Conditional Access System:

Basic Principles and Design

Concepts

NECTEC-ACE 2009, 23 September 2009, 13.15 pm. Room: CC 306

Pramote Srisuksant, Rachaporn Kienprasit, Seksun Sartsatit,

Jatuporn Chinrungrueng, Charuwalee Huadmai,
Witsarawat Chantaweesomboon and Saowaluck Kaewkamnerd
 Outline
● Overview
● Functional Model of CAS
● Requirements for Design
● Conclusion

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 2

 Overview
Transport System
Data PES Packet Data PES Packet

Video Encoder Video PES Packet Video PES Packet Video Encoder
Audio Encoder Audio PES Packet Audio PES Packet Audio Encoder
Tx Rx

TS De- De- TS De-

Scrambler MOD
MUX MOD scrambler MUX
EMMs ECMs CW ECMs EMMs
CWgenerator CW

Conditional Access System

Encrypter Encrypter Decrypter Decrypter

Service Key

Subscriber SMART card Security

Authorization supplier processor
System (SAS) (secret keys)

Bills
Subscriber
Subscriber
Management
Payments
System (SMS)

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 3

 Overview
● Transport system is operated by a network
operator while Conditional Access System
(CAS) is developed by a CA vendor.
● Transport systems and CA systems can be
shared by several content providers.
● Transport systems can be shared by
several CA systems: Multicrypt and
Simulcrypt.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 4

 Overviews
● Transport System components
– MPEG2-encoder, decoder
– multiplexer, demultiplexer
– scrambler, decrambler
– modulator, demodulator
● CA system components
– encrypter, decrypter (e.g. smart card)
– Subscriber Authorisation System (SAS)
– Subscriber Management System (SMS)
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 5
 Standards
● ETSI TS 103 197, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Head-end
implementation of DVB SimulCrypt.
● ETR 289, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Support for use of scrambling
and Conditional Access (CA) within digital broadcasting systems
● EN 50211, Common Interface Specification for Conditional Access and
Other Digital Video Broadcasting Decoder Application
● ISO/IEC 13818-1, Information technology-Generic coding of moving pictures
and associated audio information: Systems
● ETSI TR 101 211, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Guidelines on
implementation and usage of Service Information (SI).
● ETSI TS 101 154, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Implementation
guidelines for the use of Video and Audio Coding in Broadcasting
Applications based on the MPEG-2 Transport Stream.
● ETSI EN 300 468, Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Specification for
Service Information (SI) in DVB System.
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 6
 Functional Model of CAS
● Scrambling and Descrambling
● Encryption and Decryption
● Entitlement Control Message (ECM)
● Entitlement Management Message (EMM)
● Subscriber Authorization System (SAS)
● Subscriber Management System (SMS)

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 7

 Common Scrambling
● CSA is used to scramble stream of contents in the
DVB system.
● CSA was specified by European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
● CSA operates on the payload of Transport Stream
or PES packets.
● ETR 289 specifies the scrambling_control_field as
00 No scrambling of TS/PES packet payload

01 Reserved for future DVB use

10 TS/PES packet scrambles with Even Key

11 TS/PES packet scrambles with Odd Key

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 8
 Encryption and Decryption
● Control words used for scrambling are
encrypted and transmitted in ECMs.
● The decryption is performed on ECMs to
obtain the CWs.
● The keys are transmitted to the receivers
in EMM.
● There are two types of encryption
algorithms: symmetric-key and
asymmetric-key algorithms.
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 9
 ECM and EMM
● ETR 289 specified section of Conditional
Access information.
● CA_message section() is a Private section
defined in MPEG-2.

table_id reserved CA_section N CA_data_bytes

'0' length

Table Id Description
0x80 CA_message_section (ECM)
0x81 CA_message_section (ECM)
0x82-0x8F CA_message_section (CA_system private EMM)

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 10

 SAS and SMS
● SAS is a system responsible for the generation,
encryption and transmission of necessary keys
to authorized subscribers
● SMS is a system responsible fro the
management of billing and collection of
subscriber payments.
● SMS maintains the subscriber database and
communicates with SAS to generate appropriate
EMMs
● The implementations of the SAS and SMS are
not standardized
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 11
 Design: General Requirements
● Subscriber Management
● System Sharing
● Security
● Return Path

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 12

 Subscriber Management
SMS should be able to provide these
functionalities.
● Maintenance of databases at the head-end.
● Transmission of positive and negative
entitlements.
● Transmission of necessary keys for
decrypting control words and other
necessary information.
● History of subscriber entitlement modification.
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 13
 System Sharing
DVB Project envisions in a series of its
standards that
● Multiple service providers should be able
to share a transmission system and CA
system.
● Transmission operators should have
freedom to choose CA systems.
● Transmission operators should be able to
deploy multiple CA systems.
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 14
 SimulCrypt
● SimulCrypt is defined in ETSI TS 103 197
● CA systems share a common scrambler in
the head-end implementing the CSA.
● Only the scrambling algorithm is shared
and the rest of the CA system remain
proprietary.
● Only one scrambled stream is transmitted
for each programme.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 15

 Multicrypt
● Each CA system scramblers its
programmes and services separately and
in parallel with other CA system residing in
the same head-end.
● For the same programme contents,
multiple scrambled streams are generated
each of which is for a single CA system.
● The scrambling algorithms implemented by
the CA systems need not be the same and
often proprietary.
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 16
 Security

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 17

 Return Path

Why return path is useful:

● Receiver device can transmit an
acknowledgment of the communication
with the head-end.
● Minimize bandwidth of ECM and EMM.
● It is possible to record viewing history of a
subscriber.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 18

 Design: Optional Requirements
● Bandwidth
● Address and Addressing mode
● EMM Management
● Receiver Equipment
● Piracy attacks and security

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 19

 Bandwidth
● Without return path, broadcasters must
rebroadcast same messages several
times.
● Message prioritizing is necessary to
optimize the uses of bandwidth.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 20

Address and Addressing Mode
● Addressing makes an efficient uses of
bandwidth.
● Four types of addressing mode can be
used.
– Global Addressing
– Group Addressing
– Unique Addressing
– Vector Addressing

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 21

 EMM Management
● Messages are managed properly based on
their priorities.
● There is content update mechanisms.
● Checking life cycle of messages.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 22

 Receiver Equipment
● Integrated receiver/decoder (IRD) is used
to collect a radio-frequency signal, extract
the digital information transmitted in it and
convert that information into video, audio,
and/or data streams
● Consumer IRDs are commonly known as
set-top boxes.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 23

 Receiver Equipment
● Part of the CAS residing with an end-user
is often called a conditional access
subsystem (CASS).
● CASS is implemented in the receiver or in
a separate device called a conditional
access module (CAM) attached into an
IRD or can be implemented partly in an
IRD and another part in a smart card.
● Key components of receiver are the
descrambler and the security processor.
Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 24
 Piracy Attacks and Security
● Security of the encryption algorithm.
● Security of the key distribution system.
● Security of the key in receiver equipment.
● Security of the key in the smart card.

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 25

 Conclusion
● All mentioned requirements are crucial for
CAS efficiency.
● The most important one is security.
● Secure key distribution helps limit the
scope of the key accesses by intruders.
● Continuous Developing of encryption
algorithm is still required

Conditional Access System: Basic Principles and Design Concepts 26