JEDDAH, 2 April — New SR200 counterfeit smart cards have appeared in the market. Only two months ago, two prominent satellite companies changed their transmission codes in an effort to prevent channel piracy. The new cards effectively bring that campaign to an end.
The television companies changed either the smart cards or the decoders for each subscriber to prevent hackers accessing their networks. The campaign was launched after counterfeit smart cards resulted in a huge decline in the number of genuine subscribers.
An official at the technical department of a cable company, which preferred to remain anonymous, confirmed to Arab News that their transmission had been breached by counterfeit smart cards once again.
“We’ve been suffering from technical difficulties. So in order to prevent a transmission interruption to many subscribers we decided to open our channels. That’s why the hackers were able to receive our transmission,” he explained.
Asked about one of the cable companies in the same network that remained accessible on the counterfeited smart cards even after changing the subscribers’ smart cards or decoders, he replied, “This company has not changed the transmission codes yet. It’s at the experimental stage and as soon as we reach the technical solution, only our subscribers will have the access to our channels”.
Market observers told Arab News that they expect the war between cable companies and the hackers to continue for a while. They argued that the reappearance of the channels on the counterfeit smart cards means that they are as yet unable to protect their transmissions.
Sheikh Saleh Kamel, chief executive of Arab Radio & Television which has a vast viewership across the Arab world, told a press conference in Jeddah last week that only original ART subscribers would be able to view its channels following measures taken by the company to prevent TV piracy.
