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VideoguardVideoGuard is a conditional access television system produced by NDS. It is used almost exclusively on digital satellite television systems operated by News Corporation, who own a majority of NDS. It is also used on Canal Digital. Its most widely used implementation is BSkyB's Sky Digital, which adopted the system in 1998 to replace the cracked VideoCrypt system. It is used for encrypting both standard subscription packages and pay-per-view movies and events. Access flags can be downloaded the card over the air or over a boxes built in modem, allowing rapid changing of packages and ordering of events. To date, the encryption has yet to be broken, even to an extent where sucessful cloning of cards is possible. It is suspected that the version initially used by Sky Digital was either insecure or close to being broken, as a software update rolled out to all boxes required replacement of the Sky viewing card. Despite being designed to protect pay-TV, VideoGuard is used by Sky to encrypt ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and the RT services to prevent them being viewed out of area. As these channels are free in their respective areas, and can be viewed using any working VideoGuard card, even if expired, it suggests that VideoGuard may be being used as a metaphorical sledgehammer to crack a very small nut, and potentially increasing the risk of it getting broken, due to the easy availability of cards to expirement on from the FreeSat scheme. Due to News Corporations iron grip on VideoGuard, it is impossible to get a VideoGuard Conditional Access Module for a third-party box, or get VideoGuard routines for a software CAM. This is often seen as vendor lockin, often to protect Sky's prefered supplier of boxes, PACE. In contrast, CAM's and even software CAM's are available for all other encryption systems, including Irdeto, Nagravision and Viaccess. The CAM monopoly may be broken due to Italian inter-operability laws, which are forcing Sky Italia to allow other boxes read their cards for legally acquired services.
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