles channels by screwing the cable into a 3"

metal cylinder.  These cylinders can range in size from 2" to 4" but it is

usually 3".  The cylinder will have a sticker on it with one or more letters

telling what channel(s) is scrambles.  For instance if it scrambles channel

20, it will say "NF-G", the last F being the important letter.  If it

scrambles channels 20,21,22 it will say "NF-GHI".  Cable companies are weird,

so they might put two of these cylinders on, say one "NF-G" and one "NF-HI",

but it will do the same job the as the aforementioned.



GETTING CABLE IF YOU DON'T SUBSCRIBE:

-------------------------------------

     This is for the "old" way you've just read about.  First, you'll have to

find where the "green dome" is.  The "green dome" will be either a green dome

(of course) or a beige dome, with a yellow "Cable theft is naughty" sticker on

it.  Like I said above, you have a one in 4 (or 1 in 2) chance of having it in

your own backyard.  If it's not in your backyard, then find out whose backyard

it is in, and go over there some day when they're at work or something.

     Now that you've located it, you must get the master lock off.  There are

three proven methods of doing this.  You can either kick the living shit out

of it, or take some pliers and grab the loop that the lock goes into, and bend

it off by twisting it back and forth, or take heavy duty wire cutters and cut

the loop off.  And don't worry about the damage you've done; cable men do the

exact same thing, and if you're lucky they might have done it already!  So it

won't appear to be anything out of the ordinary.

     Once you've got the lock off, you can take the big green dome off.  You

will see a box with 4 terminals (places to screw in cable):

                     _______

                    /       \

                   |  o   o  |

                   |         | <-- the "box", each "o" is a

                   |  o   o  |     terminal to screw in a

                    \_______/      cable

                       |  |

                       |  | <-- metal pole/big cable

                       |  |



they may or may not be any cable currently screwed into these depending on if

you and your neighbors subscribe to cable.  If someone does not subscribe to

cable, there will simply be a terminal where the cable is not screwed in.  The

terminal where the cable is not screwed in might have a little dull grey 1"

cylinder to prevent you from getting cable free.  See, the cylinder is hollow

and will carry no signal, so if you reconnect the cable to it, you will get

nothing.  DO NOT RIP IT OUT!!!  I have, and it will rip the terminal right out

with it and then the cable company WILL come out to fix it.  These things use

the same idea as child-proof bottles; you have to push "in"/towards the "box"

and then unscrew.  It will take awhile to do this, so don't get perturbed.

     So, if you are not currently subscribing to cable at all, there will be

an unused terminal, and one end of a cable lying somewhere in the dome.  All

you have to do is reconnect the unused cable to the unused terminal, and there

you go!  Instant Cable with all pay-channels included!

     If you are paranoid, you can connect it at 6 pm (when the cable company

closes for the day), and then disconnect it before 9 or 10 am.  This way, even

if they come out and look at it, it will be disconnected--nothing unusual.

     Of course you can leave it hooked up ALL the time.  It sounds crazy, but

Mad Poo has had the cable company come to his house four times and work on his

box, and they didn't say a word!  I guess the cable linemen don't have records

of what everyone subscribes to.



GETTING PAY-CHANNELS IF YOU ARE ALREADY A BASIC SUBSCRIBER:

-----------------------------------------------------------

     If you are currently subscribing to the basic cable service, and you want

all the pay-channels that you aren't already subscribing for, read this.

First you'll want to find out which cable/terminal you are.  Go turn on your

TV and then go out to the green dome and unscrew one of the cables from a

terminal.  Go back inside and see if you've disconnected the cable for

yourself.  Once you find which cable disconnects yours, your done.  And DON'T

leave your neighbors unconnected or the cable company WILL come out.

     Remember how I said that cable companies scramble the pay-channels?

(above, in the BACKGROUND section)  Well, those 3" metal cylinders are kept in

black plastic cases about 9" long.  There are a few ways of getting the

cylinders off.  The first is to get some pliers and grab the cable tight,

close to the black cylinder.  Then grabbing the black cylinder as tight as you

can (so that it grips the cylinder inside), unscrew the cable.  Once you've

got one side unscrewed, do the other side.

     The second way is to get wire cutters and cut up the edge of the black

plastic cylinder.  This is a lot easier, and this way you actually get to see

the 3" metal cylinders inside.  I recommend this one.

     When you're done with that, either attach the cable coming out of the

ground to the terminal (leaving you with one short length of cable; go use it

inside your house or something), or get a male-to-male coaxial cable converter

and attach the two (this will not look suspicious, as the cable company uses

them too).



THE "NEW" WAY OF SCRAMBLING SIGNALS:

------------------------------------

     Just like phreaking has it's ESS, so cable piracy has it's Addressable

Converter Box.  The "new" way works like this.  You have an Addressable

Converter Box at your house, which means that the cable company can talk to

your converter box and tell it which channels you are currently subscribing

to.  ALL pay-channels are pre-scrambled (there is never a "clean" signal to

tap into, so the "old" way of cable piracy won't work).  If you are currently

subscribing to HBO/channel 33, then the cable company will send a signal to

your converter box saying "un-scramble channel 33".  So your converter box

will unscramble that channel.

     The Addressable Converter Box is weird.  Every hour or so, the cable

company will send out a signal to EVERY Addressable Converter Box and

depending on it's Address, it will tell it which services it gets.

     Say my Converter Box's Address is 12345679 and I get HBO.  So I take my

Converter Box to Mad Poo Bandit's house (who doesn't get HBO), and hook it up.

Then we can watch HBO over at his house now.  See, the Converter Box can be

ANYWHERE.  The only thing the cable company looks for is the Address of the

Box.

     There are a couple of reasons you can't pirate cable with the "new" way.

One G-file talked about subscribing to ALL the pay-channels, waiting for the

cable company to send the signal to your Addressable Converter Box telling it

to un-scramble ALL the pay-channels.  Then disconnecting the cable from the

Addressable Convert Box, calling them up and unsubscribing to all the

channels.  Then when the cable company sends the signal to NOT un-scramble any

pay-channels, it will not reach the Addressable Converter Box because you have

disconnected it.

     There are two problems with this idea.  First, the cable company (in my

area anyway) sends out the signal telling Addressable Converter Boxes what to

un-scramble, and what not to, every hour or so.  So once you re-connect cable

after the little scheme, you'd lose the channels in about an hour or two.

     The second problem is that if you leave it unconnected for too long (a

few weeks-a few months) the RAM of the Addressable Converter Box will go bad

and forget even how to work at all!  This is no bullshit!  When it happens,

you have to call up the cable company and ask for them to re-initialize your

Addressable Converter Box.



AFTERWORD:

----------

     In some areas, they have not made the transition from the "old" way to

the "new" way completely.  This is obvious: not everyone is going to go out of

THEIR way to get a stupid Addressable Converter Box.  So the cable company

must use BOTH ways.  So you'll have a the "old" scrambled HBO on say channel

20, and the "new" scrambled HBO on channel 33.  If you are in the transition,

you can still use the "old" way of cable piracy.







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